Control of the electromagnetic compatibility: An issue for IC reliability

This paper deals with the use of two main standard modeling approaches in order to control the electromagnetic compatibility of an IC before manufacturing. An application is given in the case of a complex mixed circuit which is an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) embedded in a microcontroller. The digital core (DC) of the microcontroller consumes dynamic currents which generate internal disturbances and, as a consequence, a loss of the ADC accuracy is observed. At first, the conducted emission of the DC is estimated by using the ICEM-CE model. Then, the ADC immunity is modeled with ICIM-CI methodology. Based on these two models, a simulation at the chip level is performed to estimate the loss of accuracy of this ADC. Finally, this study is the first step in the development of a methodology for virtual prototyping allowing, from the design, the evaluation of the integrated circuit sensitivity to electromagnetic interference in order to improve its reliability.