Critical area (computing)

In integrated circuit design, a critical area is a section of a circuit design wherein a particle of a particular size can cause a failure.^[1] It measures the sensitivity of the circuit to a reduction in yield.^[2]

The critical area ${\textstyle (A_{c})}$ on a single layer integrated circuit design is given by:

A_{c}=\int _{0}^{\infty }A(r)D(r)dr

where $A(r)$ is the area in which a defect of radius $r$ will cause a failure, and $D(r)$ is the density function of said defect.^[3]

References

^ D. M. H. Walker (1992). "Critical area analysis". [1992] Proceedings International Conference on Wafer Scale Integration. IEEE. pp. 281–290. doi:10.1109/ICWSI.1992.171820. ISBN 0-8186-2482-5. S2CID 110439292.
^ A. V. Ferris-Prabhu (1985). "Modeling the critical area in yield forecasts". IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. 20 (4). IEEE: 874–878. Bibcode:1985IJSSC..20..874F. doi:10.1109/JSSC.1985.1052403.
^ Papadopoulou, Evanthia (2000). "Critical area computation for missing material defects in VLSI circuits". Proceedings of the 2000 international symposium on Physical design. pp. 140–146. doi:10.1145/332357.332390. ISBN 1581131917. S2CID 15802958.

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[1] D. M. H. Walker (1992). "Critical area analysis". [1992] Proceedings International Conference on Wafer Scale Integration. IEEE. pp. 281–290. doi:10.1109/ICWSI.1992.171820. ISBN 0-8186-2482-5. S2CID 110439292.

[2] A. V. Ferris-Prabhu (1985). "Modeling the critical area in yield forecasts". IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. 20 (4). IEEE: 874–878. Bibcode:1985IJSSC..20..874F. doi:10.1109/JSSC.1985.1052403.

[3] Papadopoulou, Evanthia (2000). "Critical area computation for missing material defects in VLSI circuits". Proceedings of the 2000 international symposium on Physical design. pp. 140–146. doi:10.1145/332357.332390. ISBN 1581131917. S2CID 15802958.