Qualcomm Incorporated

Min Chen

Nan Chen

Xia Li

Bin Yang

David Anthony Kidd

Rui Li

Junmou Zhang

Shih-Hsin Jason Hu

Jianguo Yao

Venkat Narayanan

De Lu

Mohamed Waleed Allam

Navid Toosizadeh

Mohammad Reza Kakoee

Sorin Adrian Dobre

Samy Shafik Tawfik Zaynoun

Saravanan Marimuthu

Jasmin Smaila Ibrahimovic

Peeyush Kumar Parkar

Carlos Auyon

Haoyu Xiong

Baldeo Sharan Sharma

Amit Patil

Aspects of the disclosure are directed to sensing integrated circuit (IC) Back End Of Line (BEOL) process corners. In one aspect, an apparatus for sensing IC BEOL process corners includes a ring oscillator including a plurality of ring oscillator stages configured to generate an output waveform with a frequency state; and a shield net circuit including a plurality of shield net stages corresponding to the plurality of ring oscillator stages, the shield net circuit having a toggle input. And, a method includes generating an output waveform with a frequency state using a ring oscillator that includes a plurality of ring oscillator stages; modifying a plurality of ring oscillator stage time delays through a coupling between a plurality of shield net stages and the plurality of ring oscillator stages; and selecting the frequency state using a toggle input of a shield net circuit which includes the plurality of shield net stages.

Back end of line (BEOL) process corner sensing

An integrated circuit (IC) including a first ring oscillator (RO) including a first set of cascaded stages, wherein each of the first set of cascaded stages comprises a first logic inverter, including: a first set of field effect transistors (FETs) coupled in parallel between a first voltage rail and a first intermediate node, wherein the first set of FETs include a set of gates coupled to an input of the first logic inverter; and a second set of FETs coupled in series between the first intermediate node and a second voltage rail, wherein the second set of FETs includes at least a first FET including a gate coupled to the input of the first logic inverter, and at least a second FET that is diode-connected in accordance with a first mode of operation.

Ring oscillator with stages implemented to assess PFET-NFET process performance

In certain aspects, a duty-cycle monitor includes a first oscillator, and a flop having a signal input, a clock input, and an output, wherein the signal input is coupled to an input of the duty-cycle monitor, and the clock input is coupled to the first oscillator. The duty-cycle monitor also includes a first counter having a count input, an enable input, and a count output, wherein the count input of the first counter is coupled to the first oscillator, and the enable input of the first counter is coupled to the output of the flop. The duty-cycle monitor also includes a second counter having a count input, an enable input, and a count output, wherein the count input of the second counter is coupled to the first oscillator, and the enable input of the second counter is coupled to the output of the flop.

Dynamic aging monitor and correction for critical path duty cycle and delay degradation

One feature pertains to a true random number generator that utilizes the settling time of a bit cell as an entropy source to generate random digital output values. The bit cell may be a static random access memory bit cell. The bit cell's settling time may be converted into a digital output using an analog to digital converter. A plurality of bit cells may serially couple to one another in a ring formation. The bit cell ring can then be enabled such that each bit cell of the plurality of bit cells achieves a settling value that activates the subsequent bit cell in the ring causing it to in turn reach a settling value, and so on. An output node of one of the bit cells in the ring can then be sampled using a flip-flop to generate a continuous stream of random bits.

Methods and apparatuses for generating random numbers based on bit cell settling time

An integrated circuit compensates for circuit aging by measuring the aging with an aging sensor and controlling a supply voltage based on the measured aging. The operating environment for the aging sensor can be set to reduce impacts of non-aging effects on the measured aging. For example, the operating environment can use a temperature inversion voltage. An initial aging measurement value which is the difference between an initial aged measurement and an initial unaged measurement can be stored on the integrated circuit. A core power reduction controller can use the measured aging and the stored initial aging measurement value to update a performance-sensor target value and then perform adaptive voltage scaling using the using the updated performance-sensor target value.

Integrated circuit adaptive voltage scaling with de-aging

Growing community of inventors

San Marcos, CA, United States of America

Min Chen