• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.280-288
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• 2016

Microelectronic product consumers may already be expecting another paradigm shift with smarter phones over smart phones, but the current status of microelectronic manufacturing engineering education (MMEE) in universities hardly makes up the pace for such a fast moving technology paradigm shift. The purpose of MMEE is to educate four-year university graduates to work in the microelectronics industry with up-to-date knowledge and self-motivation. In this paper, we present a comprehensive curriculum for a four-year university degree program in the area of microelectronics manufacturing. Three hands-on experienced-based courses are proposed, along with a methodology for undergraduate students to acquire hands-on experience, towards integrated circuits (ICs) design, fabrication and packaging, are presented in consideration of manufacturing engineering education. Semiconductor device and circuit design course for junior level is designed to cover how designed circuits progress to micro-fabrication by practicing full customization of the layout of digital circuits. Hands-on experienced-based semiconductor fabrication courses are composed to enhance students’ motivation to participate in self-motivated semiconductor fab activities by performing a series of collaborations. Finally, the Microelectronics Packaging course provides greater possibilities of mastered skillsets in the area of microelectronics manufacturing with the fabrication of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and board level assembly for microprocessor applications. The evaluation of the presented comprehensive curriculum was performed with a students’ survey. All the students responded with “Strongly Agree” or “Agree” for the manufacturing related courses. Through the development and application of the presented curriculum for the past six years, we are convinced that students’ confidence in obtaining their desired jobs or choosing higher degrees in the area of microelectronics manufacturing was increased. We confirmed that the hypothesis on the inclusion of handson experience-based courses for MMEE is beneficial to enhancing the motivation for learning.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.184-196
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• 2020

In this paper, a single-bit 2nd-order delta-sigma modulator with the architecture of cascaded-of-integrator feedforward (CIFF) is proposed for precision measurement of current flowing through a secondary cell battery in a battery management system (BMS). The proposed modulator implements two switched capacitor integrators and a single-bit comparator with peripheral circuits such as a non-overlapping clock generator and a bias circuit. The proposed structure is designed to be applied to low-side current sensing method with low common mode input voltage. Using the low-side current measurement method has the advantage of reducing the burden on the circuit design. In addition, the ±30mV input voltage is resolved by the ADC with 15-bit resolution, eliminating the need for an additional programmable gain amplifier (PGA). The proposed a single-bit 2nd-order delta-sigma modulator has been implemented in a 350-nm CMOS process. It achieves 95.46-dB signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR), 96.01-dB spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR), and 15.56-bit effective-number-of-bits (ENOB) with an oversampling ratio (OSR) of 400 for 5-kHz bandwidth. The area and power consumption of the delta-sigma modulator are 670×490 ㎛2 and 414 ㎼, respectively.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.42 no.11
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• pp.9-16
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• 2005

This paper proposes a programmable PLL (phase locked loop) based clock generator supporting a wide-range-frequency input and output for high performance and low power SoC with multiple clock frequencies domains. The propose system reduces the locking time and obtains a wide range operation frequency by using a dual-charge pumps scheme. For low power operation of a chip, the locking processing circuits of the proposed PLL doesn't be working in the standby mode but the locking data are retained by the DAC. Also, a tracking ADC is designed for the fast relocking operation after stand-by mode exit. The programmable output frequency selection's circuit are designed for supporting a optimized DFS operation according to job tasks. The proposed PLL-based clock system has a relock time range of $0.85{\mu}sec{\sim}1.3{\mu}sec$($24\~26$cycle) with 2.3V power supply, which is fabricated on $0.35{\mu}m$ CMOS Process. At power-down mode, PLL power saves more than $95\%$ of locking mode. Also, the PLL using programmable divider has a wide locking range ($81MHz\~556MHz$) for various clock domains on a multiple IPs system.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.149-155
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• 2015

This paper proposes 5-MS/s 10-bit digital-to-analog converter(DAC) with the improved linearity. The proposed DAC consists of a 10-bit R-2R-based DAC, an output buffer using a differential voltage amplifier with rail-to-rail input range, and a band-gap reference circuit for the bias voltage. The linearity of the 10-bit R-2R DAC is improved as the resistor of 2R is implemented by including the turn-on resistance of an inverter for a switch. The output voltage range of the DAC is determined to be $2/3{\times}VDD$ from an rail-to-rail output voltage range of the R-2R DAC using a differential voltage amplifier in the output buffer. The proposed DAC is implemented using a 1-poly 8-metal 130nm CMOS process with 1.2-V supply. The measured dynamic performance of the implemented DAC are the ENOB of 9.4 bit, SNDR of 58 dB, and SFDR of 63 dBc. The measured DNL and INL are less than +/-0.35 LSB. The area and power consumption of DAC are $642.9{\times}366.6{\mu}m^2$ and 2.95 mW, respectively.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.122-130
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• 2013

