In micro- and nanoelectronics, the miniaturization of structures (“More Moore”) and the heterointegration (“More than Moore”) are leading to ever more tightly packaged electronic systems. On one hand, this increases the potential spectrum of applications for the semiconductors. On the other hand, however, it also increases the impact of physical effects such as aging, variations or electrothermal interactions. In addition, the desire for greater computing performance and more extensive functionality in ICs often stands in contradiction to non-functional requirements concerning their reliability and robustness.
This can pose a major challenge to safety-critical applications in particular. After all, a long service life must be guaranteed for semiconductor-based systems in areas such as automotive or industrial electronics and medical technology, making it necessary to take this into account already during the IC design. We therefore supply methods and solutions at various levels of abstraction to help our partners achieve their individual requirements with regard to the robustness and reliability of their designs.