Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

TSMC Nanjing Company, Limited

Ankita Patidar

Sandeep Kumar Goel

Yun-Han Lee

Vinay Kotha

A method of testing an integrated circuit on a test circuit board includes performing, by a processor, a simulation of a first heat distribution throughout an integrated circuit design, and simultaneously performing a burn-in test of the integrated circuit and an automated test of the integrated circuit. The burn-in test has a minimum burn-in temperature of the integrated circuit or a burn-in heat distribution across the integrated circuit that includes a set of circuit blocks or a first set of heaters. The integrated circuit design corresponding to the integrated circuit. The performing the simulation includes determining a heat signature of the integrated circuit design from configured power information or location information for each circuit block of the set of circuit blocks or each heater of the set of heaters included in the integrated circuit design. The heat signature includes heat values distributed throughout the integrated circuit design.

Method of testing an integrated circuit and testing system

A method includes creating a plurality of groups of paths from a plurality of paths in an integrated circuit (IC) layout diagram. Each group has a unique dominant feature among a plurality of features of the plurality of paths. The method further includes testing a path in a group and, when the path fails, modifying at least one of the IC layout diagram, at least a portion of at least one library having cells included in the IC layout diagram, or a manufacturing process for manufacturing an IC corresponding to the IC layout diagram. The plurality of features includes a numerical feature having a numerical value, and a categorical feature having a non-numerical value. The non-numerical value is converted into a converted numerical value. The plurality of groups is created based on the numerical value of the numerical feature, and the converted numerical value of the categorical feature.

Integrated circuit design method, system and computer program product

A method (of manufacturing a semiconductor device) includes: migrating a circuit design from a first netlist corresponding with a first semiconductor process technology (SPT) to a second netlist corresponding with a second SPT, at least the second netlist being stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the migrating including: generating first versions correspondingly of the first and second netlists; abstracting selected components in the first version of the second netlist and correspondingly in the first version of the second netlist to form corresponding second versions of the second and first netlists; performing a logic equivalence check (LEC) between the second versions of the first and second netlists, thereby identifying migration errors; and revising the second version of the second netlist to reduce the migration errors, thereby resulting in a third version of the second netlist.

Method and system for reducing migration errors

A method of testing an integrated circuit on a test circuit board includes performing, by a processor, a simulation of a first heat distribution throughout an integrated circuit design, manufacturing the integrated circuit according to the integrated circuit design, and simultaneously performing a burn-in test of the integrated circuit and an automated test of the integrated circuit. The burn-in test has a minimum burn-in temperature of the integrated circuit and a burn-in heat distribution across the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit design corresponds to the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit is coupled to the test circuit board. The integrated circuit includes a set of circuit blocks and a first set of heaters.

A method executed at least partially by a processor includes creating a plurality of groups of paths from a plurality of paths in an integrated circuit (IC) layout diagram. Each group among the plurality of groups has a unique dominant feature among a plurality of features of the plurality of paths. The dominant feature of a group among the plurality of groups is slack. The method further includes testing at least one path in a group among the plurality of groups. The method also includes, in response to the testing indicating that the at least one path fails, modifying at least one of the IC layout diagram, at least a portion of at least one library having cells included in the IC layout diagram, or a manufacturing process for manufacturing an IC corresponding to the IC layout diagram.

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes reducing errors in a migration of a first netlist to a second netlist, the first netlist corresponding to a first semiconductor process technology (SPT), the second first netlist corresponding to a second SPT, the first and second netlists each representing a same circuit design, the reducing errors including: inspecting a timing constraint list corresponding to the second netlist for addition candidates; generating a first version of the second netlist having a first number of comparison points relative to a logic equivalence check (LEC) context, the first number of comparison points being based on the addition candidates; performing a LEC between the first netlist and the first version of the second netlist, thereby identifying migration errors; and revising the second netlist to reduce the migration errors, thereby resulting in a second version of the second netlist.