This work proposes a 12b 100MS/s 45nm CMOS four-step pipeline ADC for high-speed digital communication systems requiring high resolution, low power, and small size. The input SHA employs a gate-bootstrapping circuit to sample wide-band input signals with an accuracy of 12 bits or more. The input SHA and MDACs adopt two-stage op-amps with a gain-boosting technique to achieve the required DC gain and high signal swing range. In addition, cascode and Miller frequency-compensation techniques are selectively used for wide bandwidth and stable signal settling. The cascode current mirror minimizes current mismatch by channel length modulation and supply variation. The finger width of current mirrors and amplifiers is laid out in the same size to reduce device mismatch. The proposed supply- and temperature-insensitive current and voltage references are implemented on chip with optional off-chip reference voltages for various system applications. The prototype ADC in a 45nm CMOS demonstrates the measured DNL and INL within 0.88LSB and 1.46LSB, respectively. The ADC shows a maximum SNDR of 61.0dB and a maximum SFDR of 74.9dB at 100MS/s, respectively. The ADC with an active die area of $0.43mm^2$ consumes 29.8mW at 100MS/s and a 1.1V supply.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.91-105
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• 2016

Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistors (CNTFETs) have been studied as candidates for post Si CMOS owing to the better electrostatic control and high mobility. To enhance the immunity against short - channel effects (SCEs), the novel channel and gate engineered architectures have been proposed to improve CNTFETs performance. This work presents a comprehensive study of the influence of channel and gate engineering on the CNTFET switching, high frequency and circuit level performance of carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNTFETs). At device level, the effects of channel and gate engineering on the switching and high frequency characteristics for CNTFET have been theoretically investigated by using a quantum kinetic model. This model is based on two-dimensional non-equilibrium Green's functions (NEGF) solved self - consistently with Poisson's equations. It is revealed that hetero - material - gate and lightly doped drain and source CNTFET (HMG - LDDS - CNTFET) structure can significantly reduce leakage current, enhance control ability of the gate on channel, improve the switching speed, and is more suitable for use in low power, high frequency circuits. At circuit level, using the HSPICE with look - up table(LUT) based Verilog - A models, the impact of the channel and gate engineering on basic digital circuits (inverter, static random access memory cell) have been investigated systematically. The performance parameters of circuits have been calculated and the optimum metal gate workfunction combinations of ${\Phi}_{M1}/{\Phi}_{M2}$ have been concluded in terms of power consumption, average delay, stability, energy consumption and power - delay product (PDP). In addition, we discuss and compare the CNTFET-based circuit designs of various logic gates, including ternary and binary logic. Simulation results indicate that LDDS - HMG - CNTFET circuits with ternary logic gate design have significantly better performance in comparison with other structures.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.47-51
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• 2013

A high power MOSFET switch based on a 0.35 ${\mu}m$ CMOS process has been developed for the protection IC of a rechargeable battery. In this process, a vertical double diffused MOS (VDMOS) using 3 ${\mu}m$-thick epi-taxy layer is integrated with a Zener diode. The p-n+Zener diode is fabricated on top of the VDMOS and used to protect the VDMOS from high voltage switching and electrostatic discharge voltage. A fully integrated digital circuit with power devices has also been developed for a rechargeable battery. The experiment indicates that both breakdown voltage and leakage current depend on the doping concentration of the Zener diode. The dependency of the breakdown voltage on doping concentration is in a trade-off relationship with that of the leakage current. The breakdown voltage is obtained to exceed 14 V and the leakage current is controlled under 0.5 ${\mu}A$. The proposed integrated module with the application of the power MOSFET indicates the high performance of the protection IC, where the overcharge delay time and detection voltage are controlled within 1.1 s and 4.2 V, respectively.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.447-458
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• 2003

A high speed multiplier is essential basic building block for digital signal processors today. Typically iterative algorithms in Signal processing applications are realized which need a large number of multiply, add and accumulate operations. This paper describes a macro block of a parallel structured multiplier which has adopted a 32$\times$32-b regularly structured tree (RST). To improve the speed of the tree part, modified partial product generation method has been devised at architecture level. This reduces the 4 levels of compression stage to 3 levels, and propagation delay in Wallace tree structure by utilizing 4-2 compressor as well. Furthermore, this enables tree part to be combined with four modular block to construct a CSA tree (carry save adder tree). Therefore, combined with four modular block to construct a CSA tree (carry save adder tree). Therefore, multiplier architecture can be regularly laid out with same modules composed of Booth selectors, compressors and Modified Partial Product Generators (MPPG). At the circuit level new Booth selector with less transistors and encoder are proposed. The reduction in the number of transistors in Booth selector has a greater impact on the total transistor count. The transistor count of designed selector is 9 using PTL(Pass Transistor Logic). This reduces the transistor count by 50% as compared with that of the conventional one. The designed multiplier in 0.25${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ technology, 2.5V, 1-poly and 5-metal CMOS process is simulated by Hspice and Epic. Delay is 4.2㎱ and average power consumes 1.81㎽/MHz. This result is far better than conventional multiplier with equal or better than the best one published.