Critical area (computing)

For the Critical area in aviation, see Critical area (airport).

In integrated circuit design, a critical area is a section of a circuit design wherein a particle of a particular size can cause a failure. It measures the sensitivity of the circuit to a reduction in yield.

The critical area ${\textstyle (A_{c})}$ on a single layer integrated circuit design is given by:

$$A_{c}=\int _{0}^{\infty }A(r)D(r)dr$$

where $A(r)$ is the area in which a defect of radius $r$ will cause a failure, and $D(r)$ is the density function of said defect.