Improvement of Resistive Switching Characteristics in $hbox{SrZrO}_{3}$ Thin Films With Embedded Cr Layer

The stabilization of the resistive switching properties is necessary to realize the memory application of the SrZrO₃(SZO)-based resistive switching devices. During continuous resistive switching cycle, broad variations of the resistive switching parameters of the SZO-based memory devices can be improved by a thin embedded Cr layer. The Cr metal layer is proposed to diffuse into and dope the SZO thin film to produce the space charge region, further reducing the effective resistive switching region. Hence, the good stabilization of the resistive switching properties can be obtained in the SZO films with embedded Cr layer.     

Stress Power Dependent Self-Heating Degradation of Metal-Induced Laterally Crystallized n-Type Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors

Using a fluorinated high-k/metal gate stack combined with a stress relieved preoxide (SRPO) pretreatment before high-k deposition, we show significant device reliability and performance improvements. This is a critical result since threshold voltage instability may be a fundamental problem, and performance degradation for high-fc is a concern. The novel fluorinated Ta_infinC_y/HfZrO_infin/SRPO gate stack device exceeds the positive-bias-temperature-instability and negative-bias-temperature-instability targets with sufficient margin and has electron mobility at 1 MV/cm comparable to the industrial high-quality polySi/SiON device on bulk silicon.     

An analytic and accurate model for the threshold voltage of short channel MOSFETs in VLSI

Based on the two-dimensional Poisson equation, the surface potential distribution along the surface channel of a MOSFET has been analytically derived by assuming negligible source and drain junction depths and its minimum potential is then used to determine the threshold voltage. The existence of a minimum surface potential point along the channel of a MOSFET under an applied drain bias is consistent with the numerical results of the two-dimensional analysis. The effects of finite source and drain junction depths have been elegantly included by modifying the depletion capacitance under the gate and the resulted threshold voltage model has been compared to the results of the two-dimensional numerical analysis. It has been shown that excellent agreement between these results has been obtained for wide ranges of substrate doping, gate oxide thickness, channel length (< 1 μm), substrate bias, and drain voltage. Moreover, comparisons between the developed model and the existing experimental data have been made and good agreement has been obtained. The major advantages of the developed model are that no iterations and no adjustable fitting parameters are required. Therefore, this simple and accurate threshold voltage model will become a useful design tool for ultra short channel MOSFETs in future VLSI implementation.     

Algorithms to Minimize Data Transfer for Code Update on Wireless Sensor Network

In Wireless Sensor Networks, the preloaded program code and data on sensor nodes often need to be updated due to changes in user requirements and environmental conditions. Sensor nodes are severely restricted by energy constraints. It is especially energy consuming for sensor nodes to transfer data through wireless radios. To efficiently reprogram sensor nodes through radio, we propose an algorithm, Minimum Data transferred by Copying and Downloading (MDCD) and its extension E-MDCD, to minimize the number of bytes needed to be transferred from the host machine to the sensor nodes. Experimental results show that the E-MDCD algorithm reduces the number of bytes transferred by 93.25 % for small code change compared with the Rsync based algorithm. In average, E-MDCD can reduce 59.82 % compared with the existing the Rsync based algorithm and 16.14 % compared with the Vdelta algorithm.     

The Role of Pd in Sn-Ag-Cu Solder Interconnect Mechanical Shock Performance

The mechanical stability of solder joints with Pd added to Sn-Ag-Cu alloy with different aging conditions was investigated in a high-G level shock environment. A test vehicle with three different strain and shock level conditions in one board was used to identify the joint stability and failure modes. The results revealed that Pd provided stability at the package-side interface with an overall shock performance improvement of over 65% compared with the Sn-Ag-Cu alloy without Pd. A dependency on the pad structure was also identified. However, the strengthening mechanism was only observed in the non-solder mask defined (NSMD) pad design, whereas the solder mask defined (SMD) pad design boards showed no improvement in shock performance with Pd-added solders. The effects of Sn grain orientation on shock performance, interconnect stability, and crack propagation path with and without Pd are discussed. The SAC305 + Pd solder joints showed more grain refinements, recrystallization, and especially mechanical twin deformation during the shock test, which provides a partial explanation for the ability of SAC305 + Pd to absorb more shock-induced energy through active deformation compared with SAC305.     

VLSI Architecture for Lifting-Based Shape-Adaptive Discrete Wavelet Transform with Odd-Symmetric Filters

