Remote electromigration monitoring of electronic chips
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsGraeme A. Hutcheon, Baozhen Li, K. Paul Muller
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Abstract
A method of remotely monitoring electromigration in an electronic chip includes sensing, at a first location, at least one temperature value of the electronic chip, sending the at least one temperature value to a remote monitoring system, accumulating a plurality of temperature values of the electronic chip at the monitoring system during a reporting period, calculating an Electromigration Life Consumed (EMLC) value of the electronic chip for the reporting period based on the plurality of temperature values, determining whether the EMLC of the electronic chip is above a predetermined threshold, and providing a signal when the EMLC of the electronic chip is above the predetermined threshold.
Claims20
A method of remotely monitoring electromigration in an electronic chip, the method comprising:
- sensing, at a first location, at least one temperature value of the electronic chip;
- sending the at least one temperature value to a remote monitoring system;
- accumulating a plurality of temperature values of the electronic chip at the monitoring system during a reporting period;
- calculating an Electromigration Life Consumed (EMLC) value of the electronic chip for the reporting period based on the plurality of temperature values;
- determining whether the EMLC of the electronic chip is above a predetermined EMLC threshold;
- and
- providing a signal when the EMLC of the electronic chip is above the predetermined threshold.
A system for remotely monitoring electromigration in an electronic chip comprising:
- at least one central processing unit (CPU) including a plurality of cores, the at least one CPU being interconnected functionally via a system bus to:
- an input/output (I/O) adapter connecting to at least one of a removable data storage device, a program storage device, and a mass data storage device;
- a user interface adapter connecting to one or more computer input devices;
- a display adapter connecting to a display device;
- and
- at least one memory device thereupon stored a set of instructions which, when executed by the at least one CPU, causes the system to:
- sense, at a first location, at least one temperature value of the electronic chip;
- send the at least one temperature value to a remote monitoring system;
- accumulate a plurality of temperature values of the electronic chip at the monitoring system during a reporting period;
- calculate an Electromigration Life Consumed (EMLC) value of the electronic chip for the reporting period based on the plurality of temperature values;
- determine whether the EMLC of the electronic chip is above a predetermined threshold;
- and
- provide a signal when the EMLC of the electronic chip is above the predetermined threshold.
A computer program product comprising:
- a computer useable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computer, causes the computer to:
- sense, at a first location, at least one temperature value of the electronic chip;
- send the at least one temperature value to a remote monitoring system;
- accumulate a plurality of temperature values of the electronic chip at the monitoring system during a reporting period;
- calculate an Electromigration Life Consumed (EMLC) value of the electronic chip for the reporting period based on the plurality of temperature values;
- determine whether the EMLC of the electronic chip is above a predetermined threshold;
- and
- provide a signal when the EMLC of the electronic chip is above the predetermined threshold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.