This chapter describes the fundamental characteristics of Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology, and how it can be assessed for system reliability studies. After some definitions, the dominating manufacturing technologies are described together with its advantages and disadvantages. Then, the core memory circuits present in today's computing systems are presented. Finally, the chapter provides an evaluation of these memory circuits when considering reliability across technology nodes.

Chapter Contents:

• 1.1 Introduction
• 1.1.1 Faults, errors and failures
• 1.2 Technology overview
• 1.2.1 Technologies based on electric charge
• 1.2.1.1 The MOS transistor
• 1.2.1.2 Electrical model for an MOS transistor
• 1.2.1.3 Planar bulk technology
• 1.2.1.4 Planar FDSOI technology
• 1.2.1.5 3D FinFET technology
• 1.2.1.6 Carbon nanotubes technology
• 1.2.1.7 Nanowire (Gate All Around) transistors
• 1.2.1.8 Beyond CMOS: technologies based on other magnitudes (Memristive behavior devices (PCM, RRAM, MRAM))
• 1.2.2 Roadmap for adoption
• 1.2.3 Sources of unreliability in technology
• 1.2.3.1 Environmental considerations
• 1.3 CPU building blocks
• 1.3.1 Combinatorial circuits
• 1.3.2 Memories
• 1.3.2.1 Static Random Access Memory
• 1.3.2.2 Embedded Dynamic Random Access Memory
• 1.3.3 Main memory and storage
• 1.3.3.1 Dynamic Random Access Memory
• 1.3.3.2 Flash memory
• 1.3.4 Emerging memories
• 1.4 Characterization
• 1.4.1 Manufacturing
• 1.4.2 Radiation
• 1.5 Conclusions
• References

Inspec keywords: integrated circuit reliability; CMOS memory circuits

Other keywords: technology nodes; computing systems; complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology; system reliability; core memory circuits; CMOS technology

Subjects: Reliability; Semiconductor storage; CMOS integrated circuits; Memory circuits