• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.697-705
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• 2014

A single chip Programmable AC to DC Power Converter, consisting of wide band gap SiC MOSFET and SiC diodes, has been proposed which converts high frequency ac voltage to a conditioned dc output voltage at user defined given power level. The converter has high conversion efficiency because of negligible reverse recovery current in SiC diode and SiC MOSFET. High frequency operation reduces the need of bigger size inductor. Lead inductors are enough to maintain current continuity. A complete electrical analysis, die area estimation and thermal analysis of the converter has been presented. It has been found that settling time and peak overshoot voltage across the device has reduced significantly when SiC devices are used with respect to Si devices. Reduction in peak overshoot also increases the converter efficiency. The total package substrate dimension of the converter circuit is only $5mm{\times}5mm$. Thermal analysis performed in the paper shows that these devices would be very useful for use as miniaturized power converters for load currents of up to 5-7 amp, keeping the package thermal conductivity limitation in mind. The converter is ideal for voltage requirements for sub-5 V level power supplies for high temperatures and space electronics systems.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.108-113
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• 2013

This paper describes a low power asynchronous successive approximation register (SAR) type 12b analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for biomedical applications in a 0.35 ${\mu}m$ CMOS technology. The digital-to-analog converter (DAC) uses a capacitive split-arrays consisting of 6-b main array, an attenuation capacitor C and a 5-b sub array for low power consumption and small die area. Moreover, splitting the MSB capacitor into sub-capacitors and an asynchronous SAR reduce power consumption. The measurement results show that the proposed ADC achieved the SNDR of 68.32 dB, the SFDR of 79 dB, and the ENOB (effective number of bits) of 11.05 bits. The measured INL and DNL were 1.9LSB and 1.5LSB, respectively. The power consumption including all the digital circuits is 6.7 ${\mu}W$ at the sampling frequency of 100 KHz under 3.3 V supply voltage and the FoM (figure of merit) is 49 fJ/conversion-step.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.52
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• pp.1.1-1.8
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• 2022

As semiconductor device architecture develops, from planar field-effect transistors (FET) to FinFET and gate-all-around (GAA), there is an increased need to measure 3D structure sidewalls precisely. Here, we present a 3-Dimensional Atomic Force Microscope (3D-AFM), a powerful 3D metrology tool to measure the sidewall roughness (SWR) of vertical and undercut structures. First, we measured three different dies repeatedly to calculate reproducibility in die level. Reproducible results were derived with a relative standard deviation under 2%. Second, we measured 13 different dies, including the center and edge of the wafer, to analyze SWR distribution in wafer level and reliable results were measured. All analysis was performed using a novel algorithm, including auto fattening, sidewall detection, and SWR calculation. In addition, SWR automatic analysis software was implemented to reduce analysis time and to provide standard analysis. The results suggest that our 3D-AFM, based on the tilted Z scanner, will enable an advanced methodology for automated 3D measurement and analysis.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.10-16
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• 2019

Semiconductor chip is bonded to the substrate by melting solder bumps. In general, the chip bonding is applied by a Reflow process or a Thermo-Compression(TC) bonding process. In this paper, we introduce a Laser Assisted Thermo-Compression bonding (LATCB) process to improve the anxiety of the existing process(Reflow, TC bonding). In the LATCB process, the chip is bonded to the substrate by irradiating a laser with a uniform energy density in the same area as the chip to melt only the solder bumps and press the chip with a Transparent Compression Module (TCM). The TCM consists of a fused silica header for penetrating the laser and pressurizing the chip, and a piezoelectric actuator (P.A.) coupled to both ends of the header for micro displacement control of the header. In addition, TCM is a structure that can pressurize the chip and deliver it to the chip and solder bumps without losing the energy of the laser. Fused silica, which is brittle, is vulnerable to deformation, so the header may be damaged when an external force is applied for pressurization or a displacement differenced is caused by piezoelectric actuators at both ends. On the other hand, in order to avoid interference between the header and the adjacent chip when pressing the chip using the TCM, the header has a notch at the bottom, and breakage due to stress concentration of the notch is expected. In this study, the thickness and notch length that the header does not break when the external force (500 N) is applied to both ends of the header are optimized using structural analysis and Coulomb-Mohr failure theory. In addition, the maximum displacement difference of the P.A.s at both ends where no break occurred in the header was derived. As a result, the thickness of the header is 11 mm, and the maximum displacement difference between both ends is 8 um.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2024

β-Ga₂O₃ is a material with a wide band gap of ~4.8 eV and a high breakdown-voltage of 8 MV/cm, and is attracting much attention in the field of power device applications. In addition, compared to representative WBG semiconductor materials such as SiC, GaN and Diamond, it has the advantage of enabling single crystal growth with high growth rate and low manufacturing cost [1-4]. In this study, we succeeded in growing a 10 mm thick β-Ga₂O₃ single crystal doped with 0.3 mol% SnO₂ through the EFG (Edge-defined Film-fed Growth) method using multi-slit structure. The growth direction and growth plane were set to [010]/(010), respectively, and the growth speed was about 12 mm/h. The grown β-Ga₂O₃ single crystal was cut into various crystal planes (010, 001, 100, ${\bar{2}}01$) and surface processed. The processed samples were compared for characteristics according to crystal plane through analysis such as XRD, UV/VIS/NIR/Spec., Mercury Probe, AFM and Etching. This research is expected to contribute to the development of power semiconductor technology in high-voltage and high-temperature applications, and selecting a substrate with better characteristics will play an important role in improving device performance and reliability.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.223-227
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• 2010

