• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
• /
• v.49 no.7
• /
• pp.23-29
• /
• 2012

The LC-based digitally controlled oscillator (LC-DCO), a key component of the all digital phase locked loop (ADPLL), is designed using $0.18{\mu}m$ RFCMOS process with 1.8 V supply. The NMOS core with double cross-coupled pair is chosen to realize wide tuning range, and the PMOS varactor pair that has small capacitance of a few aF and the capacitive degeneration technique to shrink the capacitive element are adopted to obtain the high frequency resolution. Also, the noise filtering technique is used to improve phase noise performance. Measurement results show the center frequency of 2.7 GHz, the tuning range of 2.5 GHz and the high frequency resolution of 2.9 kHz ~7.1 kHz. Also the fine tuning range and the current consumption of the core could be controlled by using the array of PMOS transistors using current biasing. The current consumption is between 17 mA and 26 mA at 1.8V supply voltage. The proposed DCO could be used widely in various communication system.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.96-103
• /
• 2022

This paper presents the analysis of increasing the resolution of True-Time-Delay (TTD) by 0.5-bit for phased-array antenna system which is one of the Multiple-Input and Multiple Output (MIMO) technologies. For the analysis, a 5.5-bit True-Time Delay (TTD) integrated circuit is designed and analyzed in terms of beam steering performance. In order to increase the number of effective bits, the designed 5.5-bit TTD uses Single Pole Triple Throw (SP3T) and Double Pole Triple Throw (DP3T) switches, and this method can minimize the circuit area by inserting the minimum time delay of 0.5-bit. Furthermore, the circuit mostly maintains the performance of the circuit with the fully added bits. The idea of adding 0.5-bit is verified by analyzing the relation between the number of bits and array elements. The 5.5-bit TTD is designed using 0.18 ㎛ RF CMOS process and the estimated size of the designed circuit excluding the pad is 0.57×1.53 mm². In contrast to the conventional phase shifter which has distortion of scanning angle known as beam squint phenomenon, the proposed TTD circuit has constant time delays for all states across a wide frequency range of 4 - 20 GHz with minimized power consumption. The minimum time delay is designed to have 1.1 ps and 2.2 ps for the 0.5-bit option and the normal 1-bit option, respectively. A simulation for beam patterns where the 10 phased-array antenna is assumed at 10 GHz confirms that the 0.5-bit concept suppresses the pointing error and the relative power error by up to 1.5 degrees and 80 mW, respectively, compared to the conventional 5-bit TTD circuit.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.02a
• /
• pp.410-410
• /
• 2013

Next-generation nonvolatile memory (NVM) has attracted increasing attention about emerging NVMs such as ferroelectric random access memory, phase-change random access memory, magnetic random access memory and resistance random access memory (RRAM). Previous studies have demonstrated that RRAM is promising because of its excellent properties, including simple structure, high speed and high density integration. Many research groups have reported a lot of metal oxides as resistive materials like TiO2, NiO, SrTiO3 and ZnO [1]. Among them, the ZnO-based film is one of the most promising materials for RRAM because of its good switching characteristics, reliability and high transparency [2]. However, in many studies about ZnO-based RRAMs, there was a problem to get lower current level for reducing the operating power dissipation and improving the device reliability such an endurance and an retention time of memory devices. Thus in this paper, we investigated that highly reproducible bipolar resistive switching characteristics of W doped ZnO RRAM device and it showed low resistive switching current level and large ON/OFF ratio. This may be caused by the interdiffusion of the W atoms in the ZnO film, whch serves as dopants, and leakage current would rise resulting in the lowering of current level [3]. In this work, a ZnO film and W doped ZnO film were fabricated on a Si substrate using RF magnetron sputtering from ZnO and W targets at room temperature with Ar gas ambient, and compared their current levels. Compared with the conventional ZnO-based RRAM, the W doped ZnO ReRAM device shows the reduction of reset current from ~$10^{-6}$ A to ~$10^{-9}$ A and large ON/OFF ratio of ~$10^3$ along with self-rectifying characteristic as shown in Fig. 1. In addition, we observed good endurance of $10^3$ times and retention time of $10^4$ s in the W doped ZnO ReRAM device. With this advantageous characteristics, W doped ZnO thin film device is a promising candidates for CMOS compatible and high-density RRAM devices.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2012.05a
• /
• pp.68.1-68.1
• /
• 2012