Process for determining defects in cells of a circuit is provided. A layout of a circuit is received. The layout comprises a first cell and a second cell separated by a boundary circuit. Bridge pairs for the first cell and the second cell is determined. The bridge pairs comprises a first plurality of boundary nodes of the first cell paired with a second plurality of boundary nodes of the second cell. Bridge pair faults between the bridge pairs are modeled. A test pattern for the bridge pair faults is generated.

Fault diagnostics

Methods of a scan partitioning a circuit are disclosed. One method includes calculating a power score for circuit cells within a circuit design based on physical cell parameters of the circuit cells. For each of the circuit cells, the circuit cell is assigned to a scan group according to the power score for the circuit cell and a total power score for each scan group. A plurality of scan chains is formed. Each of the scan chains is formed from the circuit cells in a corresponding scan group based at least in part on placement data within the circuit design for each of the circuit cells. Interconnect power consumption can be assessed to determine routing among circuit cells in the scan chains.

Power-aware scan partitioning

A method executed at least partially by a processor includes creating a plurality of groups of paths from a plurality of paths in an integrated circuit (IC) layout diagram. Each group among the plurality of groups has a dominant feature among a plurality of features of the plurality of paths. The dominant features of the plurality of groups are different from each other. The method further includes testing at least one path in a group among the plurality of groups. The method also includes, in response to the testing indicating that the at least one path fails, modifying at least one of the IC layout diagram, at least a portion of at least one library having cells included in the IC layout diagram, or a manufacturing process for manufacturing an IC corresponding to the IC layout diagram.

A method of identifying cell-internal defects: obtaining a circuit design of an integrated circuit, the circuit design including netlists of one or more cells coupled to one another; identifying the netlist corresponding to one of the one or more cells; injecting a defect to one of a plurality of circuit elements and one or more interconnects of the cell; retrieving a first current waveform at a location of the cell where the defect is injected by applying excitations to inputs of the cell; retrieving, without the defect injected, a second current waveform at the location of the cell by applying the same excitations to the inputs of the cell; and selectively annotating, based on the first current waveform and the second current waveform, an input/output table of the cell with the defect.

Systems and methods to detect cell-internal defects

Electronic design automation (EDA) of the present disclosure, in various embodiments, optimizes designing, simulating, analyzing, and verifying of electronic circuitry for an electronic device. The electronic device includes scan flip-flops to autonomously test the electronic circuitry for various manufacturing faults. The EDA of the present disclosure statistically groups the scan flip-flops into scan chains in such a manner such that scan flip-flops within each scan chain share similar characteristics, parameters, or attributes. Thereafter, the EDA of the present disclosure intelligently arranges ordering for the scan flip-flops within each of the scan chains to optimize power, performance, and/or area of the electronic circuitry.

Machine-learning based scan design enablement platform

A method (of reducing errors in a migration a first netlist to a second netlist, the first and second netlists representing corresponding first and second implementations of a circuit design under corresponding first and second semiconductor process technology (SPT) nodes, at least the second netlist being stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium), the method including: inspecting a timing constraint list for addition candidates, the timing constraint list corresponding to an initial netlist which represents the second implementation; relative to a logic equivalence check (LEC) context, increasing a number of comparison points based on the addition candidates, resulting in first version of the second netlist; performing a LEC between the first netlist and the first version of the second netlist, thereby identifying migration errors; and revising the first version of the second netlist to reduce the migration errors, thereby resulting in a second version of the second netlist.

Methods and systems for determining a systematic defect in a circuit under test is provided. Elements of the circuit under test converted into scan cells. A first scan chain that includes a first plurality of scan cells is formed. Each scan cell of the first plurality of scan cells of the first scan chain are of a first cell type. The first scan chain contains a first scan input and a first scan output. A first test pattern is applied at the scan input and a first test output is collected for the applied first test pattern at the first scan output. The collected first test output is compared with a first expected test output. The first cell type is marked to be a suspect for a systematic defect when the first test output is different from the first expected test output.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Ankita Patidar