Title
mTunes: efficient post-silicon tuning of mixed-signal/RF integrated circuits based on Markov decision process
Abstract
Uncertainty prevails in IC manufacturing and circuit operation. In particular, process variability has a huge impact on circuit performance, especially for mixed-signal/RF circuits, leading to unacceptable yields. Additionally, environmental uncertainties, such as temperature fluctuation and channel variation, further deteriorate performances in field. To combat variability, circuits are often made reconfigurable by adding tunable knobs to recover circuit performance in the post-manufacturing stage. However, as the number of knobs increases, knob tuning becomes challenging due to the huge search space. In fact, knob-tuning policies can have an observable impact on final performance and power consumption. In this paper, we propose mTunes, a method based on the Markov decision process for dynamically choosing the \"right\" knob tuning sub-routine from a pre-defined set achieving a balance between performance and power constraints. The proposed method has been applied to a reconfigurable RF front-end design, showing 60% improvement in yield compared to static tuning policies.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1145/2744769.2744873
DAC
Field
DocType
ISSN
Observable,Computer science,Markov decision process,Communication channel,Real-time computing,Electronic engineering,Static timing analysis,Mixed-signal integrated circuit,Electronic circuit,Integrated circuit,Silicon
Conference
0738-100X
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
9
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Manzil Zaheer116023.65
Fa Wang2558.89
Chenjie Gu312214.32
Xin Li453060.02