Monday, June 30, 2014

PROCESS CORNERS


Process corners refer to the process inaccuracies, temperature and other parameter variations. The simulations that are used to analyze these process inaccuracies are different from each other. The corners describe the differences of a chip behavior form its nominal condition are usually supplied with the process kit and these are originally located in model libraries.

These kit contains  corner condition for the SS, FF, TT, FS, SF etc process, where these abbreviations stands for Slow NMOS-Slow PMOS, Fast NMOS-Fast PMOS, Typical NMOS-Typical PMOS, Fast NMOS-Slow PMOS, Slow NMOS-Fast PMOS etc. These corner conditions are checked with the help of EDA or simulation process and in result it describes IC behavior. It may contain the process of temperature variation and Vdd (supply voltage) variation depends on customer IC requirement. e.g. For car manufacturing company the IC should be checked for  maximum corner conditions and temperature variations otherwise  IC will not fulfill all requirement.­­­







Thursday, June 26, 2014

Levels Of IC Design


The design of integrated circuits (IC) contains the different levels of abstraction . According to the IC design standards we can study the complex circuits at following four levels.
1). Device Physics Level  2). Transistor Level  3). Architecture Level  4). System Level

1). The device physics level describes the device internal behaviour for electric field and charge.
2). Transistor level consist of a group of these devices .
3). Architectural level defines a unit of several building blocks to perform a certain functions.
3). System level consist of the set of subsystems.e.g.  ADC, DAC etc.

In conclusion  one may say that in today's IC industry above four levels are essential to achieve a high performance and low cost device. 
                                                
                                                          

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Power dissipation in CMOS digital circuits

The growing development of CMOS logic VLSI circuits has decreased the circuit size, increased the switching speed , there is one problem associated with this technology that is known as the power dissipation . There are many researchers who are trying to decrease the power consumption of CMOS based digital circuits. The main cause of power dissipation in CMOS based VLSI circuits are divided on the basis of   its working or behavior.
There are mainly two cases of Power dissipation 1) Dynamic power dissipation 2) Static power dissipation. This dynamic power dissipation can be further divided in three parts known as switching power dissipation, short circuit power dissipation and glitching power dissipation. These can be reduced by changing the parameters of the following models:

  switching power

P switching = α Foperating.Vdd2 CL [for full output swing]

Where Foperating is operating frequency, Vdd = supply voltage, CL= Net load capacitance, α= switching activity factor of gate.
P switching = α Foperating Vdd. Vswing CL [for low voltage swing]

Short circuit power
Pshort circuit = (μCox/12) (W/L)(Vdd-2Vth)3τ Foperating
Where  τ = rise/ fall time of the input signal


The static power dissipation occurs because of two reasons: DC current and Transistor leakage current.


   













Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Single Electron Transistor

Single Electron Transistor is a future technology that is going to be revolutionize the current digital data storage technologies. As the name suggest it uses a single electron to carry or amplify current.Its capability makes it very useful for the high operating speed and low power consumption.

This  single electron transistor uses the controlled electron tunneling to amplify the current. It is made up of  two tunnel junctions to share a common electrode. This tunnel junction structure consist of the two metal pieces. These metal pieces are separated by an insulator of near about 0.998 nm length.

Some of its future application are as follows:
1). Ultra-sensitive Microwave detector
2). Super-sensitive Electrometer
3).Charge Sensor
4).Single Electron Spectroscopy etc

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Research work at IEEE level

IEEE has become a de facto standard for professors and research scholars working on emerging technologies and applied science. The organization provides an active platform were the latest inventions and trends are discussed and published. IEEE has promoted research at every level from institutional to professional to bring it up to a level.
At institutional level students pursuing graduation, post graduation or doctorate are highly involved in research on specific topics. The topic of research is selected by the candidate depending upon his area of interest and recent work being carried out or completed in that field. Which may be found out in technology or science journals being published by pioneers like IEEE, Elsevier, Springer etc.

Research needs dedication and complete involvement from the point when one starts looking for the topic of interest, after which he/she looks for research papers on the topic which student uses as base papers for the research. These base papers are easily available at IEEE explore, the biggest digital library of research papers. Thorough study of IEEE base paper is very essential to understand the basic idea and concept behind the work presented in the paper and the references. The other prerequisite for a high level of research is proper guidance for the research. That’s why every student is required to work under a highly qualified guide. The guide is supposed to help student to visualize and analyze every aspect his/her research interest so that the student is able to come up with an improvement in previous concept or an innovation in the domain.







Wednesday, June 4, 2014

M.tech Projects

SiliconMentor is the only organization in the northern India providing guidance in backend VLSI projects as well as frontend projects and in various domains of electronics such as Antenna, DSP, MATLAB, Analog Electronics, Mix-Mode, Ultra low Power VLSI, RTL Designing, Image Processing, Video processing, CMOS based Digital Circuit Design, Memory, Mixed Mode Signal, Antenna, Electrical, Control System, Power System, Wireless Sensor Network.

SiliconMentor aspires the M.tech students in their research project and thesis preparation. We support the students from the initial point i.e. literature review to the final publication of the research paper. The methodology for the project includes literature review, paper implementation, research approach and publication of at least two papers in national and international journals i.e. a review paper and the research paper.