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Description
Programmable Metallization Cell (PMC) is a technology platform which utilizes mass transport in solid or liquid electrolyte coupled with electrochemical (redox) reactions to form or remove nanoscale metallic electrodeposits on or in the electrolyte. The ability to redistribute metal mass and form metallic nanostructure in or on a structure in situ, via the application of a bias on laterally placed electrodes, creates a large number of promising applications. A novel PMC-based lateral microwave switch was fabricated and characterized for use in microwave systems. It has demonstrated low insertion loss, high isolation, low voltage operation, low power and low energy consumption, and excellent linearity. Due to its non-volatile nature the switch operates with fewer biases and its simple planar geometry makes possible innovative device structures which can be potentially integrated into microwave power distribution circuits. PMC technology is also used to develop lateral dendritic metal electrodes. A lateral metallic dendritic network can be grown in a solid electrolyte (GeSe) or electrodeposited on SiO2 or Si using a water-mediated method. These dendritic electrodes grown in a solid electrolyte (GeSe) can be used to lower resistances for applications like self-healing interconnects despite its relatively low light transparency; while the dendritic electrodes grown using water-mediated method can be potentially integrated into solar cell applications, like replacing conventional Ag screen-printed top electrodes as they not only reduce resistances but also are highly transparent. This research effort also laid a solid foundation for developing dendritic plasmonic structures. A PMC-based lateral dendritic plasmonic structure is a device that has metallic dendritic networks grown electrochemically on SiO2 with a thin layer of surface metal nanoparticles in liquid electrolyte. These structures increase the distribution of particle sizes by connecting pre-deposited Ag nanoparticles into fractal structures and result in three significant effects, resonance red-shift, resonance broadening and resonance enhancement, on surface plasmon resonance for light trapping simultaneously, which can potentially enhance thin film solar cells' performance at longer wavelengths.
ContributorsRen, Minghan (Author) / Kozicki, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Schroder, Dieter (Committee member) / Roedel, Ronald (Committee member) / Barnaby, Hugh (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The design and development of analog/mixed-signal (AMS) integrated circuits (ICs) is becoming increasingly expensive, complex, and lengthy. Rapid prototyping and emulation of analog ICs will be significant in the design and testing of complex analog systems. A new approach, Programmable ANalog Device Array (PANDA) that maps any AMS design problem to a transistor-level programmable hardware, is proposed. This approach enables fast system level validation and a reduction in post-Silicon bugs, minimizing design risk and cost. The unique features of the approach include 1) transistor-level programmability that emulates each transistor behavior in an analog design, achieving very fine granularity of reconfiguration; 2) programmable switches that are treated as a design component during analog transistor emulating, and optimized with the reconfiguration matrix; 3) compensation of AC performance degradation through boosting the bias current. Based on these principles, a digitally controlled PANDA platform is designed at 45nm node that can map AMS modules across 22nm to 90nm technology nodes. A systematic emulation approach to map any analog transistor to 45nm PANDA cell is proposed, which achieves transistor level matching accuracy of less than 5% for ID and less than 10% for Rout and Gm. Circuit level analog metrics of a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) emulated by PANDA, match to those of the original designs in 22nm and 90nm nodes with less than a 5% error. Several other 90nm and 22nm analog blocks are successfully emulated by the 45nm PANDA platform, including a folded-cascode operational amplifier and a sample-and-hold module (S/H). Further capabilities of PANDA are demonstrated by the first full-chip silicon of PANDA which is implemented on 65nm process This system consists of a 24×25 cell array, reconfigurable interconnect and configuration memory. The voltage and current reference circuits, op amps and a VCO with a phase interpolation circuit are emulated by PANDA.
ContributorsSuh, Jounghyuk (Author) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Thesis advisor) / Cao, Yu (Committee member) / Ozev, Sule (Committee member) / Kozicki, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
A fully automated logic design methodology for radiation hardened by design (RHBD) high speed logic using fine grained triple modular redundancy (TMR) is presented. The hardening techniques used in the cell library are described and evaluated, with a focus on both layout techniques that mitigate total ionizing dose (TID) and latchup issues and flip-flop designs that mitigate single event transient (SET) and single event upset (SEU) issues. The base TMR self-correcting master-slave flip-flop is described and compared to more traditional hardening techniques. Additional refinements are presented, including testability features that disable the self-correction to allow detection of manufacturing defects. The circuit approach is validated for hardness using both heavy ion and proton broad beam testing. For synthesis and auto place and route, the methodology and circuits leverage commercial logic design automation tools. These tools are glued together with custom CAD tools designed to enable easy conversion of standard single redundant hardware description language (HDL) files into hardened TMR circuitry. The flow allows hardening of any synthesizable logic at clock frequencies comparable to unhardened designs and supports standard low-power techniques, e.g. clock gating and supply voltage scaling.
