The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 16, 2003
Filed:
Oct. 19, 2000
S. Doug Ray, Austin, TX (US);
Advanced Micro Devices, Austin, TX (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for evaluating the performance degradation of semiconductor integrated circuit devices due to hot carrier injection (HCI) is implemented. A device under test (DUT) is subject to a sequence of stress cycles. A stress condition is set on the device, for example, an over voltage condition may be applied as the operating voltage of the device. A physical parameter serving as a measure of device performance, for example, the case temperature of the device, is then characterized by varying the physical measure as the DUT executes benchmark cycles until the device fails. Benchmark cycles may be run using conventional benchmark software, or, alternatively, synthetic code. Extrapolation of the data to nominal operating conditions provides a characterization of the expected lifetime of the DUT due to HCI.