Variation-Sensitive Monitor Circuits for Estimation of Global Process Parameter Variation

This paper proposes a set of monitor circuits to estimate global process variations in post-silicon. Ring oscillators (ROs) are chosen as monitor circuits where ROs are designed to have enhanced sensitivities to process variations. The proposed technique extracts process parameter variations from RO outputs. An iterative estimation method is also developed to estimate variations correctly under the presence of nonlinearity in RO outputs to process variations. Simulation results show that the proposed circuits are robust against uncertainties such as measurement error. A test chip in a 65-nm process has been fabricated to validate the circuits. Process parameter variations are successfully estimated and verified by applying body bias to the chip. The proposed technique can be used for post-silicon compensation techniques and model-to-hardware correlation.