VLSI and Circuits, Embedded and Hardware Systems Commons^™

Towards Multipronged On-Chip Memory And Data Protection From Verification To Design And Test, Senwen Kan, Jennifer Dworak

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Modern System on Chips (SoCs) generally include embedded memories, and these memories may be vulnerable to malicious attacks such as hardware trojan horses (HTHs), test access port exploitation, and malicious software. This dissertation contributes verification as well as design obfuscation solutions aimed at design level detection of memory HTH circuits as well as obfuscation to prevent HTH triggering for embedded memory during functional operation. For malicious attack vectors stemming from test/debug interfaces, this dissertation presents novel solutions that enhance design verification and securitization of an IJTAG based test access interface. Such solutions can enhance SoC protection by preventing memory test …

Low Power Multi-Channel Interface For Charge Based Tactile Sensors, Samuel Hansen

Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research from Electrical & Computer Engineering

Analog front end electronics are designed in 65 nm CMOS technology to process charge pulses arriving from a tactile sensor array. This is accomplished through the use of charge sensitive amplifiers and discrete time filters with tunable clock signals located in each of the analog front ends. Sensors were emulated using Gaussian pulses during simulation. The digital side of the system uses SAR (successive approximation register) ADCs for sampling of the processed sensor signals.

Adviser: Sina Balkır

High-Performance Vlsi Architectures For Lattice-Based Cryptography, Weihang Tan

All Dissertations

Lattice-based cryptography is a cryptographic primitive built upon the hard problems on point lattices. Cryptosystems relying on lattice-based cryptography have attracted huge attention in the last decade since they have post-quantum-resistant security and the remarkable construction of the algorithm. In particular, homomorphic encryption (HE) and post-quantum cryptography (PQC) are the two main applications of lattice-based cryptography. Meanwhile, the efficient hardware implementations for these advanced cryptography schemes are demanding to achieve a high-performance implementation.

This dissertation aims to investigate the novel and high-performance very large-scale integration (VLSI) architectures for lattice-based cryptography, including the HE and PQC schemes. This dissertation first presents …

Formally Verifiable Synthesis Flow In Fpgas, Anurag V. Muttur

Masters Theses

FPGAs are used in a wide variety of digital systems. Due to their ability to support parallelism and specialization, these devices are becoming more commonplace in fields such as machine learning. One of the biggest benefits of FPGAs, logic specialization, can lead to security risks. Prior research has shown that a large variety of malicious circuits can snoop on sensitive user data, induce circuit faults, or physically damage the FPGA. These Trojan circuits can easily be crafted and embedded in FPGA designs. Often, these Trojans are small, consume little power in comparison to the target circuit, and are hard to …

Integration Of Digital Signal Processing Block In Symbiflow Fpga Toolchain For Artix-7 Devices, Andrew T. Hartnett

Masters Theses

The open-source community is a valuable resource for many hobbyists and researchers interested in collaborating and contributing towards publicly available tools. In the area of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) this is no exception. Contributors seek to reverse-engineer the functions of large proprietary FPGA devices. An interesting challenge for open-source FPGA engineers has been reverse-engineering the operation and bitstreams of digital signal processing (DSP) blocks located in FPGAs. SymbiFlow is an open-source FPGA toolchain designed as a free alternative to proprietary computer-aided design tools like Xilinx’s Vivado. For SymbiFlow, mapping logical multipliers to DSP blocks and generating DSP block bitstreams …

Design And Analysis Of A Discrete, Pcb-Level Low-Power, Microwave Cross-Coupled Differential Lc Voltage-Controlled Oscillator, Pavin Singh Virdee

Master's Theses

Radio Frequency (RF) and Microwave devices are typically implemented in Integrated Circuit (IC) form to minimize parasitics, increase precision and tolerances, and minimize size. Although IC fabrication for students and independent engineers is cost-prohibitive, an abundance of low-cost, easily accessible printed circuit board (PCB) and electronic component manufacturers allows affordable PCB fabrication.

