Ian is a PhD candidate in the Ivanov SoC Lab group focused on improving failure predictions and increasing the lifespan of semiconductor products in the context of integrated circuit wear-out reliability. His research plan is based on a survey of contemporary CMOS reliability trends and testing methods he completed and published in IEEE TDMR in 2021. Ian’s research plan can be broadly subdivided into two projects, tackling on-chip sensor designs for wear-out monitoring and accelerated wear-out test design.
The on-chip wear-out sensor design project enables separable measurement of the four most problematic wear-out and failure mechanisms in current semiconductor processes: bias temperature instability (BTI), hot carrier injection (HCI), electromigration (EM), and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB). Sensor designs for each have been developed and implemented in 12nm FinFET, and the group conducts tests of these sensors using an in-house automated accelerated testing system developed by Ian based on custom PCB hardware, Rust firmware, and a host computer control application in Python. The group will be presenting a digital BTI and HCI sensor architecture and test data at IEEE VTS 2024, and an analog BTI and HCI sensor architecture and test data at IEEE IRPS 2024.
The second project on accelerated wear-out test design uses computational Bayesian inference as a technique to produce wear-out and failure predictions with explicit uncertainty handling (in contrast to frequentist statistical techniques). The test design framework is in progress and is based upon optimizing test parameters to minimize the prediction uncertainty. A probabilistic wear-out and failure simulation tool based on Python was developed by Ian to enable this project and was presented at IEEE VTS 2023.
Previously, Ian has held co-op work positions at a range of companies during his undergraduate studies at the University of Waterloo. These include train control software at Thales Canada to intrusion security system hardware design at Tyco Security Products, along with VLSI design at both NVIDIA and Microsoft. This breadth of experience is supplemented by his four year teaching assistant position at UBC within the Engineering Capstone course where he has helped guide and manage 20 student projects across a vast spread of industries and technical challenges.
In his spare time, Ian is involved in both musical endeavours and outdoor recreation. He has recorded an album of classical guitar music and recently released a debut single, and thanks to growing up in British Columbia has had many opportunities for skiing, sailing, and scuba diving.