Very low noise RF nMOSFETs on plastic by substrate thinning and wafer transfer

A very low minimum noise figure (NF/sub min/) of 1.2 dB and a high associated gain of 12.8 dB at 10 GHz were measured for six-finger, 0.18-/spl mu/m radio frequency (RF) metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors mounted on insulating plastic following substrate-thinning (/spl sim/30 /spl mu/m) and wafer transfer. Before this process, the devices had a slightly better RF performance of 1.1-dB NF/sub min/ and a 13.7-dB associated gain. The small RF performance degradation of the active transistors transferred to plastic shows the potential of integrating electronics onto plastic.     

An investigation into the effects of probing and wire bonding stress on the reliability of BOAC

This work describes two types of low stress bonding over active circuit (BOAC) structures applying a finite element analysis. The advantage of improving the chip area utility of the BOAC design is approximately 150–180 μm for each dimension. A 0.13 μm 2 Mb high-speed SRAM with fluorinated silicate glass (FSG) low-k dielectric was combined with these two BOAC structures as the test vehicles to evaluate the impact of the probing and wire bonding stress on the reliability. Initially, a cantilevered probe card was applied to probe the BOAC pads using the typical and the worse probing conditions. Before and after the circuits probing (CP1 and CP2) the experimental results were compared, including the 2 Mb high-speed SRAM yield and wafer bit map data. The difference between the CP1 and CP2 results were negligible for all probing split cells. Next, the cross-section of the BOAC pad under the probing area was investigated following the worst probing condition. In addition, the BOAC pads evaluate the bondability, including the use of ball shear, wire pull and cratering tests. Moreover, all BOAC packaging samples underwent reliability tests, including HTOL, TCT, TST, and HTST. All the bondability and reliability tests passed the criteria for both proposed BOAC structures. Finally, the immunity level of both proposed BOAC pads, for ESD-HBM (human body mode) and ESD-MM (machine mode), differed slightly from the normal pads. No performance degradation was detected. Accordingly, this work shows that both proposed BOAC structures can be used to improve the active chip area utility or save the chip area.     

Parasitic extraction: current state of the art and future trends

With the increase in circuit performance (higher speeds) and density (smaller feature size) in deep submicrometer (DSM) designs, interconnect parasitic effects are increasingly becoming more important. This paper first surveys the state of the art in parasitic extraction for resistance, capacitance, and inductance. The paper then covers other related issues such as interconnect modeling, model order reduction, delay calculation, and signal integrity issues such as crosstalk. Some future trends on parasitic extraction, model reduction and interconnect modeling are discussed and a fairly complete list of references is given     

A Fully Integrated 0.13- μm CMOS Digital Low-IF DBS Satellite Tuner Using a Ring Oscillator-Based Frequency Synthesizer

A low-IF fully integrated tuner for DBS satellite TV applications has been realized in 0.13-mum CMOS. A wideband ring oscillator-based frequency synthesizer having a large frequency step was used to downconvert a cluster of channels to a sliding low-IF frequency, while the second downconversion to baseband was performed in the digital domain. Eliminating the inductors and using a small-area oscillator has reduced both the parasitic magnetic and substrate coupling, allowing single-chip integration of the sensitive tuner and the noisy digital demodulator. A significant reduction in die area was achieved by using a single oscillator to cover the entire satellite TV spectrum, while a noise attenuator was cascaded with the PLL passive loop filter to reduce the equivalent VCO tuning gain. This improves PLL noise and spur performance and allows the on-chip integration of the loop filter. The digital low-IF tuner allows the use of a discrete step AGC loop that results in lower noise figure and higher linearity. Automatic signal path gain and bandwidth digital calibration was realized using replica ring oscillators. Tuner specifications include: 90 dB gain range, 10 dB noise figure at max gain, +25dBm IIP3 at min gain, 1.3deg rms integrated phase noise, <-50dBc spurs, 0.5-W power consumption from dual 1.8/3.3-V supplies, and 1.8times1.2 mm² die area     

Effects of Ni Additions on the Growth of Cu<Subscript>3</Subscript>Sn in High-Lead Solders

In reactions between solders and Cu, additions of minor alloying elements, such as Fe, Co or Ni, to solders often reduce the Cu₃Sn growth rate. Nevertheless, the mechanism for this effect remains unresolved. To provide more experimental observations that are essential for uncovering this mechanism, growth of Cu₃Sn in the reaction between Cu and high-lead solders with or without Ni additions has been studied. The solders used for this study were 10Sn-90Pb and 5Sn-95Pb doped with 0 wt.%, 0.03 wt.%, 0.06 wt.%, 0.1 wt.% or 0.2 wt.% Ni. Reaction conditions included one reflow at 350°C for 2 min and solid-state aging at 160°C for up to 2000 h. The effect of Ni on the growth of Cu₃Sn is discussed in detail based on the experimental results.     

