IEICE Transactions on Electronics
Online ISSN : 1745-1353
Print ISSN : 0916-8524
Special Section on Solid-State Circuit Design - Architecture, Circuit, Device and Design Methodology
All-Digital PMOS and NMOS Process Variability Monitor Utilizing Shared Buffer Ring and Ring Oscillator
Tetsuya IIZUKAKunihiro ASADA
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2012 Volume E95.C Issue 4 Pages 627-634

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Abstract

This paper proposes an all-digital process variability monitor based on a shared structure of a buffer ring and a ring oscillator. The proposed circuit monitors the PMOS and NMOS process variabilities independently according to a count number of a single pulse which propagates on the ring during the buffer ring mode, and an oscillation period during the ring oscillator mode. Using this shared-ring structure, we reduce the occupation area about 40% without loss of process variability monitoring properties compared with the conventional circuit. The proposed shared-ring circuit has been fabricated in 65nm CMOS process and the measurement results with two different wafer lots show the feasibility of the proposed process variability monitoring scheme.

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© 2012 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
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