Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Wei-Pin Changchien

Chin-Chou Liu

Yi-Lin Chuang

Nan-Hsin Tseng

Chin-Her Chien

Yun-Han Lee

Ji-Jan Chen

Chien-Hui Chen

Chun-Cheng Ku

Pei-Ying Lin

Hong-Chen Cheng

Yung-Chin Hou

Wei-Li Chen

Ching-Fang Chen

Kuan-Yu Lin

Jung-Rung Jiang

Hsin-Wu Hsu

Kin Lam Tong

Lee-Chung Lu

Chung-Hsing Wang

Yi-Wei Chen

Sandeep Kumar Goel

Samuel C Pan

Shao-Yu Wang

Bo-Jr Huang

Chi Wei Hu

Myron O Shak

Wu-An Kuo

Kevin Hung

Ping-Han Tsai

Saurabh Gupta

Yen-Ling Liu

Wei-Hao Kao

Chi-Wei Hu

Kuo-Yin Chen

Ta-Wen Hung

Electronic design automation (EDA) of the present disclosure, in various embodiments, optimizes designing, simulating, analyzing, and verifying of one or more electronic architectural designs for an electronic device. The EDA of the present disclosure identifies one or more electronic architectural features from the one or more electronic architectural designs. In some situations, the EDA of the present disclosure can manipulate one or more electronic architectural models over multiple iterations using a machine learning process until one or more electronic architectural models from among the one or more electronic architectural models satisfy one or more electronic design targets. The EDA of the present disclosure substitutes the one or more electronic architectural models that satisfy the one or more electronic design targets for the one or more electronic architectural features in the one or more electronic architectural designs to optimize the one or more electronic architectural designs. The EDA of the present disclosure can substitute the one or more electronic architectural models before, during, and/or after designing, simulating, analyzing, and/or verifying of the one or more electronic architectural designs to effectively decrease the time to market (TTM) for the electronic device.

Machine-learning design enablement platform

A diagnostic system includes: a processor, arranged to extract a plurality of coordinates of a plurality of pins on an outer surface of a design layout according to a plurality of tagging texts labeling the plurality of pins respectively, and arranged to generate a design exchange format file according to the plurality of coordinates, wherein an order of the plurality of tagging texts are sorted by a predetermined scanning sequence; and a chip diagnostic tool, arranged to scan the plurality of scan components in a physical circuit on a testing platform through the plurality of pins on the outer surface of the physical circuit by following the predetermined scanning sequence to determine a defect component in the physical circuit according to the design exchange format file; wherein the physical circuit corresponds to the design layout.

System and method to diagnose integrated circuit

A diagnostic system includes a location extractor, a file generator, and a chip diagnostic tool. The location extractor is arranged to extract at least a coordinate of at least one component in an intellectual property design layout of an integrated circuit design layout according to at least one tagging text labeling the at least one component in the intellectual property design layout. The file generator is arranged to generate a format file according to the at least coordinate. The chip diagnostic tool is arranged to scan a physical intellectual property circuit in a physical integrated circuit to determine a defect component in the physical intellectual property circuit according to the format file. The physical intellectual property circuit corresponds to the intellectual property design layout, and the physical integrated circuit corresponds to the integrated circuit design layout.

Provided is a monolithic stacked integrated circuit (IC). The IC includes a first layer over a substrate and a second layer over the first layer. The first layer includes first circuit elements where a first portion of the first circuit elements has a defect. The second layer includes second circuit elements. The IC further includes interconnect elements coupling the first portion to a second portion of the second circuit elements for mitigating the defect.

Monolithic stacked integrated circuits with a redundant layer for repairing defects

An integrated circuit (IC) semiconductor device has a high oxide definition (OD) density region, a low OD density region adjacent to the high OD density region, and dummy cells in the high OD density region and the low OD density region to smooth a density gradient between the high OD density region and the low OD density region.

Oxide definition (OD) gradient reduced semiconductor device

Among other things, an integrated circuit and method for routing electrical pathways of an integrated circuit is provided. The integrated circuit comprises a buffer chain coupling a first cell of the integrated circuit to a second cell of the integrated circuit. An electrical pathway coupling a first inverter of the buffer chain with a second inverter of the buffer chain extends through a first set of metal layers and is routed to form a pulse-like shape having an apex at a top layer of the first set.

