IC Watermark Structures for Process Design Kit Traceability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional Process Design Kits lack mechanisms to trace their source, allowing customers to use a foundry's kit to design and manufacture integrated circuits at a different foundry, leading to potential authenticity issues.
Innovation Solution
Incorporating watermarks in semiconductor structures, such as transistors and via arrays, using variations in layout and parameters that can be identified through metrology, allowing traceability of the Process Design Kit used for fabrication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If conventional Process Design Kits are used without watermarking, then ease of manufacture is improved, but reliability of source identification deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The watermark features are embedded in the Process Design Kit during its creation phase, before the customer uses it for design and manufacturing. This preliminary embedding of identification features ensures that source tracking is automatically enabled without requiring additional actions during subsequent manufacturing processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The watermark embeds identification information into the Process Design Kit that gets copied and transferred to the manufactured integrated circuit. This copying mechanism allows the source identification to be replicated from the design kit through to the final product, enabling traceability without adding complex verification systems.
2Reliability
If watermark features are embedded in semiconductor structures, then reliability of source identification is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The watermark implementation uses localized variations in specific features (such as transistor gate lengths, via dimensions, or contact hole sizes) rather than changing the entire device structure. These local modifications embed identification information while maintaining the overall device architecture and functionality unchanged.
Solution Approach 2:
The watermark embeds source identification by systematically varying parameters of existing semiconductor features (e.g., changing gate length by nanometer-scale amounts, adjusting via diameter, or modifying metal line width). These parameter changes are subtle enough not to affect device performance but sufficient to encode unique source identifiers.
Data Source
AI summary
Structures for an integrated circuit having a watermark and related methods. The structure comprises a first semiconductor structure including at least one feature with a variation relative to a second semiconductor structure including the at least one feature without the variation. The variation provides a watermark for identifying a Process Design Kit used to form the first semiconductor structure.