🤖 AI Summary
This work addresses the electromigration (EM) reliability challenges posed by high current densities in future heterogeneous integrated systems. Moving beyond the limitations of conventional rule-based approaches, it proposes a highly accurate and scalable EM analysis and optimization framework that integrates physical mechanisms with circuit-level information. By systematically comparing physics-based and empirical models, the study identifies key open issues and establishes an efficient computational pathway to enable circuit-aware, large-scale EM assessment. This research advances EM reliability design from empirical rules toward a physics-driven paradigm, laying a robust theoretical and technical foundation for industrial-grade EM reliability assurance in high-performance integrated circuits.
📝 Abstract
Electromigration, a significant lifetime reliability concern in highperformance integrated circuits, is projected to grow even more important in future heterogeneously integrated systems that will service higher current loads. Today, EM checks are primarily based on rule-based methods, but these have known limitations. In recent years, there has been remarkable progress in enabling fast EM computations based on more accurate physics-based models, but such methods have not yet moved from research to practice. This paper overviews physics-based EM models, contrasts them with empirical models, and outlines several open problems that must be solved in order to enable accurate physics-based and circuit-aware EM analysis and optimization in future integrated systems.