Fully Depleted

We have combined the benefits of the fully depleted TriGate transistor architecture with high-k gate dielectrics, metal gate electrodes and strain engineering. High performance NMOS and PMOS trigate transistors are demonstrated with I DSAT =1.4mA/um and 1.1mA/um respectively (I OFF =100nA/um, V CC =1.1V and L G =40nm) with excellent short channel effects (SCE) -DIBL and subthreshold swing, ∆S. The contributions of strain, the <100> vs. <110> substrate orientations, high-k gate dielectrics, and low channel doping are investigated for a variety of channel dimensions and FIN profiles. We observe no evidence of early parasitic corner transistor turn-on in the current devices which can potentially degrade I ON -I OFF and ∆S.

Fully-depleted (FD) tri-gate CMOS transistors with 60 nm physical gate lengths on SOI substrates have been fabricated. These devices consist of a top and two side gates on an insulating layer. The transistors show near-ideal subthreshold gradient and excellent DIBL behavior, and have drive current characteristics greater than any non-planar devices reported so far, for correctly-targeted threshold voltages. The tri-gate devices also demonstrate full depletion at silicon body dimensions approximately 1.5-2 times greater than either single gate SOI or non-planar double-gate SOI for similar gate lengths, indicating that these devices are easier to fabricate using the conventional fabrication tools. Comparing tri-gate transistors to conventional bulk CMOS device at the same technology node, these non-planar devices are found to be competitive with similarly-sized bulk CMOS transistors. Furthermore, three-dimensional (3-D) simulations of tri-gate transistors with transistor gate lengths down to 30 nm show that the 30 nm tri-gate device remains fully depleted, with near-ideal subthreshold swing and excellent short channel characteristics, suggesting that the tri-gate transistor could pose a viable alternative to bulk transistors in the near future.

The aim of the present work is to systematically investigate the response and stability of commercial GaAs devices in the 200–400 nm UV range with a view to establishing their potentiality in imaging devices. The irradiation results of GaAs detectors with various geometries are presented and discussed. The detectors were reverse biased in fully depleted condition and in partially depleted condition (5 V reverse bias) in order to investigate the possibilities of integration with the standard bias values of read-out-integrated circuits. The results show that fabrication technology for nondedicated devices is still immature.

The fully depleted PN-CCD detector is meanwhile field-tested in several experiments on ground and in space. Its application as focal plane detector aboard ESA's XMM-Newton observatory can be considered as the most impressive one. The further development of this detector type including its readout chip in the MPI semiconductor laboratory is presented here. The new device, called frame store PN-CCD, shows substantial improvement of performance, in particular concerning the energy resolution and the probability of out of time event occurrence. Moreover, the detector offers features which are of great importance for its application in space. This is, besides the radiation hardness of the CCD, the variety of feasible pixel sizes and the high frame rates in combination with the small power consumption of the detector. Because of the thin radiation entrance window and the full depletion of the chip, the detector provides a high quantum efficiency for soft X-rays as well as for optical light and the near infrared. The frame store PN-CCD detector will be applied for the proposed X-ray astronomy missions DUO and ROSITA.

A 6;6 cm large X-ray CCD has been developed and fabricated at the Semiconductor Laboratory of the Max-Planck-Institut fuK r Extraterrestrische Physik. The CCD has been designed for the focal plane cameras of two satellite missions. The concept is a fully depleted pn-CCD which is sensitive over the whole wafer thickness of about 300 m. It has been especially developed for X-ray detection delivering a high quantum e$ciency over the energy range between 0.2 and 15 keV. A production yield of 27% was achieved. Seven good (almost) defect-free wafers were produced within the performance requirements, i.e. for temperatures below 180 K they show a homogeneous noise level smaller than 5 e\, a uniform spectral response with an energy resolution of 130 eV for Mn-K and a reduction of the sensitive area due to defects by less than 0.3%. Three CCDs have now been integrated in the #ight cameras. The presentation comprises special aspects related with the fabrication of very large CCDs, a summary of the performance parameters and results of the quali"cation procedure of the European and German Space Agencies.

The Dark Energy Survey makes use of a new camera, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). DECam will be installed in the Blanco 4M telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). DECam is presently under construction and is expected to be ready for observations in the fall of 2011. The focal plane will make use of 62 2Kx4K and 12 2kx2k fully depleted Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) for guiding, alignment and focus. This paper will describe design considerations of the system; including, the entire signal path used to read out the CCDs, the development of a custom crate and backplane, the overall grounding scheme and early results of system tests.