In this paper, a VLSI architecture for lifting-based shape-adaptive discrete wavelet transform (SA-DWT) with odd-symmetric filters is proposed. The proposed architecture is comprised of a stage-based boundary extension strategy and the shape-adaptive boundary handling units. The former could reduce the complexity of multiplexers that are introduced to solve the shape-adaptive boundary extension. The latter consists of two multiplexers and can solve the shape-adaptive boundary extension locally without any additional register. Two case studies are presented, including the JPEG 2000 default (9, 7) filter and MPEG-4 default (9, 3) filter. According to comparison results with previous architectures, the efficiency of the proposed architectures is proven.Chao-Tsung Huang was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 1979. He received the B.S. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan in 2001. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree at the Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering, National Taiwan University. His major research interests include VLSI design and implementation for 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D Discrete Wavelet Transform. cthuang@video.ee.ntu.edu.twPo-Chih Tseng was born in Tao-Yuan, Taiwan in 1977. He received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Control Engineering from National Chiao Tung University in 1999 and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University in 2001. He currently is pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University. His research interests include VLSI design and implementation for signal processing systems, energy-efficient reconfigurable computing for multimedia systems, and power-aware image and video coding systems. pctseng@video.ee.ntu.edu.twLiang-Gee Chen (S84–M86–SM94–F01) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1979, 1981, and 1986, respectively.In 1988, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. During 1993–1994, he was a Visiting Consultant in the DSP Research Department, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ. In 1997, he was a Visiting Scholar of the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle. Currently, he is Professor at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. His current research interests are DSP architecture design, video processor design, and video coding systems.Dr. Chen has served as an Associate Editor of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS FOR VIDEO TECHNOLOGY since 1996, as Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VLSI SYSTEMS since 1999, and as Associate Editor of IEEE TRANSACTIONS CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS II since 2000. He has been the Associate Editor of the Journal of Circuits, Systems, and Signal Processing since 1999, and a Guest Editor for the Journal of Video Signal Processing Systems. He is also the Associate Editor of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE. He was the General Chairman of the 7th VLSI Design/CAD Symposium in 1995 and of the 1999 IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems: Design and Implementation. He is the Past-Chair of Taipei Chapter of IEEE Circuits and Systems (CAS) Society, and is a member of the IEEE CAS Technical Committee of VLSI Systems and Applications, the Technical Committee of Visual Signal Processing and Communications, and the IEEE Signal Processing Technical Committee of Design and Implementation of SP Systems. He is the Chair-Elect of the IEEE CAS Technical Committee on Multimedia Systems and Applications. During 2001–2002, he served as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE CAS Society. He received the Best Paper Award from the R.O.C. Computer Society in 1990 and 1994. Annually from 1991 to 1999, he received Long-Term (Acer) Paper Awards. In 1992, he received the Best Paper Award of the 1992 Asia-Pacific Conference on circuits and systems in the VLSI design track. In 1993, he received the Annual Paper Award of the Chinese Engineer Society. In 1996 and 2000, he received the Outstanding Research Award from the National Science Council, and in 2000, the Dragon Excellence Award from Acer. He is a member of Phi Tan Phi. lgchen@video.ee.ntu.edu.tw     

A miniaturized multilayer quasi-elliptic bandpass filter with aperture-coupled microstrip resonators

A four-pole quasi-elliptic function bandpass filter for a compact low-temperature cofired ceramic is proposed in this paper. The filter is constructed by the open-loop resonators and the miniaturized hairpin resonators that can be coupled through the apertures on the common ground plane, and the 0/spl deg/ feed structure adds two extra transmission zeros to the filter response. It is shown that the filter occupies a very small size. As a result, the proposed structure of the filter occupies a very small circuit area and has a good out-of band rejection.     

Selecting, under type-II censoring, Weibull populations that aremore reliable

It is pointed out that the problem of selecting Weibull populations that are more reliable is complex; the main result is that there is no simple selection rule. Under type-II censoring, the use of a locally optimal selection rule when the shape parameters are known and the use of a modified selection rule when the unknown shape parameters have some prior distributions are proposed. The performance of this modified rule was tested extensively by simulation; this rule was shown to be quite robust for a variety of beta prior distributions     

Cross-Interaction Study of Cu/Sn/Pd and Ni/Sn/Pd Sandwich Solder Joint Structures

Cross-interactions between Cu/Sn/Pd and Ni/Sn/Pd sandwich structures were investigated in this work. For the Cu/Sn/Pd case, the growth behavior and morphology of the interfacial (Pd,Cu)Sn₄ compound layer was very similar to that of the single Pd/Sn interfacial reaction. This indicates that the growth of the (Pd,Cu)Sn₄ layer at the Sn/Pd interface would not be affected by the opposite Cu/Sn interfacial reaction. We can conclude that there is no cross-interaction effect between the two interfacial reactions in the Cu/Sn/Pd sandwich structure. For the Ni/Sn/Pd case, we observed that: (1) after 300 s of reflow time, the (Pd,Ni)Sn₄ compound heterogeneously nucleated on the Ni₃Sn₄ compound layer at the Sn/Ni interface; (2) the growth of the interfacial PdSn₄ compound layer was greatly suppressed by the formation of the (Pd,Ni)Sn₄ compound at the Sn/Ni interface. We believe that this suppression of PdSn₄ growth is caused by heterogeneous nucleation of the (Pd,Ni)Sn₄ compound in the Ni₃Sn₄ compound layer, which decreases the free energy of the entire sandwich reaction system. The difference in the chemical potential of Pd in the PdSn₄ phase at the Pd/Sn interface and in the (Pd,Ni)Sn₄ phase at the Sn/Ni interface is the driving force for the Pd atomic flux across the molten Sn. The diffusion of Ni into the ternary (Pd,Ni)Sn₄ compound layer controls the Pd atomic flux across the molten Sn and the growth of the ternary (Pd,Ni)Sn₄ compound at the Sn/Ni interface.