While nearly all microwave voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) designs are IC-based, this study presents a discrete PCB-level cross-coupled, differential LC VCO to demonstrate this more affordable and accessible approach. This thesis presents a 65 mW, discrete component VCO PCB with industry-comparable RF performance. A phase noise of -103.7 dBc/Hz …

Embedding A Grid Of Load Cells Into A Dining Table For Automatic Monitoring And Detection Of Eating Events, Mohammad Mayyan

All Dissertations

This dissertation describes a “smart dining table” that can detect and measure consumption events. This work is motivated by the growing problem of obesity, which is a global problem and an epidemic in the United States and Europe. Chapter 1 gives a background on the economic burden of obesity and its comorbidities. For the assessment of obesity, we briefly describe the classic dietary assessment tools and discuss their drawback and the necessity of using more objective, accurate, low-cost, and in-situ automatic dietary assessment tools. We explain in short various technologies used for automatic dietary assessment such as acoustic-, motion-, or …

A Bulk Driven Transimpedance Cmos Amplifier For Sipm Based Detection, Shahram Hatefi Hesari

Masters Theses

The contribution of this work lies in the development of a bulk driven operational
transconducctance amplifier which can be integrated with other analog circuits and
photodetectors in the same chip for compactness, miniaturization and reducing the
power. Silicon photomultipliers, also known as SiPMs, when coupled with scintillator materials are used in many imaging applications including nuclear detection. This thesis discuss the design of a bulk-driven transimpedance amplifier suitable for detectors where the front end is a SiPM. The amplifier was design and fabricated in a standard standard CMOS process and is suitable for integration with CMOS based SiPMs and commercially …

Algorithm Optimization And Hardware Acceleration For Machine Learning Applications On Low-Energy Systems, Jianchi Sun

All Dissertations

Machine learning (ML) has been extensively employed for strategy optimization, decision making, data classification, etc. While ML shows great triumph in its application field, the increasing complexity of the learning models introduces neoteric challenges to the ML system designs. On the one hand, the applications of ML on resource-restricted terminals, like mobile computing and IoT devices, are prevented by the high computational complexity and memory requirement. On the other hand, the massive parameter quantity for the modern ML models appends extra demands on the system's I/O speed and memory size. This dissertation investigates feasible solutions for those challenges with software-hardware …

Load Modeling And Evaluation Of Leds For Hardware Test Bed Application, Jillian M. Ruff

Masters Theses

The lighting industry was revolutionized with the emergence of LED lighting. Over the last 15 years, LED lighting device sales and utilization have grown immensely. The growth and popularity of LEDs is due to improved operation of the device when compared to previous lighting technologies. Efficient performance of the device is critical due to the growth of global energy consumption.

As nonrenewable generation fuel is finite, utilities have begun the transition to renewable energy generation. Generation and distribution systems become inherently complex to comprehend and maintain with incorporation of emerging supply and load technologies. With the unprecedented growth of LED …

Evaluation Of Single Phase Smart Pv Inverter Functions In Unbalanced Residential Distribution Systems, Darren Symonette

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, smart PV inverters integrated with residential distribution systems are becoming a more common occurrence. With integration of smart PV inverters, power utilities are experiencing an increase of number of operations with regards to switched capacitor banks, voltage regulators and on load tap changers. These increases can lead to excess wear and tear on the devices causing power utilities to perform unwanted replacement and maintenance. However, smart PV inverters when controlled under specific functions can enable these inverters to provide reactive power and voltage control which in turn lowers the number of operations for switched capacitor banks, …

Characterization Of Electrophoretic Deposited Zinc Oxide Nanopartices For The Fabrication Of Next-Generation Nanoscale Electronic Applications, Fawwaz Abduh A. Hazzazi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Several reports state that it is crucial to analyze nanoscale semiconductor materials and devices with potential benefits to meet the need for next-generation nanoelectronics, bio, and nanosensors. The progress in the electronics field is as significant now, with modern technology constantly evolving and a greater focus on more efficient robust optoelectronic applications. This dissertation focuses on the study and examination of the practicality of Electrophoretic Deposition (EPD) of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) for use in semiconductor applications.

The feasibility of several synthesized electrolytes, with and without surfactants and APTES surface functionalization, is discussed. The primary objective of this study …

Machine Learning Applications To Static Timing Analysis, Waseem Mohamed Raslan

Theses and Dissertations

Modeling complex cell behavior is critical for accurate static timing analysis. Effective current source model, ECSM, and composite current source, CCS, waveform data compression became a necessity to reduce the size of technology files and increase the accuracy of the cell characterization data. We used deep learning nonlinear Autoencoders to compress voltage and current waveforms and compared them with singular value decomposition, SVD, approach. Autoencoders gave ~1.67x compression ratio for voltage waveforms better than SVD approach and gave 45x to 55x better compression ratio compared to other lossless techniques like bz2 and gzip. Autoencoders achieved ~1.7x compression ratio for complex …