The goal of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) is to measure the dark energy equation of state parameter with four complementary techniques: galaxy cluster counts, weak lensing, angular power spectrum and type Ia supernovae. DES will survey a 5000 sq. degrees area of the sky in five filter bands using a new 3 deg2 mosaic camera (DECam) mounted at the prime focus of the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro-Tololo International Observatory (CTIO). DECam is a ~520 megapixel optical CCD camera that consists of 62 2k x 4k science sensors plus 4 2k x 2k sensors for guiding. The CCDs, developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and packaged and tested at Fermilab, have been selected to obtain images efficiently at long wavelengths. A front-end electronics system has been developed specifically to perform the CCD readout. The system is based in Monsoon, an open source image acquisition system designed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). The electronics consists mainly of three types of modules: Control, Acquisition and Clock boards. The system provides a total of 132 video channels, 396 bias levels and around 1000 clock channels in order to readout the full mosaic at 250 kpixel/s speed with 10 e-noise performance. System configuration and data acquisition is done by means of six 0.8 Gbps optical links. The production of the whole system is currently underway. The contribution will focus on the testing, calibration and general performance of the full system in a realistic environment.

An imaging Pixel Array Detector (PAD) is being developed to record x-ray scattering images from single particles at the SLAC Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) x-ray free electron laser. The LCLS will deliver x-ray pulses of 5 -200 femtosecond duration 120 times per second. Proposed experiments require that the scatter from each pulse be independently recorded. This necessitates a detector with a charge integrating front-end because the high instantaneous arrival rate of photons (> 1000 photons per pixel in femtoseconds) exceeds the processing speed capabilities of digital counting detectors. Other capabilities of the PAD are a frame rate >120 Hz, a full-well depth in excess of 2000 8-keV photons, a detective quantum efficiency near unity, and the ability to readily differentiate between 0 and 1 photons per pixel. The detector will be a 4x4 array of subunit tiles. Each tile consists of two silicon chips solder-bump bonded together. A pixelated 500 micron thick, fully depleted silicon chip converts x-ray energy into charge carriers. The charge created is conveyed by solder connecting bumps to a CMOS ASIC in which each pixel has its own signal processing electronics. Each tile has ~190 x 190 pixels, resulting in a detector of > 760 x 760 pixels. Tests of prototype 16x16 readout pixel arrays show a read noise equivalent to 0.14 8-keV photons. Features of the detector include an inpixel parallel 14-bit digitization scheme, and the capability to be configured with an adaptable, 2-level, 2D gain profile. The development of the read-out electronics and the effects of tiling on dead area are also discussed.

Radiation induced defects in silicon diodes were investigated after exposure to high doses of Co-60 gamma irradiation, using Deep Level Transient Fourier Spectroscopy and Thermally Stimulated Current methods. The main focus was on differences between standard and oxygen enriched material and the impact of the observed defect generation on the diode properties. Two close to mid gap trapping levels and a bi-stable donor level have been characterized as function of dose. These defects explain the main macroscopic deterioration effects both in standard and oxygen enriched float zone diodes. Radiation damage effects in silicon detectors under severe hadron-and !ñirradiation are surveyed, focusing on bulk effects. Both macroscopic detector properties (reverse current, depletion voltage and charge collection) as also the underlying microscopic defect generation are covered. Basic results are taken from the work done in the CERN-RD48 (ROSE) collaboration updated by results of recent work. Preliminary studies on the use of dimerized float zone and Czochralski silicon as detector material show possible benefits. An essential progress in the understanding of the radiation induced detector deterioration had recently been achieved in gamma irradiation, directly correlating defect analysis data with the macroscopic detector performance.

Low power VLSI design has become increasingly important with the growth of portable electronics, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and large-scale computing infrastructures. Energy efficiency directly impacts battery life, system reliability, thermal management, and operational costs. This research paper reviews advanced techniques in low power VLSI design, covering innovations across device-level technologies, circuit-level optimizations, and architectural approaches. Key techniques such as FinFET and Gate-All-Around transistors, Multi-Threshold CMOS, Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), clock gating, power gating, and 3D integrated circuits are discussed. Additionally, AI-driven design optimization and memory power reduction techniques are explored. The paper highlights how these approaches collectively enable significant reductions in power consumption while maintaining high performance and reliability in modern semiconductor systems.

