Ever since process technology moved below 90nm, variability in manufacturing has been increasingly significant in the digital design flow; moving from a secondary issue to a primary design flow consideration. Initially addressed by performing verification under a couple process corners and later expanding to many corners and OCV, variability is adding excessive complexity to the digital design flow with uncertain benefit. For years analog designers have designed components considering the effects of variation, but this methodology has not been adapted to digital design. This panel seeks to address the question of whether or not variation can be dealt with in the digital design flow or whether the mind sets of digital design and design for variability are incompatible?
Citation:
Jacques Benkoski, Michelle Clancy, Shankar Krishnamoorthy, David Holt, Ravi Subramanian, Clive Bittlestone, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, Andrew Kanhg, "Do Digital Design and Variability Mix like Oil and Water?," isqed, pp.672-676, 8th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED'07), 2007