Faculty of Science and Technology

Crosstalk noise is undesirable electromagnetic coupling between switching and non switching signal lines. Such coupling can cause logic failures and timing degradation in digital systems.

With increasing system complexities and the availability of several layers of metal, the number of interactions between signals are large, necessitating crosstalk-aware design methodologies for on-chip interconnect. Crosstalk noise impact on the performance and reliability of on-chip communication links is further aggravated by parametric variations.

The latter refers to the inaccuracies in manufacturing processes and within-die voltage-temperature variations. The achievement of parameter precision becomes exponentially more difficult due to the limitations imposed by quantum mechanics in deep submicron technologies. Therefore variability is going to be an unavoidable characteristic of future VLSI circuits.

This talk presents a comprehensive analysis to quantify the effects of crosstalk on reliability and performance metrics of global interconnects links in the presence of parametric variations.