Automating post-silicon debugging and repair
Kai-Hui Chang, Igor L. Markov, Valeria Bertacco · 2007
Due to increasing semiconductor design complexity, more errors are escaping presilicon verification and being discovered only after manufacturing. As an alternative to traditional manual chip repair, the authors propose the FogClear methodology, which automates the postsilicon debugging process and thereby reduces IC development time and costs. Due to the high complexity of modern semiconductor designs and increasing pressure to reduce their time to market, errors are more likely to escape verification and are often detected only after a chip has been manufactured. Postsilicon debugging has therefore become a crucial step in the design process, currently taking 35 percent of the time spent to complete a chip1 and potentially consuming an even greater fraction in the future. Given that the market window for many modern products is only a few years, the delay caused by two respins