ContributorsHindman, Nathan (Author) / Clark, Lawrence T (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Barnaby, Hugh (Committee member) / Allee, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Understanding charge transport in single molecules covalently bonded to electrodes is a fundamental goal in the field of molecular electronics. In the past decade, it has become possible to measure charge transport on the single-molecule level using the STM break junction method. Measurements on the single-molecule level shed light on charge transport phenomena which would otherwise be obfuscated by ensemble measurements of groups of molecules. This thesis will discuss three projects carried out using STM break junction. In the first project, the transition between two different charge transport mechanisms is reported in a set of molecular wires. The shortest wires show highly length dependent and temperature invariant conductance behavior, whereas the longer wires show weakly length dependent and temperature dependent behavior. This trend is consistent with a model whereby conduction occurs by coherent tunneling in the shortest wires and by incoherent hopping in the longer wires. Measurements are supported with calculations and the evolution of the molecular junction during the pulling process is investigated. The second project reports controlling the formation of single-molecule junctions by means of electrochemically reducing two axial-diazonium terminal groups on a molecule, thereby producing direct Au-C covalent bonds in-situ between the molecule and gold electrodes. Step length analysis shows that the molecular junction is significantly more stable, and can be pulled over a longer distance than a comparable junction created with amine anchoring bonds. The stability of the junction is explained by the calculated lower binding energy associated with the direct Au-C bond compared with the Au-N bond. Finally, the third project investigates the role that molecular conformation plays in the conductance of oligothiophene single-molecule junctions. Ethyl substituted oligothiophenes were measured and found to exhibit temperature dependent conductance and transition voltage for molecules with between two and six repeat units. While the molecule with only one repeat unit shows temperature invariant behavior. Density functional theory calculations show that at higher temperatures the oligomers with multiple repeat units assume a more planar conformation, which increases the conjugation length and decreases the effective energy barrier of the junction.
ContributorsHines, Thomas (Author) / Tao, Nongjian (Thesis advisor) / Li, Jian (Thesis advisor) / Mujica, Vladimiro (Committee member) / Allee, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Analysing and measuring of biological or biochemical processes are of utmost importance for medical, biological and biotechnological applications. Point of care diagnostic system, composing of biosensors, have promising applications for providing cheap, accurate and portable diagnosis. Owing to these expanding medical applications and advances made by semiconductor industry biosensors have seen a tremendous growth in the past few decades. Also emergence of microfluidics and non-invasive biosensing applications are other marker propellers. Analyzing biological signals using transducers is difficult due to the challenges in interfacing an electronic system to the biological environment. Detection limit, detection time, dynamic range, specificity to the analyte, sensitivity and reliability of these devices are some of the challenges in developing and integrating these devices. Significant amount of research in the field of biosensors has been focused on improving the design, fabrication process and their integration with microfluidics to address these challenges. This work presents new techniques, design and systems to improve the interface between the electronic system and the biological environment. This dissertation uses CMOS circuit design to improve the reliability of these devices. Also this work addresses the challenges in designing the electronic system used for processing the output of the transducer, which converts biological signal into electronic signal.