Effect of epitaxial realignment on the leakage behavior of arsenic-implanted,as-deposited polycrystalline Si-on-single crystal Si diodes

When dopants are indiffused from a heavily implanted polycrystalline silicon film deposited on a silicon substrate, high thermal budget annealing can cause the interfacial “native” oxide at the polycrystalline silicon-single crystal silicon interface to break up into oxide clusters, causing epitaxial realignment of the polycrystalline silicon layer with respect to the silicon substrate. Anomalous transient enhanced diffusion occurs during epitaxial realignment and this has adverse effects on the leakage characteristics of the shallow junctions formed in the silicon substrate using this technique. The degradation in the leakage current is mainly due to increased generation-recombination in the depletion region because of defect injection from the interface.     

预混天然气催化燃烧特性

将含有钯、镧、锶、钴和锰的催化剂加载在鄞青石上进行预混天然气催化燃烧．实验表明,催化燃烧温度范围在600～900℃,过低的温度可能导致熄火,过高的温度可能使催化剂失效．在混合气体中,天然气体积分数为6％～12％,在催化剂中钯含量增至γ-Al2O3质量的0．21％及燃空比为8％时,实现了较好的催化燃烧（排放较少）．实验同时证实,在较短的催化载体内,催化燃烧效果较好,载体表面温度较低;在较长的载体内,载体表面温度较高,NOx排放增加．同时,分析了载体内传热传质特性．     

DIRECT OXIDATION OF ETHYLENE TO ACETALDEHYDE IN A HOLLOW FIBER MEMBRANE REACTOR†

A hollow fiber membrane reactor, which resembles a tube-and-shell heat exchanger, was developed for homogeneous catalytic reactions with gas reactants and products. The gas stream flows through the tube side while the reaction takes place in the catalyst solution which fills the shell side. The separation load of product from the catalyst solution can be reduced by using a hollow fiber membrane reactor instead of a conventional bubble column reactor. The reactor operates in a plug-flow pattern with a large mass transfer area per unit volume of catalyst solution

This concept was investigated experimentally using the direct oxidation of ethylene to acetaldehyde reaction in an aqueous solution of palladium (H) chloride-cupric chloride with a silicone rubber membrane reactor and a polypropylene membrane reactor. It was experimentally demonstrated that membrane reactors could achieve higher production rates per unit volume of catalyst than the conventional sparged reactor. The experimental data were in good agreement with the predictions by the mathematical model. The conditions under which the membrane reactor will be more advantageous than the conventional sparged reactors can be readily ascertained with the analytical solution of the simplified membrane reactor model.     

Fractionation studies of palm oil by density gradient

The paper describes a method of fractionating vegetable, animal and fish oils, and in particular palm oil. The method involves addition of a medium comprising two common solvents to the semisolid oils. On centrifugation, the olein and stearin are separated by the medium in the middle. Thirteen media made up from binary combinations of nine solvents, viz. water, propylene glycol, glycerine, methanol, ethanol,n-propanol, isopropanol (IPA), acetone and butanone, are found to be effective in olein-stearin separation. However, only the water/IPA and water/methanol systems have been studied in detail. The aqueous IPA provides a higher yield of olein than water/ methanol but intersolubility between oil and medium is also greater. The fractionation process can be carried out at any suitable temperature. Fractionation of the special prime bleached (SPB) palm oil at 16 C yields an olein with a cloud point of 4.8 C. Some hybrid palm oils produce a large quantity of low cloud point olein which can be bleached readily. The process can be extended to include degumming and neutralization by using an alkaline medium for centrifugation. The olein fractions obtained have been found to be free of phosphatides and the free fatty acids reduced to as low as 0.02%. Metal-scavenging agents have also been added to the medium in an attempt to remove copper and iron. The development of this process into a continuous one has been demonstrated on the AlfaLaval LAPX 202 Separator. Fractionation of crude palm oil using a density gradient provides seven fractions of different characteristics. The iodine values vary from 37.5 to 57.4 and the unsaturated fatty acids range from 32.7% to 51.2%. Triglyceride analysis by carbon numbers shows great differences in the C₄₈ and C₅₂ constituents of the fractions. aThe volume ratio of oil to medium in each case was 1:1. The separation involved the oil and wax.