Integrated circuit comprising buffer chain

The present disclosure relates to a diagnosis framework to shorten yield learning cycles of technology node manufacturing processes from the high defect density stage to technology maturity. A plurality of defect under test (DUT) structures are designed to capture potential manufacturing issues associated with defect formation. A test structure is formed by arranging the DUT structures within a DUT carrier unit, which has been yield-hardened though heuristic yield analysis such that a defect density of the DUT carrier unit is essentially zero. Possible outcomes of an application of test patterns and various failure scenarios associated with defects formed within the DUT structures within the DUT carrier unit are simulated and stored in a look-up table (LUT). The LUT may then be referenced to determine a location of a defect within the test structure without the need for iterative analysis to correctly select defect candidates for physical failure analysis (PFA).

Diagnosis framework to shorten yield learning cycles of advanced processes

A method of reducing an oxide definition (OD) density gradient in an integrated circuit (IC) semiconductor device having a placed layout and a set of design rule checking (DRC) rules associated with the placed layout. The method includes computing OD density in insertion regions from OD density information corresponding to the placed layout to identify an OD density gradient. The method further includes selecting and adding dummy cells to at least one insertion region to reduce the OD density gradient.

Oxide definition (OD) gradient reduced semiconductor device and method of making

Provided is a monolithic stacked integrated circuit (IC). The IC includes a first layer over a substrate and a second layer over the first layer. The first layer includes a first plurality of circuit elements where a first portion of the first plurality of circuit elements has defects. The second layer includes a second plurality of circuit elements. The IC further includes interconnect elements coupling the first portion to a second portion of the second plurality of circuit elements for mitigating the defects.

Repairing monolithic stacked integrated circuits with a redundant layer and lithography process

System and method for diagnosing failures within an integrated circuit is provided. In an embodiment, the apparatus includes a diagnostic cell coupled in series with a buffer chain. The diagnostic cell includes a plurality of logic operators that when activated invert a signal received from the buffer chain. The inversion of the signal from the buffer chain allows the diagnostic cell to determine the location of a failure within an integrated circuit previously determined by a scan chain design for test methodology to contain a failure.

Method and apparatus for diagnosing an integrated circuit

A voltage-controlled oscillator is disclosed. The voltage-controlled oscillator includes an inverter circuit configured to output an oscillation signal. The first inverter circuit includes a complementary transistor pair and a transistor string. The complementary transistor pair includes a first switch transistor and a second switch transistor. The second switch transistor is connected to the first switch transistor, in which a first terminal of the second switch transistor is connected to a second terminal of the first switch transistor. The first delaying unit includes at least one delaying transistor. A first terminal of the at least one delaying transistor is connected to a control terminal of the second switch transistor. A second terminal of the at least one delaying transistor is connected to a control terminal of the first switch transistor. A control terminal of the at least one delaying transistor is configured to receive a voltage control signal.

Voltage-controlled oscillator

Among other things, one or more systems and techniques for defining a group bounding box for related cells of an integrated circuit, and generating a new layout for the integrated circuit comprising the group bounding box are provided herein. That is, one or more group bounding boxes are defined based upon positional values of related cells. Such group bounding boxes are placed within the new layout based upon a placement technique, such as an objective function that takes into account wire length, timing, and cell density, for example. The one or more group bounding boxes are sized or reshaped to reduce cell overlap within the new layout. In this way, the new layout comprises related cells, bound by one or more group bounding boxes, that are placed within the new layout according to a configuration that mitigates wire length and timing delay of the integrated circuit.

Group bounding box region-constrained placement for integrated circuit design

System and method for effectively detecting small delay defects is disclosed. The method first loads layout information of an integrated circuit. Then, the nets and paths of the integrated circuit are partitioned into two groups based upon their physical information. The physical information comprises the length of each path and net and the number of vias at each path and net. A timing-aware automatic test pattern generator is configured to generate test patterns for the first group having paths and nets susceptible to small delay defects. A traditional transition delay fault test pattern generator is configured to generate test patterns for the second group.

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Taichung, Taiwan

Wei-Pin Changchien