Recently, one-dimensional semiconducting nanomaterials have attracted considerable interest for their potential as building blocks for fabricating various nanodevices. Among these semiconducting nanomaterials,, $SnO_2$ nanostructures including nanowires, nanorods, nanobelts, and nanotubes were successfully synthesized and their electrochemical properties were evaluated. Although $SnO_2$ nanowires and nanobelts exhibit fascinating gas sensing characteristics, there are still significant difficulties in using them for device applications. The crucial problem is the alignment of the nanowires. Each nanowire should be attached on each die using arduous e-beam or photolithography, which is quite an undesirable process in terms of mass production in the current semiconductor industry. In this study, a simple process for making sensitive $SnO_2$ nanowire-based gas sensors by using a standard semiconducting fabrication process was studied. The nanowires were aligned in-situ during nanowire synthesis by thermal CVD process and a nanowire network structure between the electrodes was obtained. The $SnO_2$ nanowire network was floated upon the Si substrate by separating an Au catalyst between the electrodes. As the electric current is transported along the networks of the nanowires, not along the surface layer on the substrate, the gas sensitivities could be maximized in this networked and floated structure. By varying the nanowire density and the distance between the electrodes, several types of nanowire network were fabricated. The $NO_2$ gas sensitivity was 30~200 when the $NO_2$ concentration was 5~20ppm. The response time was ca. 30~110 sec.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.506-517
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• 2015

This paper presents a 1.248 Gb/s - 2.918 Gb/s low-power receiver MIPI-DigRF M-PHY with a fully digital frequency detection loop. MIPI-DigRF M-PHY should be operated in a very short training time which is $0.01{\mu}s$ the for HS-G2B mode. Because of this short SYNC pattern, clock and data recovery (CDR) should have extremely fast locking time. Thus, the quarter rate CDR with a fully digital frequency detection loop is proposed to implement a fast phase tracking loop. Also, a low power CDR architecture, deserializer and voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) are proposed to meet the low power requirement of MIPI-DigRF M-PHY. This chip is fabricated using a $0.11{\mu}m$ CMOS process, and the die area is $600{\mu}m{\times}250{\mu}m$. The power consumption of the receiver is 16 mW from the supply voltage of 1.1 V. The measured lock time of the CDR is less than 20 ns. The measured rms and peak jitter are $35.24ps_{p-p}$ and $4.25ps_{rms}$ respectively for HS-G2 mode.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.189-197
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• 2014

This work proposes a 12b 100 MS/s $0.11{\mu}m$ CMOS three-step hybrid pipeline ADC for high-speed communication and mobile display systems requiring high resolution, low power, and small size. The first stage based on time-interleaved dual-channel SAR ADCs properly handles the Nyquist-rate input without a dedicated SHA. An input sampling clock for each SAR ADC is synchronized to a reference clock to minimize a sampling-time mismatch between the channels. Only one residue amplifier is employed and shared in the proposed ADC for the first-stage SAR ADCs as well as the MDAC of back-end pipeline stages. The shared amplifier, in particular, reduces performance degradation caused by offset and gain mismatches between two channels of the SAR ADCs. Two separate reference voltages relieve a reference disturbance due to the different operating frequencies of the front-end SAR ADCs and the back-end pipeline stages. The prototype ADC in a $0.11{\mu}m$ CMOS shows the measured DNL and INL within 0.38 LSB and 1.21 LSB, respectively. The ADC occupies an active die area of $1.34mm^2$ and consumes 25.3 mW with a maximum SNDR and SFDR of 60.2 dB and 69.5 dB, respectively, at 1.1 V and 100 MS/s.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.542-549
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• 2016

This paper presents a SoC (System-on-a-Chip) dedicated for a single-chip smart capsule which can be used to continuously monitor human alimentary canal pH and temperature values. The SoC is composed of the pH and temperature sensor interface circuit, a wireless transceiver, the power management circuit and the flow control logic. Fabricated in $0.18{\mu}m$ standard CMOS technology, the SoC occupies a die area of ${\sim}9 mm^2$. The SoC consumes 6.15 mW from a 3 V power supply, guaranteeing the smart capsule battery life is no less than 24 hours when using 50 mAh coin batteries. The experimental results show that measurement accuracy of the smart capsule is ${\pm}0.1$ pH and ${\pm}0.2^{\circ}C$ for pH and temperature sensing, respectively, which meets the requirement of in-body pH and temperature monitoring in clinical practice.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.70-79
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• 2016

This paper proposes a low-power range-scaled 14b 30 MS/s pipeline-SAR composite ADC for high-performance CIS applications. The SAR ADC is employed in the first stage to alleviate a sampling-time mismatch as observed in the conventional SHA-free architecture. A range-scaling technique processes a wide input range of 3.0VP-P without thick-gate-oxide transistors under a 1.8 V supply voltage. The first- and second-stage MDACs share a single amplifier to reduce power consumption and chip area. Moreover, two separate reference voltage drivers for the first-stage SAR ADC and the remaining pipeline stages reduce a reference voltage disturbance caused by the high-speed switching noise from the SAR ADC. The measured DNL and INL of the prototype ADC in a $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS are within 0.88 LSB and 3.28 LSB, respectively. The ADC shows a maximum SNDR of 65.4 dB and SFDR of 78.9 dB at 30 MS/s, respectively. The ADC with an active die area of $1.43mm^2$ consumes 20.5 mW at a 1.8 V supply voltage and 30 MS/s, which corresponds to a figure-of-merit (FOM) of 0.45 pJ/conversion-step.