Abstract
Reliability of an IC, concerning if an IC can function reliably over its designated lifetime in the field, has become more and more important in today’s safety-critical applications (e.g., automobile electronics, biomedical electronics and so on). It is known that reliability can be affected by PVT effects, (Process, Voltage and Temperature). These effects vary at different physical locations where an IC is operated. In order to verify the affect by PVT effects of an IC, temperature-aware online test method have been proposed previously. In this thesis, we propose a measurement system for PVT monitoring of an IC, through actually measure an IC which we insert monitors in it, we analysis the PVT effects of an IC in the field. With the obtained information, a potential PVT-induced failure can be alarmed in advance before it actually strikes, and thereby pre-cautious actions (such as adaptive voltage scaling, online repair, or even manual replacement) can be taken in advance to shorten or even avoid unnecessary system down time. A measurement system containing a test chip with the built-in design-for-monitoring circuitry will be used to demonstrate measurement data.