EE 587

SoC Design & Test

Partha Pande
School of EECS
Washington State University
pande@eecs.wsu.edu


SoC Physical Design Issues

Wire Inductance
Wire Inductance
Wide wires in clock distribution & upper level metal layers
These wires have low resistance
Exhibit significant inductive effects
New materials with low-resistance interconnect
Inductance
Complete interconnect model should include inductance



With increasing frequency and a decrease in resistance due to wide
wires and the use of copper, inductance will begin to influence
clocks/busses:
Z = R + jeL

Inductance, by definition, is for a loop not a wire
inductance of a wire in an IC requires knowledge of return path(s)
inductance extraction for a whole chip is virtually impossible...
R
L
C
V=Ldi
dt
V
+ -
i
Evolution of Interconnect Model
Transmission Line Model
Follow Board Notes
Inductance Effects
Lumped RLC line




R
L
C
Treat RC problem as a resistive divider:
V
O
= Z
o
V
in

Z
t

Z
o

Z
t

=
1
sC
1
sC
+ (R + sL)
=
1
s
2
LC + sRC + 1
V
O

V
in

Poles are P
1,2
= e
n
| , sqrt(,
2
1)|
=
e
n
2

s
2
+ s2,e
n
+ e
n
2
e
n
= 1/sqrt(LC)
,=RC/2sqrt(LC) = damping factor

, > 1 we have two real poles (RC effects)
, < 1 we have two complex poles (RLC effects)
+
-
Inductance Effects
Follow board notes
Other Inductance Effects
For most gates R
on
is in the order of KO so typically R >> jeL
response is dominant by RC delay for most signals
Only the large drivers have a small enough R
on
to allow the
inductance to control the dynamic response
clocks
busses
For clocks, self-inductance term can dominate the response
(especially if shielding is used)
For busses, mutual inductance term dominates and creates
noise events that could cause malfunction
For power supplies, inductance can also be a problem due to
the Ldi/dt drop (in addition to the IR drop) as supplies scale
down
Capacitive and Inductive Noise
R L
C
R L
C
R L
C
For most wires, jeL < (Rwire+Rdrive) for the
frequency and R of interest. So, for delay, L is
not a big issue currently.
But eL can be ~ 20 - 30% of R so noise may be
seen on adjacent line (mutual coupling)
Return path current
+ -
- +
Dangerous scenario is a combination
of localized capacitive coupling noise and
long range mutual inductive coupling noise
Double noise events
R L
C
R L
C
R L
C
Gate Driving an RLC Transmission Line
Propagation Delay
line ion transmiss lossless a of impedence stic Characteri = =
t
t
ol
C
L
Z
resistance wire and gate he through t e capacitanc load the charging for constant time
) ( = + =
tr t L C
R R C
L
t

line ion transmiss the across g propagatin signals the of flight of Time
= =
t t f
C L t
Rt=Rl, Lt=Ll, Ct=Cl, CT=CL/Ct
Propagation Delay (Contd)
50% propagation delay

n
pd
w
e
t
) 48 . 1 (
35 . 1
9 . 2

+
=

where and wn are the damping factor and natural

frequency of the circuit
Function of both the interconnect and gate impedance
) (
1
L t t
n
C C L
w
+
=
( )
(
(

+ +
+
=
f
C
ol
tr
ol
t
T
L
Z
R
Z
R
C
t
t

2
1 2
1
Propagation Delay (Contd)
If the ratio of the total resistance of the line to the lossless
characteristic impedance increases, inductive effects can be
neglected
If the ratio of the driver resistance to the lossless characteristic
impedance increases, inductive effects can be neglected
If the ratio between the time required to charge the load
capacitance through the gate and wire resistance to the time of
fight increase then inductive effects can be neglected
Effect of inductance on Signal Delay
Dependence of Delay on Interconnection Length
If the gate parasitic impedances
(CL and Rtr ) are neglected then the
propagation delay can be expressed
as

2
37 . 0 RCl
For the limiting case where L 0, the above equation reduces to
For the limiting case R ->0, the delay is given by
LC l
2
37 . 0 RCl
Repeater Insertion revisited
Lower repeater size and less number of repeaters
The amount of inductance effects present in an RLC line depends on the ratio
between the RC and the LC time constants of the line
As Inductance effect increases the LC time constant dominates the RC time
constant and the delay of the line changes from a quadratic to a linear
dependence on the line length.
Optimum number of repeaters for the minimum propagation delay decreases
Inductance & Power Dissipation
The dynamic power is given
as
Increasing inductance effects
results in fewer number of
repeaters as well as smaller
repeater size
Significantly reduces total
capacitance
Faster rise time results in
lower short-circuit power
f CV P
DD dyn
2
=
Inductance Extraction
Inductance can only be defined for a closed current loop
The inductance of the loop is proportional to the area of the loop
At low frequency resistive impedance dominates
Current uses as many returns as possible to have parallel resistances
Situation is different at higher frequencies
Mutual Inductance
Causes extra noise and delay effects
dt
di
L
dt
di
M v
dt
di
M
dt
di
L v
2
2
1
2
2 1
1 1
+ =
+ =
Inductive Noise in a bus
Physically, a wide bus with all the lines switching in the same direction
behaves as one wide line
Hence, the effective inductance of a line that is part of a bus is far
larger than the self-inductance of that line
LC time constant of the line becomes much larger


L di/dt effects on the Power Supply
Antenna Effects
As each metal layer is placed on the chip during fabrication,
charge builds up on the metal layers due to CMP
1
, etc.
If too much charge accumulates on gate of MOS transistor, it
could damage the oxide and short the gate to the bulk terminal





Higher levels of metal accumulate more charge so they are
more troublesome (i.e., metal 5 is worse than metal 1)
Need to discharge metal lines during processing sequence to
avoid transistor damage (becomes a design/layout issue)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + + + +
This transistor could be damaged
Metal 1
Poly
Metal 2
Antenna
Ratio
=
Area
wire

Area
gate

1.
CMP is chemical mechanical polishing which is used to planarize each layer before the next layer is placed on the wafer.
Preventing Antenna Effects
A number of different approaches for antenna repairs:
Diode Insertion - Make sure all metal lines are connected to
diffusion somewhere to discharge the metal lines during
fabrication



n+
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Antenna diode
p
-diodes costs area
- need to optimize number
and location
- causes problems for
design verification tool

Preventing Antenna Effects
Note that there are always diodes connecting to source/drain
regions of all transistors and charge on each layer is drained
before next layer is addedso why are we worried?







Gate input of next device may not be connected to a diode until
its too latecharge accumulation on metal exceeds threshold
Should put antenna
diode here.
Keep area of upper layer metals
small near next transistor
Preventing Antenna Effects
Second approach is to add buffers to interconnect to break up
long wire routes and provide more gate area for antenna ratio
Third approach is to use metal jumpers to from one layer of
metal to another
Metal 1/polish


vias (charge removed)


Metal2/polish
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ++++++++ + + + + + + + +
+ + + +
Class Presentation
The first class presentation assignment will be posted soon.
One of you has to present the basic concepts discussed in the
paper to the class
Presentation time ~20 minutes
After the presentation everybody has to participate in the
discussion