Reduction of loading effect by tungsten etchback in a magneticallyenhanced reactive ion etcher

The plug loading effect occurring during the etchback of tungsten was investigated in a magnetically enhanced reactive ion etcher using SF ₆/Ar mixtures. It was found that while the plug loading effect is independent of varying SF₆/Ar flow rate ratio and magnetic field intensity, it is reduced under the condition of high selectivity of tungsten relative to TiN which was achieved at high chamber pressure and low RF power. It is proposed that when TiN is used as a glue layer, the W etch rate enhancement in the plug is mainly controlled by a local loading effect. Under the optimized etchback conditions the plug loss was successfully controlled without the tungsten residue left on severe topology     

Si/SiGe epitaxial-base transistors. I. Materials, physics, andcircuits

A detailed review of SiGe epitaxial base technology is presented, which chronicles the progression of research from materials deposition through device and integration demonstrations, culminating in the first SiGe integrated circuit application. In part I of this paper, the requirements and processes for high-quality SiGe film preparation are discussed, with emphasis on fundamental principles. A detailed overview of SiGe HBT device design and implications for circuit applications is then presented     

Broadcast digital subscriber lines

The adoption of asymmetrical digital subscriber lines (ADSL) technology in conjunction with the broadcast digital subscriber lines (BDSL) proposed in this paper could provide a cost effective solution for the introduction of digital video services in the near term. BDSL provides the same digital broadcast video programs to all subscribers through existing twisted pair telephone loops. In this paper, the basics of telephone loop-based digital subscriber lines are first discussed. Then the potential of BDSL is explored in the twisted pair loop plant near end crosstalk (NEXT), far end crosstalk (FEXT), and white noise environment. The capability of BDSL is examined with different serving areas and transmit power levels. The possibility of using orthogonal quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) to implement a zero guard-band BDSL system is studied. Computer BDSL performance simulations are then presented. The combination of high-bit-rate digital subscriber lines (HDSL), ADSL, and BDSL can provide telephone subscribers many digital broadband services     

Mine operating accurate stability control with optical fibersensing and Bragg grating technology: the European BRITE/EURAM STABILOSproject

Recent developments of stability control in mines, essentially based on Ge-doped fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) are reported including results about the different aspects of the system: accurate characterizations of FBG, sensor network topology and multiplexing method, user interface design and sensor packaging     

2-D dopant profiling in VLSI devices using dopant-selectiveetching: an atomic force microscopy study

We report a detailed mapping of a 2-D dopant profile on a fully processed industrial sample with large dynamic range and high spatial resolution by utilizing a dopant-selective etching process and Atomic Force Microscopy. The experimental results show excellent agreement with those obtained from SRP and SIMS as corroborative methods. We also discuss the most critical factors which influence the applicability, reproducibility, and reliability of this method     

Transient simulation of heterojunction photodiodes-part II:analysis of resonant cavity enhanced photodetectors

The high-speed response properties of resonant cavity enhanced (RCE) photodetectors have been investigated. The limitations on the high-speed performance of photodiodes and the advantages of RCE-detection are discussed. Transient response of heterojunction photodiodes under pulsed optical illumination has been simulated using the method described in Part I. Results on conventional AlGaAs/GaAs and RCE GaAs/InGaAs heterojunction p-i-n photodiodes are presented. For small area detectors, almost 50% bandwidth improvement along with a two-fold increase in efficiency is predicted for RCE devices over optimized conventional photodiodes. A nearly three-fold enhancement in the bandwidth-efficiency product was shown     

Early detection of ageing in solder joints through laser probe thermal analysis of the peltier effect

We have recently developed an optical contactless method for testing the quality of solder joints during accelerated thermal cycling ageing processes.¹ The method was based upon the measurement of the dynamic thermal behaviour of the joint to short bursts of Joule heating. It has proved to be efficient in revealing the formation of cracks at the lead-solder interface. We present a method to evaluate ageing at a much earlier stage in the cycling process. We have observed in earlier work,¹ that before cracks appear, structural changes occur in the solder at the lead-solder interface. The thermal response of the solder joint is recorded over time to a Peltier heat perturbation produced by flowing a current pulse through the interface where structural changes occur. The key point in this method is to discriminate the Peltier effect from the Joule thermal response because both effects generate heat. The variation of the early Peltier response in the thermal cycling ageing tests is seen as a quantitative signature of the structural changes in the lead-solder interface.     

Optimality of the sequential probability ratio test fornonstationary observations

Bayesian analysis is used to show that Wald's sequential probability ratio test with varying thresholds is optimal for the nonstationary situation, where the observed samples are independent but not identically distributed. Some important properties useful for the design of the test thresholds are discussed. Wald's lower bound, generalized to the nonstationary situation, is also presented. The results have important applications in situations where the observed signal is time-varying. such as in radar signal processing, image processing, and spread spectrum communications