The best part of graphene is - charge-carriers in it are mass less particles which move in near relativistic speeds. Comparing to other materials, electrons in graphene travel much faster - at speeds of $10^8cm/s$. A graphene sheet is pure enough to ensure that electrons can travel a fair distance before colliding. Electronic devices few nanometers long that would be able to transmit charge at breath taking speeds for a fraction of power compared to present day CMOS transistors. Many researches try to check a possibility to make it a perfect replacement for silicon based devices. Graphene has shown high potential to be used as interconnects in the field of high frequency electrical devices. With all those advantages of graphene, we demonstrate characteristics of electrical and optical properties of graphene such as the effect of graphene geometry on the microwave properties using the measurements of S-parameter in range of 500 MHz - 40 GHz at room temperature condition. We confirm that impedance and resistance decrease with increasing the number of graphene layer and w/L ratio. This result shows proper geometry of graphene to be used as high frequency interconnects. This study also presents the optical properties of graphene oxide (GO), which were deposited in different substrate, or influenced by oxygen plasma, were confirmed using different characterization techniques. 4-6 layers of the polycrystalline GO layers, which were confirmed by High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and electron diffraction analysis, were shown short range order of crystallization by the substrate as well as interlayer effect with an increase in interplanar spacing, which can be attributed to the presence of oxygen functional groups on its layers. X-ray photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy confirms the presence of the $sp^2$ and $sp^3$ hybridization due to the disordered crystal structures of the carbon atoms results from oxidation, and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and XPS analysis shows the changes in oxygen functional groups with nature of substrate. Moreover, the photoluminescent (PL) peak emission wavelength varies with substrate and the broad energy level distribution produces excitation dependent PL emission in a broad wavelength ranging from 400 to 650 nm. The structural and optical properties of oxygen plasma treated GO films for possible optoelectronic applications were also investigated using various characterization techniques. HRTEM and electron diffraction analysis confirmed that the oxygen plasma treatment results short range order crystallization in GO films with an increase in interplanar spacing, which can be attributed to the presence of oxygen functional groups. In addition, Electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and Raman spectroscopy confirms the presence of the $sp^2$ and $sp^3$ hybridization due to the disordered crystal structures of the carbon atoms results from oxidation and XPS analysis shows that epoxy pairs convert to more stable C=O and O-C=O groups with oxygen plasma treatment. The broad energy level distribution resulting from the broad size distribution of the $sp^2$ clusters produces excitation dependent PL emission in a broad wavelength range from 400 to 650 nm. Our results suggest that substrate influenced, or oxygen treatment GO has higher potential for future optoelectronic devices by its various optical properties and visible PL emission.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2008.06a
• /
• pp.169-169
• /
• 2008

To keep pace with scaling trends of CMOS technologies, high-k metal oxides are to be introduced. Due to their high permittivity, high-k materials can achieve the required capacitance with stacks of higher physical thickness to reduce the leakage current through the scaled gate oxide, which make it become much more promising materials to instead of $SiO_2$. As further studying on high-k, an understanding of the relation between the etch characteristics of high-k dielectric materials and plasma properties is required for the low damaged removal process to match standard processing procedure. There are some reports on the dry etching of different high-k materials in ICP and ECR plasma with various plasma parameters, such as different gas combinations ($Cl_2$, $Cl_2/BCl_3$, $Cl_2$/Ar, $SF_6$/Ar, and $CH_4/H_2$/Ar etc). Understanding of the complex behavior of particles at surfaces requires detailed knowledge of both macroscopic and microscopic processes that take place; also certain processes depend critically on temperature and gas pressure. The choice of $BCl_3$ as the chemically active gas results from the fact that it is widely used for the etching o the materials covered by the native oxides due to the effective extraction of oxygen in the form of $BCl_xO_y$ compounds. In this study, the surface reactions and the etch rate of $Al_2O_3$ films in $BCl_3/Cl_2$/Ar plasma were investigated in an inductively coupled plasma(ICP) reactor in terms of the gas mixing ratio, RF power, DC bias and chamber pressure. The variations of relative volume densities for the particles were measured with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The surface imagination was measured by AFM and SEM. The chemical states of film was investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), which confirmed the existence of nonvolatile etch byproducts.