ContributorsShah, Sahil S (Author) / Christen, Jennifer B (Thesis advisor) / Allee, David (Committee member) / Goryll, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This research investigated using impedance as a minimally invasive oral cancer-screening tool by modeling healthy and diseased tissue. This research developed an ultra-structurally based tissue model for oral mucosa that is versatile enough to be easily modified to mimic the passive electrical impedance responses of multiple benign and cancerous tissue types. This new model provides answers to biologically meaningful questions related to the impedance response of healthy and diseased tissues. This model breaks away from the old empirical top down "black box" Thèvinin equivalent model. The new tissue model developed here was created from a bottom up perspective resulting in a model that is analogous to having a "Transparent Box" where each network element relating to a specific structural component is known. This new model was developed starting with sub cellular ultra-structural components such as membranes, proteins and electrolytes. These components formed the basic network elements and topology of the organelles. The organelle networks combine to form the cell networks. The cell networks combine to make networks of cell layers and the cell layers were combined into tissue networks. This produced the complete "Transparent Box" model for normal tissue. This normal tissue model was modified for disease based on the ultra-structural pathology of each disease. The diseased tissues evaluated include cancers type one through type three; necrotic-inflammation, hyperkeratosis and the compound condition of hyperkeratosis over cancer type two. The impedance responses for each of the disease were compared side by side with the response of normal healthy tissue. Comparative evidence from the models showed the structural changes in cancer produce a unique identifiable impedance "finger print." The evaluation of the "Transparent Box" model for normal tissues and diseased tissues show clear support for using comparative impedance measurements as a clinical tool for oral cancer screening.
ContributorsPelletier, Peter Robert (Author) / Kozicki, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Towe, Bruce (Committee member) / Saraniti, Marco (Committee member) / Goryll, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Power supply management is important for MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems) bio-sensing and chemical sensing applications. The dissertation focuses on discussion of accessibility to different power sources and supply tuning in sensing applications. First, the dissertation presents a high efficiency DC-DC converter for a miniaturized Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC). The miniaturized MFC produces up to approximately 10µW with an output voltage of 0.4-0.7V. Such a low voltage, which is also load dependent, prevents the MFC to directly drive low power electronics. A PFM (Pulse Frequency Modulation) type DC-DC converter in DCM (Discontinuous Conduction Mode) is developed to address the challenges and provides a load independent output voltage with high conversion efficiency. The DC-DC converter, implemented in UMC 0.18µm technology, has been thoroughly characterized, coupled with the MFC. At 0.9V output, the converter has a peak efficiency of 85% with 9µW load, highest efficiency over prior publication. Energy could be harvested wirelessly and often has profound impacts on system performance. The dissertation reports a side-by-side comparison of two wireless and passive sensing systems: inductive and electromagnetic (EM) couplings for an application of in-situ and real-time monitoring of wafer cleanliness in semiconductor facilities. The wireless system, containing the MEMS sensor works with battery-free operations. Two wireless systems based on inductive and EM couplings have been implemented. The working distance of the inductive coupling system is limited by signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) while that of the EM coupling is limited by the coupled power. The implemented on-wafer transponders achieve a working distance of 6 cm and 25 cm with a concentration resolution of less than 2% (4 ppb for a 200 ppb solution) for inductive and EM couplings, respectively. Finally, the supply tuning is presented in bio-sensing application to mitigate temperature sensitivity. The FBAR (film bulk acoustic resonator) based oscillator is an attractive method in label-free sensing application. Molecular interactions on FBAR surface induce mass change, which results in resonant frequency shift of FBAR. While FBAR has a high-Q to be sensitive to the molecular interactions, FBAR has finite temperature sensitivity. A temperature compensation technique is presented that improves the temperature coefficient of a 1.625 GHz FBAR-based oscillator from -118 ppm/K to less than 1 ppm/K by tuning the supply voltage of the oscillator. The tuning technique adds no additional component and has a large frequency tunability of -4305 ppm/V.
ContributorsZhang, Xu (Author) / Chae, Junseok (Thesis advisor) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Committee member) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Committee member) / Kozicki, Michael (Committee member) / Phillips, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The geometric growth in the integrated circuit technology due to transistor scaling also with system-on-chip design strategy, the complexity of the integrated circuit has increased manifold. Short time to market with high reliability and performance is one of the most competitive challenges. Both custom and ASIC design methodologies have evolved over the time to cope with this but the high manual labor in custom and statistic design in ASIC are still causes of concern. This work proposes a new circuit design strategy that focuses mostly on arrayed structures like TLB, RF, Cache, IPCAM etc. that reduces the manual effort to a great extent and also makes the design regular, repetitive still achieving high performance. The method proposes making the complete design custom schematic but using the standard cells. This requires adding some custom cells to the already exhaustive library to optimize the design for performance. Once schematic is finalized, the designer places these standard cells in a spreadsheet, placing closely the cells in the critical paths. A Perl script then generates Cadence Encounter compatible placement file. The design is then routed in Encounter. Since designer is the best judge of the circuit architecture, placement by the designer will allow achieve most optimal design. Several designs like IPCAM, issue logic, TLB, RF and Cache designs were carried out and the performance were compared against the fully custom and ASIC flow. The TLB, RF and Cache were the part of the HEMES microprocessor.
