The impact of semiconductor technology scaling on CMOS RF and digital circuits for wireless application

The impact of CMOS technology scaling on the various radio frequency (RF) circuit components such as active, passive and digital circuits is presented. Firstly, the impact of technology scaling on the noise and linearity of the low-noise amplifier (LNA) is thoroughly analyzed. Then two new circuits, i.e., CMOS complementary parallel push-pull (CCPP) circuit and vertical-NPN (V-NPN) circuit for direct-conversion receiver (DCR), are introduced. In CCPP, the high RF performance of pMOS comparable to nMOS provides single ended differential RF signal processing capability without the use of a bulky balun. The use of parasitic V-NPN bipolar transistor, available in triple well CMOS technology, has shown to provide more than an order of magnitude improvement in 1/f noise and dc offset related problems, which have been the bottleneck for CMOS single chip integration. Then CMOS technology scaling for various passive device performances such as the inductor, varactor, MIM capacitor, and switched capacitor, is discussed. Both the forward scaling of the active devices and the inverse scaling of interconnection layer, i.e., more interconnection layers with effectively thicker total dielectric and metal layers, provide very favorable scenario for all passive devices. Finally, the impact of CMOS scaling on the various digital circuits is introduced, taking the digital modem blocks, the various digital calibration circuits, the switching RF power amplifier, and eventually the software defined radio, as examples.     

Evaluation of Surficial Stability for Homogeneous Slopes Considering Rainfall Characteristics

Shallow slope failures in residual soil during periods of prolonged infiltration are commonly occurring in the world. This study examines an infinite slope analysis to estimate the influence of infiltration on surficial stability of slopes by the limit equilibrium method. An approximate method that accommodates the boundary condition of a uniform rainfall has been proposed to evaluate the likelihood of shallow slope failure that is induced by a particular rainfall event. The method based on the Mein and Larson model, which provides an explicit solution for preponding infiltration, has been applied to various types of soil having measured unsaturated hydraulic properties. To compare results with those obtained from the approximate method, a series of numerical analyses were carried out. According to the results, with the use of properly estimated input parameters, the approximate method was found to give results that compare reasonably well with those of more rigorous finite element analyses.     

Design analysis of a solid nitrogen cooled “permanent” high-temperature superconducting magnet system

Potential performance advantages of a solid nitrogen cooled “permanent” high-temperature superconducting (SN2/HTS) magnet system over a liquid helium cooled low-temperature superconducting (LHe/LTS) system are explored. The SN2/HTS system design includes a second solid heat capacitor that cools a radiation shield. Recooling of the heat capacitors is performed with a demountable cryocooler. The SN2/HTS system offers both enhanced stability and improved portability over a LHe/LTS system.Design codes are constructed to compare the SN2/HTS system design with a LHe/LTS design for a general permanent superconducting magnet system employing a room temperature bore. The codes predict the system volume and mass that should be expected for a given set of design requirements, i.e. field strength and bore size, and a given set of conductor properties. The results indicate that present HTS conductor critical current and index are not yet sufficient for producing SN2/HTS systems of a size that is comparable with that expected for a LHe/LTS system; however, the conductor properties of Bi2223/Ag have been consistently improving, and new HTS conductors are expected to be developed in the near future. The codes are used to determine the minimum Bi2223/Ag conductor performance required for a SN2/HTS system to be competitive with a LHe/LTS system.     

Design of a 3-D fully depleted SOI computational RAM

We introduce a three-dimensional (3-D) processor-in-memory integrated circuit design that provides progressively increasing processing power as the number of stacked dies increases, while incurring no extra design effort or mask sets. Innovative techniques for processor/memory redundancy and fast global bus evaluation are described. The architecture can be augmented with a nearest-neighbor physical 3-D communications network that can substantially reduce interconnect lengths and relieve routing congestion. The test chip, with 128 Kb of memory and 512 processing elements (PEs) on two fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (SOI) dies, can achieve a peak of 170 billion-bit-operations per second at 400 MHz.     

