Routing for manufacturability and reliability

As IC process geometries scale down to the nanometer territory, industry faces severe challenges of manufacturing limitations. To guarantee high yield and reliability, routing for manufacturability and reliability has played a pivotal role in resolution and thus yield enhancement for the imperfect manufacturing process. In this article, we introduce major routing challenges arising from nanometer process, survey key existing techniques for handling the challenges, and provide some future research directions in routing for manufacturability and reliability.