ContributorsMaurya, Satendra Kumar (Author) / Clark, Lawrence T (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Vrudhula, Sarma (Committee member) / Allee, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
High-Resistivity Silicon (HRS) substrates are important for low-loss, high-performance microwave and millimeter wave devices in high-frequency telecommunication systems. The highest resistivity of up to ~10,000 ohm.cm is Float Zone (FZ) grown Si which is produced in small quantities and moderate wafer diameter. The more common Czochralski (CZ) Si can achieve resistivities of around 1000 ohm.cm, but the wafers contain oxygen that can lead to thermal donor formation with donor concentration significantly higher (~1015 cm-3) than the dopant concentration (~1012-1013 cm-3) of such high-resistivity Si leading to resistivity changes and possible type conversion of high-resistivity p-type silicon. In this research capacitance-voltage (C-V) characterization is employed to study the donor formation and type conversion of p-type High-resistivity Silicon-On-Insulator (HRSOI) wafers and the challenges involved in C-V characterization of HRSOI wafers using a Schottky contact are highlighted. The maximum capacitance of bulk or Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) wafers is governed by the gate/contact area. During C-V characterization of high-resistivity SOI wafers with aluminum contacts directly on the Si film (Schottky contact); it was observed that the maximum capacitance is much higher than that due to the contact area, suggesting bias spreading due to the distributed transmission line of the film resistance and the buried oxide capacitance. In addition, an "S"-shape C-V plot was observed in the accumulation region. The effects of various factors, such as: frequency, contact and substrate sizes, gate oxide, SOI film thickness, film and substrate doping, carrier lifetime, contact work-function, temperature, light, annealing temperature and radiation on the C-V characteristics of HRSOI wafers are studied. HRSOI wafers have the best crosstalk prevention capability compared to other types of wafers, which plays a major role in system-on-chip configuration to prevent coupling between high frequency digital and sensitive analog circuits. Substrate crosstalk in HRSOI and various factors affecting the crosstalk, such as: substrate resistivity, separation between devices, buried oxide (BOX) thickness, radiation, temperature, annealing, light, and device types are discussed. Also various ways to minimize substrate crosstalk are studied and a new characterization method is proposed. Owing to their very low doping concentrations and the presence of oxygen in CZ wafers, HRS wafers pose a challenge in resistivity measurement using conventional techniques such as four-point probe and Hall measurement methods. In this research the challenges in accurate resistivity measurement using four-point probe, Hall method, and C-V profile are highlighted and a novel approach to extract resistivity of HRS wafers based on Impedance Spectroscopy measurements using polymer dielectrics such as Polystyrene and Poly Methyl Methacrylate (PMMA) is proposed.
ContributorsNayak, Pinakpani (Author) / Schroder, Dieter K. (Thesis advisor) / Vasileska, Dragica (Committee member) / Kozicki, Michael (Committee member) / Aberle, James T., 1961- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The apparent phenomenon of the human eye retaining images for fractions of a second after the light source has gone is known as Persistence of Vision. While its causes are not fully understood, it can be taken advantage of in order to create illusions which trick the mind into perceiving something which, in actuality, is very different from what the mind portrays. It has motivated many creative engineering technologies in the past and is the core for how we perceive motion in movies and animations. This project applies the persistence of vision concept to a lesser explored medium; the wheel of a moving bicycle. The motion of the wheel, along with intelligent control of discrete LEDs, create vibrant illusions of solid lines and shapes. These shapes make up the image to be displayed on the bike wheel. The rotation of the bike wheel can be compensated for in order to produce a standing image (or images) of the user's choosing. This thesis details how the mechanism for conducting the individual LEDs was created in order to produce a device which is capable of delivering colorful, standing images of the user's choosing.
ContributorsSaltwick, Ian Mark (Author) / Goryll, Michael (Thesis director) / Kozicki, Michael (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05