This paper presents a parameter extraction and optimization method of an EKV model implementation in MATLAB. Open source modules provide direct access to model equations and parameters. Thus, parameters can be easily extracted and characteristics optimized for circuit design purposes. Validation against conventional BSIM3v3 model for AMS 0.35 μm CMOS technology is performed and a good agreement is observed.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an operating optical survey aimed at understanding the accelerating expansion of the universe using four complementary methods: weak gravitational lensing, galaxy cluster counts, baryon acoustic oscillations, and Type Ia supernovae. To perform the 5000 sq-degree wide field and 30 sq-degree supernova surveys, the DES Collaboration built the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a 3 square-degree, 570-Megapixel CCD camera that was installed at the prime focus of the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). DES has completed its third observing season out of a nominal five. This paper describes DES “Year 1” (Y1) to “Year 3” (Y3), the strategy, an outline of the survey operations procedures, the efficiency of operations and the causes of lost observing time. It provides details about the quality of the first three season&#39;s data, and describes how we are adjusting the survey strategy in the face of the El Niño Southern Osci...

Report presenting an analysis of a number of free-flight transient responses resulting from small stabilizer movements obtained during testing of the Bell X-1 airplane to obtain its longitudinal stability characteristics. A comparison of flight data and model test data is also provided.

Two low-acceleration transonic-flutter vehicles were launched and flown. The first carried two test wings, one of which fluttered at M = 0.92 at a frequency of 61.4 cycles per second. The reference flutter speed determined from two-dimensional theory for an unswept wing in incompressible flow is conservative when compared to the experimental flutter speed. The second vehicle carried two test wings, one of which failed at M = 0.71 because of low-frequency divergent oscillation. Since this failure was not caused by conventional flexure-torsion flutter, no comparison with a reference flutter speed can be made.

Report presenting testing of a low-acceleration transonic flutter test vehicle to obtain flutter data on two similar sweptback wings which indicated that wing flutter was symmetrical in mode. Results regarding flight and flutter characteristics for the FR-1-B are provided.

SUCIMA (Silicon Ultra fast Cameras for electron and γ sources In Medical Applications) is a project approved by the European Commission with the primary goal of developing a real time dosimeter based on direct detection in a Silicon substrate. The main applications, the detector characteristics and technologies and the data acquisition system are described.

A 1024-bit, ½-rate fully parallel low-density parity-check (LDPC) code decoder has been designed and implemented using a three-dimensional (3D) 0.18 m fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) CMOS technology based on wafer bonding. The 3D-IC decoder was implemented with about 8M transistors, placed on three tiers, each with one active layer and three metal layers, using 6.9mm by 7.0mm of die area. It was simulated to have a 2Gbps throughput, and consume only 260mW. This first large-scale 3D application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with fine-grain (5 m) vertical interconnects is made possible by jointly developing a complete automated 3D design flow from a commercial 2-D design flow combined with the needed 3D-design tools. The 3D implementation is estimated to offer more than 10x power-delay-area product improvement over its corresponding 2D implementation. The work demonstrated the benefits of fine-grain 3D integration for interconnect-heavy very-large-scale digital ASIC implementation.

A 1024-bit, ½-rate fully parallel low-density parity-check (LDPC) code decoder has been designed and implemented using a three-dimensional (3D) 0.18 m fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) CMOS technology based on wafer bonding. The taped-out 3D decoder with about 8M transistors was simulated to have a high throughput of 2Gb/s and a low power consumption of only 430mW using 6.4 m by 6.3 m of die area. The 3D implementation is estimated to offer more than 10x power-delay-area product improvement over its corresponding 2D implementation. This first large-scale 3D ASIC with fine-grain (5 m) vertical interconnects is made possible by jointly developing a complete automated 3D design flow from a commercial 2-D design flow combined with the needed 3D-design point tools.

In this paper, CASCADE---a standard super-cell based design methodology, its supporting automated design flow, and associated design tools, are presented for three-dimensional (3D) implementations of a class of interconnect-heavy application-specific very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuits. In CASCADE, a system is first partitioned and synthesized using standard 2D design tools to a set of super-cells with the same height and varying width. With this, the 3D design is reduced to 3D super-cell placement and 3D via assignment. A congestion-driven simulated annealing method is used to find a 3D placement of super-cells to minimize the total wire length, the longest wire, the number of 3D vias and routing density. To efficiently estimate the routing density of a 3D grid space within the optimization loop, a simple probabilistic congestion model with an incremental congestion computation has been developed. Once the super-cell placement is fixed, the problem of assigning 3D-vias to accomplish minimal 2D routing densities and uniform 3D via distribution is solved by an efficient min-cost max-flow method. The proposed methods have been implemented and tested on a set of ISPD98 circuit benchmarks. Experimental results have shown that the proposed congestion-driven 3D super-cell placement and flow-based 3D via assignment tools have yielded satisfactory placement with small area, low-congestion, short wire length, few and uniformly distributed 3D vias. Further, an excellent correlation between routing density estimation by our model and the actual routing performed by a commercial router has been observed. We have applied the proposed 3D design methodology, tools, and flows to tape out an over 4-million-gate Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) decoder in a 3-tier 0.18µm FDSOI 3D CMOS process manufactured by MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The post-layout simulation of this DRC-clean layout design showed an about 10× improvement on the power-delay-area product compared to a 2D implementation in the same process.

