A precise Negative Bias Temperature Instability sensor using slew-rate monitor circuitry
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Ghosh, Amlan; Brown, Richard B.; Rao, Rahul M.; Chuang, Ching-Te
- Source
- 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2009 IEEE International Symposium on. :381-384 May, 2009
- Subject
- Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Negative bias temperature instability
Temperature sensors
Monitoring
Circuits
Degradation
Threshold voltage
CMOS technology
Niobium compounds
Titanium compounds
MOS devices
- Language
- ISSN
- 0271-4302
2158-1525
Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) has become an important cause of degradation in scaled PMOS devices, affecting power, performance, yield and reliability of circuits. This paper proposes a scheme to detect PMOS threshold voltage (V TH ) degradation using on-chip slew-rate monitor circuitry. The degradation in the PMOS threshold voltage is determined with high resolution by sensing the change in rise time in a stressed ring oscillator. Simulations in IBM's 65nm PD/SOI CMOS technology demonstrate good linearity and an output sensitivity of 0.25mV/mV using the proposed scheme.