Duplicate Circuit Block Swapping for RTN Noise Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Random Telegraph Noise (RTN) in semiconductor devices causes performance degradation in electronic circuits, particularly in clock and audio circuits, due to sudden voltage or current transitions, making it difficult to detect and screen affected parts during production testing, as the testing time required is prohibitively long.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a system and method that includes duplicate electronic circuits integrated in close proximity, with a switch circuit that sequentially couples different subsets of these circuits to swapping circuit nodes, pseudo-randomly selecting and swapping them during operation to reduce noise without identifying the source of RTN, thereby reducing the area and power penalty associated with duplicating entire circuit blocks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If duplicate circuit blocks are used to reduce RTN noise, then noise reduction is achieved, but area and power consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The circuit is divided into multiple duplicate blocks (e.g., oscillators, comparators, transistor differential pairs) that can be independently selected and swapped. Only the necessary portions are duplicated rather than entire circuits, reducing area overhead while maintaining noise reduction benefits through statistical averaging across multiple segments.
Solution Approach 2:
The circuit implements dynamic switching between duplicate blocks using switch circuits controlled by control signals. This allows the system to sequentially swap between different duplicate blocks during operation, enabling noise averaging without requiring all blocks to be simultaneously active, thus reducing area and power consumption compared to static parallel configurations.
2Reliability
If entire circuit blocks are duplicated to reduce RTN noise, then noise reduction is achieved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically activates only one duplicate block at a time through controlled switching, rather than keeping all duplicate blocks continuously active. This temporal multiplexing approach reduces power consumption significantly compared to parallel operation, while still achieving noise reduction through sequential sampling and averaging of multiple blocks over time.
Solution Approach 2:
The circuit employs periodic switching between duplicate blocks at controlled intervals. By systematically cycling through different duplicate blocks and combining their outputs, the system achieves noise averaging effects while consuming power only during active switching periods, rather than maintaining continuous power consumption across all duplicate blocks.
3Measurement precision
If production testing is extended to detect RTN failures, then detection accuracy is improved, but testing time becomes prohibitively long
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple duplicate circuit blocks are pre-fabricated on the same semiconductor die during manufacturing. This preliminary duplication allows the testing system to quickly switch between pre-prepared blocks rather than performing extended single-block testing, enabling statistical detection of RTN susceptibility across multiple identical structures in a reduced time frame.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention uses physical copies (duplicate circuit blocks) of the same circuit design to enable parallel testing strategies. By having multiple identical copies available, the system can perform rapid sequential testing or statistical analysis across copies, achieving high detection accuracy for RTN failures without requiring prohibitively long testing durations on a single device.
Data Source
AI summary
An integrated circuit including a functional circuit including at least one swapping circuit node, multiple duplicate electronic circuits, and a switch circuit. The duplicate electronic circuits are integrated in close proximity with each other each including at least one electronic device that is susceptible to RTN. The switch circuit electrically couples a different selected subset of at least one of the duplicate electronic circuits to the at least one swapping circuit node for each of successive switching states during operation of the functional circuit. A method of reducing noise including selecting a subset of the duplicate electronic circuits, electrically coupling the selected duplicate electronic devices to at least one swapping circuit node of a functional circuit, and repeating the selecting and electrically coupling in successive switching states during operation of the functional circuit for different subsets of the duplicate electronic circuits.