Signal Adc Converter Simulation On Cadence Virtuoso For Audio Applications, Maxwell Kazuki Fukada

Electrical Engineering

Audio signals are representations of sounds with a mixture of multiple analog signals between the frequency of 20Hz to 20,000Hz. To record snippets of audio data onto a mobile phone or computer, the signal needs to be converted to a digital format. For this purpose, many devices utilize a converter, specifically a sigma-delta modulator with a digital filter. By using a converter, electronics can receive binary data about the audio signal accurately and quickly without losing important signal information. This project aims to simulate a fully functional audio converter with a sigma-delta modulator and decimation filter. The system will receive …

Mars Prototype Rover Environmental Measurement System, James A. Renick

Computer Engineering

In my senior project, the problem I am trying to solve is how to efficiently design, create, and install an original library onto a Mars prototype rover operating system and to further use that library to integrate a new weather measurement sensor device into the rover system with the necessary software and hardware implementations. This is an important and highly valued problem as many aerospace and other engineering companies utilize rovers and other autonomous systems for important research, explorations, and reconnaissance missions and goals. In solving this problem, I utilized many resources that were available to me such as advisors, …

Smartphone Control Of Rc Cars, Weston R. Fitzgerald

Electrical Engineering

The smartphone-controlled RC (remote-controlled) car is an inexpensive remote-controlled car designed to be fast and portable. Instead of manufacturing, packaging, and shipping a separate controller, the remote control is implemented in a phone application, which saves time and money in both the design process and the manufacturing process. Utilizing the user’s smartphone is more cost-effective since mobile devices are a common recurrence, and packaging fewer devices results in overall better portability of the product.

This smartphone-controlled car is speedy and intuitive to learn for typical smartphone users. The user can change the car’s speed and direction wirelessly using their phone; …

A Ringamp-Assisted, Output Capacitor-Less Analog Cmos Low-Dropout Voltage Regulator, Jordan Sangid

Doctoral Dissertations

Continued advancements in state-of-the-art integrated circuits have furthered trends toward higher computational performance and increased functionality within smaller circuit area footprints, all while improving power efficiencies to meet the demands of mobile and battery-powered applications. A significant portion of these advancements have been enabled by continued scaling of CMOS technology into smaller process node sizes, facilitating faster digital systems and power optimized computation. However, this scaling has degraded classic analog amplifying circuit structures with reduced voltage headroom and lower device output resistance; and thus, lower available intrinsic gain. This work investigates these trends and their impact for fine-grain Low-Dropout (LDO) …

Design Of A Bandgap Voltage Reference, Nicolaus Vail

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis details the design process of a bandgap voltage reference (BGR) integrated circuit in a 180 nm CMOS process. A BGR provides a constant DC voltage across a range of operating temperatures and supply voltages. By its nature, the circuit is intended as a reference, not to provide current, so the output would be connected to a very high impedance, such as the gate of a transistor. At 27°C, this design provides a 955 mV reference voltage given a nominal VDD of 3 V. From 20°C to 175°C, the output voltage has a variance of 7.2 mV (approximately 0.8%) …

Automatic Testing Of Organic Strain Gauge Tactile Sensors., Brian P. Goulet

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human-Robot Interaction is a developing field of science, that is posed to augment everything we do in life. Skin sensors that can detect touch, temperature, distance, and other physical interaction parameters at the human-robot interface are very important to enhancing the collaboration between humans and machines. As such, these sensors must be efficiently tested and characterized to give accurate feedback from the sensor to the robot. The objective of this work is to create a diversified software testing suite that removes as much human intervention as possible. The tests and methodology discussed here provide multiple realistic scenarios that the sensors …

Incorporating In Situ Measurements Of Energy Into A Designed Method Of Detection Of Radiation Induced Degradation In Embedded Systems, Delwyn Sam

Honors Theses

An embedded system, or a system-on-chip (SOC), is a miniaturized computer that combines hardware and software to accomplish a certain purpose. Embedded systems are used in various applications from household appliances to the automobile industry. Additionally, SOCs are used in space environments where the surroundings consist of radiation and extreme temperatures. In these harsh conditions, embedded systems must operate properly through the effects of radiation such as total ionizing dose (TID). Because embedded systems are filled with various components and modules, and since the internal signals of the system are often inaccessible, methods to locate which specific parts of the …