Analysis of performance variation in 16nm FinFET
FPGA devices

Taka, Endri

dc.contributor.author	Taka, Endri	en
dc.date.accessioned	2019-10-08T10:02:43Z
dc.date.available	2019-10-08T10:02:43Z
dc.identifier.uri	https://dspace.lib.ntua.gr/xmlui/handle/123456789/49275
dc.identifier.uri	http://dx.doi.org/10.26240/heal.ntua.16973
dc.rights	Default License
dc.subject	FPGA	en
dc.subject	Process variability	en
dc.subject	Reliability	en
dc.subject	Ring oscillator	en
dc.subject	Performance variation	en
dc.subject	Μεταβλητότητα υλικού	el
dc.subject	Ταλαντωτής δακτυλίου	el
dc.subject	Αξιοπιστία	el
dc.subject	Μεταβλητότητα απόδοσης	el
dc.subject	Θερμοκρασία	el
dc.title	Analysis of performance variation in 16nm FinFET FPGA devices	en
heal.type	bachelorThesis
heal.classification	Electrical engineering	en
heal.language	el
heal.language	en
heal.access	free
heal.recordProvider	ntua	el
heal.publicationDate	2019-07-19
heal.abstract	The exponential scale down of the semiconductor technology has led to compelling improvements in power, performance and cost. This rapid scale down, however, exacerbated the unintended process fluctuations due to the difficulty in controlling the manufacturing process. Therefore, process variability has become a challenging issue in modern technologies, resulting in deviations of the electrical characteristics of circuits, impacting, mainly, the reliability and performance of chips. Although, variability does not solely occur from manufacturing, but also from fluctuations in supply voltage and temperature, as well as natural wear out phenomena resulting from utilization of chips, called aging effects. In addition, the aforementioned de- viations are expected to become even more substantial in the future technology nodes. Consequently, the study of chip variability becomes substantial. While all com- puting platforms divulge variability issues, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FP- GAs) are of particular interest due to their reconfigurable nature. This ability enables the programming of each resource at very low level by performing the so- called built-in-self-tests (BISTs). Exploiting this attribute, enables us to assess the actual performance variation by deploying custom sensors across the FPGA fabric. In this work, we focus on the study of performance variation in 16nm FinFET FPGAs. We formulate a comprehensive assessment methodology based on the well- established ring oscillator sensors, which are designed utilizing diverse resource and delay characteristics. To obtain precise results and to comprehend the nature of the variability, we decouple variability to systematic and stochastic accompanied by ad- equate mathematical modeling of variations. Additionally, we assess the variability under different environmental conditions, i.e., supply voltage and temperature, to grasp and explain their effect on variability and circuit performance. The experimental results on four Zynq XCZU7EV show up to 7.3% intra-die variation, increasing to 9.9% for certain operating conditions. Our approach demon- strates that logic and FPGA routing interconnect resources (including metal wires as well as switching transistors) present different variability, slightly uncorrelated, which highlights the necessity on the direction towards implementing more sophis- ticated mitigation methods/tools.	en
heal.advisorName	Soudris, Dimitrios	en
heal.committeeMemberName	Pekmestzi, Kiamal	en
heal.committeeMemberName	Hristoforou, Evangelos	el
heal.academicPublisher	Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο. Σχολή Ηλεκτρολόγων Μηχανικών και Μηχανικών Υπολογιστών. Τομέας Τεχνολογίας Πληροφορικής και Υπολογιστών. Εργαστήριο Μικροϋπολογιστών και Ψηφιακών Συστημάτων VLSI	el
heal.academicPublisherID	ntua
heal.numberOfPages	91 σ.
heal.fullTextAvailability	true