In international business, communication issues rarely originate from a lack of technology. Modern tools are widely available, affordable, and technically reliable. The real challenges emerge much earlier -at the moment when a potential client decides whether to reach out, respond, or continue a conversation. Distance, unfamiliar formats, and perceived complexity often create silent barriers that stop interaction before it begins. A Philippine virtual phone number exists independently of physical infrastructure. It is not tied to a SIM card, device, or geographic location. Instead, it operates through VoIP architecture, routing calls and SMS via the internet to predefined endpoints such as mobile apps, desktop systems, or internal communication platforms. This design separates identity from location. The phone number represents the business, not a person or a device. Calls can be received on multiple endpoints, forwarded dynamically, or distributed across teams without changing the number visible to clients. From the outside, communication appears stable and continuous. Internally, it remains flexible and adaptable. This structure solves several long-standing problems at once. It removes reliance on individual employees' phones. It eliminates the need for physical SIM management. It allows communication to continue uninterrupted even when teams change locations or working schedules. Most importantly, it centralizes control. The business owns the communication channel rather than borrowing it from devices or telecom contracts. Because the number is virtual, it can be integrated into broader systems. Call logs, message histories, and routing rules can be managed centrally. Communication becomes measurable, auditable, and scalable. These characteristics are not tied to a specific industry or moment in time. They reflect a shift from ad hoc communication toward structured, system-driven interaction.

In this study, a comparison of 5 nm PDSOI and FDSOI n-MOSFETs with SiO₂ and high-k gate dielectrics is carried out using Silvaco TCAD ATLAS platform with necessary models. SOI architectures (PDSOI/FDSOI) offer enhanced electrostatic control compared to bulk CMOS, which suffers from threshold instability, SCEs and leakage near the 20 nm node. In this scaling, various high-k dielectric materials were explored for gate oxide. Among those, Ta₂O₅ shows comparatively much better results with respect to the optimized SiO₂-gated device of the same SOI architecture. The PDSOI device showed 39.15% lower Threshold Voltage (Vₜₕ), 26.5% improved Subthreshold-Swing (SS), leakage current (Iₒ𝒻𝒻) of 2.17 × 10⁻¹⁰ A, and Iₒₙ/Iₒ𝒻𝒻 ratio of 1.64 × 10⁶, making it suitable for analog and near-threshold logic applications. The FDSOI device exhibited closely unchanged Vₜₕ of 0.6604 V, 34% improved SS, ultra-low Iₒ𝒻𝒻 of 1.69 × 10⁻¹³ A and Iₒₙ/Iₒ𝒻𝒻 ratio 7.41 × 10⁹ favoring use in high-speed and ultra-low-leakage digital systems. This paper gives valuable insight and guidelines for selecting optimal SOI architectures and gate dielectric materials in future ultra-scaled, energy-efficient, and high-performance integrated circuits.

This work proposes a body-biasing technique to optimize Vmin of the 6T-SRAM based on 5nm-node multi-Vt FD-SOI devices. Accounting for the process variation, the operating voltage, Vmin, is estimated at 6-sigma yield. By properly selecting the back bias, the lowest Vmin is achieved for each of the three operation modes for 6T-SRAM application. Thus, this proposed technique offers a design flexibility for optimizing the SRAM performance and yield by adjusting the back bias without complicated process technology requirements.

A process/physics-based compact model (UFDG) for nonclassical MOSFETs having ultrathin Si bodies (UTB) is overviewed. The model, in essence, is a compact Poisson-Schrödinger solver, including accountings for short-channel effects, and is applicable to nanoscale fully depleted (FD) SOI MOSFETs as well as generic double-gate (DG) devices. The utility of UFDG in nonclassical CMOS device design, as well as circuit design, is stressed, and demonstrated by using it in Spice3 to design UTB MOSFETs and to project extremely scaled DG and FD/SOI CMOS performances. Also, calibration of UFDG to fabricated FinFETs yields new physical insights about these potentially viable nanoscale DG devices, and about model requirements for them.