Ku-band stop filter implemented on a high resistivity silicon with inverted microstrip line photonic bandgap (PBG) structure

We have developed the inverted microstrip line photonic bandgap (IML-PBG) structure using the surface micro-machining technology on the high resistivity silicon (HRS) substrate. Because, when the IML was fabricated, the holes for removing a sacrificial layer were necessary, we have introduced these holes into the PBG structure for the Ku-band stop filter (BSF). Rectangular spiral PBG structure showed the notch characteristics and the array with suitable distance showed the stop band with under -20 dB from 15 to 19 GHz and under -3 dB pass-band loss.     

Homogeneous charge compression ignition of binary fuel blends

The present experimental investigation aims to understand the homogeneous combustion chemistry associated with binary blends of three surrogate components for practical fuels, including toluene, isooctane, and diisobutylene-1 (DIB-1). Specifically, high-pressure autoignition characteristics of the three neat fuel components as well as the fuel blends of toluene + isooctane and toluene + DIB-1 are studied herein. Experiments are conducted in a rapid compression machine at compressed pressures varying from 15 to 45 bar and under low to intermediate temperatures. To obtain insights into interactions among fuels, the relative proportion of the two neat fuels in the reactive mixtures is systematically varied, while the total fuel mole fraction and equivalence ratio are kept constant. Experimental results demonstrate that ignition delays for neat toluene are more than an order of magnitude longer than those for neat isooctane. Whereas DIB-1 has ignition delays shorter than those for isooctane at higher temperatures, at temperatures lower than 820 K DIB-1 shows a longer ignition delay. Although the ignition delays of binary blends lie in between the two extremes of neat components, the variation of ignition delay with the relative fuel proportion is seen to be highly nonlinear. Especially, a small addition of isooctane or DIB-1 to toluene can result in greatly enhanced reactivity. In addition, the effect of DIB-1 addition to toluene is more significant than the effect of isooctane addition. Furthermore, in the compressed temperature range from 820 to 880 K, ignition delay of the toluene + isooctane blend shows greater sensitivity to temperature than that of isooctane.     

Sulfonated polyaniline–titanium dioxide nanocomposites synthesized by one-pot UV-curable polymerization method

Sulfonated polyaniline–titanium dioxide (SPAni–TiO₂) hybrid composites have been synthesized by using a new strategy in one-pot system of UV-cured polymerization method. Aqueous solution of aniline and orthoanilinic acid comonomers, a free-radical oxidant and titania precursor were irradiated by UV rays. Hydrolysis and reprecipitation of the titania precursor in aqueous aniline and orthoanilic acid lead to the formation of titanium dioxide particles which in turn catalyze oxidation of comonomers to sulfonated polyaniline. The resultant SPAni–TiO₂ composites were characterized by using different spectroscopy analyses like X-ray diffraction, UV–visible (UV–vis) and infrared spectroscopy. The UV–vis absorption bands revealed that SPAni–TiO₂ nanocomposites are optically active and the blue-shifted peaks due to the presence of titania within the SPAni matrix. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy of the nanocomposite showed a uniform size distribution with spherical and granular morphology. Thermogravimetric analysis revealed that the SPAni–TiO₂ composites have a good thermal stability than the pristine SPAni.     

Mechanisms and solutions to gate oxide degradation in flash memory by tunnel-oxide nitridation engineering

Increasing attention has been paid to the peripheral gate-oxide integrity degradation of Flash memory devices that is induced by the tunnel-oxide nitridation. In this letter, the mechanisms of tunnel-oxide nitridation-induced degradation are characterized. We report that both a local oxide thinning effect and nitrogen residue will impact the integrity of gate-oxide. Minimizing the local thinning effect with an in situ steam generation (ISSG) oxidation process and removing the nitrogen residues from the silicon wafer surface by either an additional sacrificial oxide process or over-dip are proven to be useful in recovering the gate-oxide integrity. An optimum approach with the tunnel-oxide nitridation is proposed in this work that results in comparable or even better gate-oxide property than other approaches that have no tunnel-oxide nitridation process.