Title
Post-Silicon Clock-nvert (PSCI) for reducing process-variation induced skew in buffered clock networks
Abstract
Proposed in this paper is a post-silicon technique and circuits that reduce random process-variation induced skew with simple leaf buffers modification of a buffered clock network. If a timing violation due to clock skew occurs during testing, the present technique offers a second chance via Post-Silicon Clock-Invert (PSCI), which decreases the probability of having errors due to clock skew thus increasing timing yield or design performance. In the cases where the clock frequency of each chip is adjusted post-silicon to deal with inter-die process variations, this technique allows significant number of chips to operate at higher frequencies. The present technique does not require any modifications to the clock network and repower buffers, thus it has negligible area, power, and design overheads, and its post-silicon activity is simple and fast. Evaluated via Monte-Carlo simulation in the context of a 16 leaves buffered H-Tree topology in a 10-mmtimes10-mm synchronous region, PSCI shows an improvement of 19.56%, 28.39%, and 30.3% in the global clock skew mean, standard deviation, and worst case, respectively.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1109/ISQED.2009.4810394
San Jose, CA
Keywords
Field
DocType
clock frequency,post-silicon clock-nvert,post-silicon technique,clock skew,global clock,buffered clock network,random process-variation induced skew,present technique,clock network,design overhead,10-mm synchronous region,chip,probability density function,monte carlo methods,monte carlo simulation,propagation delay,frequency,standard deviation,topology,network topology,random process,synchronization,process variation
Clock gating,Timing failure,Clock network,Computer science,Real-time computing,Electronic engineering,Static timing analysis,Clock skew,Skew,CPU multiplier,Clock rate
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
978-1-4244-2953-0
1
0.36
References 
Authors
5
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Charbel J. Akl1374.57
Rafic A. Ayoubi2667.60
Magdy A. Bayoumi3803122.04