Reliability Aware AMS/RF Performance Optimization

Abstract

Reliability has become an important issue in the continuously CMOS technology scaling down. The exploration of the technology limits using classic performance optimization techniques and leads to the best trade-off for the area, power consumption, and speed. Nevertheless, such key characteristics have been degraded in a context of continuous use and stressful environment. Thus, circuit reliability emerges as a design criterion for AMS/RF performance optimization. Aiming a design for reliability, this chapter presents an overview of CMOS unreliable phenomena. Reliability-aware methodologies for circuit design, simulation, and optimization are reviewed. The authors focus in particular on large and complex systems, providing circuit design insights to achieve a reliability specification from system-level to transistor-level. They highlight the more sensitive building blocks in CT S? modulator and demonstrate how performance is affected by unreliable phenomena. A system-level direct-conversion RF front-end design is described in top-down approach. Electrical simulations are presented with 65 nm CMOS technology.