Electronic Devices and Semiconductor Manufacturing Commons^™

Microwave Dielectric Properties Of Dna Based Polymers Between 10 And 30 Ghz, Guru Subramanyam, E. Heckman, James Grote, K. Hopkins

Guru Subramanyam

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) based polymer thin-films were characterized at microwave frequencies for the first time. The dielectric properties of the film were extracted from comparison of the propagation constants of the co-planar waveguide (CPW) lines on bare MgO substrates and the DNA based films on MgO substrates. The insertion loss introduced by the DNA film is only 0.1 dB at 10 GHz and 0.5 dB at 30 GHz. The relative dielectric constant of the DNA based film averages to four at microwave frequencies, and the loss-tangent was below 0.1 up to 30 GHz.

Closed-Form Expression For The Net Ground Plane Inductance Of Coplanar Stripline Pcbs, Li Huadong, Guru Subramanyam

Guru Subramanyam

The net ground plane inductance of printed circuit boards is the source of common-mode radiated emissions. Correct determination of the net ground plane inductance provides a quick estimation of the radiated emissions from printed circuit boards. Employing conformal mapping technique, this paper gives a closed-form expression for the per unit length net ground plane inductance of coplanar stripline printed circuit boards with finite ground plane width. Current density distribution on the ground plane is also obtained.

A Low Voltage Tunable Analog Phase Shifter Utilizing Ferroelectric Varactors, Guru Subramanyam, Kevin Leedy, Chakrapani Varanasi, Robert Neidhard, Keith Stamper, Mark Calcatera

Guru Subramanyam

A distributed transmission line phase shifter was implemented by periodically loading a coplanar transmission line using ferroelectric varactors in a shunt configuration. A single dc bias applied to the phase shifter circuit provides a large relative phase shift. A relative phase shift of ∼ 305 degrees was obtained at 20 GHz for a dc bias of only 5 V.

Generalized Memristive Device Spice Model And Its Application In Circuit Design, Chris Yakopcic, Tarek Taha, Guru Subramanyam, R. Pino

Guru Subramanyam

This paper presents a SPICE model for memristive devices. It builds on existing models and is correlated against several published device characterization data with an average error of 6.04%. When compared to existing alternatives, the proposed model can more accurately simulate a wide range of published memristors. The model is also tested in large circuits with up to 256 memristors, and was less likely to cause convergence errors when compared to other models. We show that the model can be used to study the impact of memristive device variation within a circuit. We examine the impact of nonuniformity in device …

Microwave Dielectric Properties Of Epitaxial Mn-Doped Ba(Zr,Ti)O-3 Thin Films On Laalo3 Substrates, Ming Liu, Chunrui Ma, Jian Liu, Gregory Collins, Chonglin Chen, Andy Alemayehu, Guru Subramanyam, Chao Dai, Yuan Lin, Amar Bhalla

Guru Subramanyam

Environmental friendly ferroelectric relaxor Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 thin films with an additional 2% Mn dopant were epitaxially fabricated on the (001) LaAlO3 single crystal substrates by pulsed laser deposition. Microstructure characterizations from x-ray diffraction suggest that the films are c-axis oriented with the interface relationship of [101]Mn:BZT//[100]LAO and (001)Mn:BZT //(001)LAO. The microwave dielectric property measurements (13–17.5 GHz) reveal that the films have excellent dielectric properties with large tunability, high dielectric constant, and low dielectric loss, which the average value is 25.9%, 169 and 0.054, respectively. It is indicated that the additional 2% Mn doped Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 thin films can be used for the …

Influence Of Space-Charge On Hysteresis Loop Characteristics Of Ferroelectric Thin Films, Huadong Li, Guru Subramanyam, S. Dey

Guru Subramanyam

Hysteresis loops of Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films obtained by using a Sawyer-Tower (ST) circuit are affected by many factors. This paper investigated the influence of space charge on the hysteresis loop of thin-film ferroelectrics, based on the model that polarization consists of two parts: linear and switching polarization. It is found that the space charge affects both the shape and offset of the ideal hysteresis loop. Further investigation shows that the practical hysteresis loop has a close relationship with the equivalent ST circuit parameters: the leakage resistance of the FE film, the equivalent input impedance of the measurement equipment, …

Novel Multi-Capacitor Architecture For Bst Thin Film Varactors, Guru Subramanyam, M. Patterson, K. Leedy, R. Neidhard, C. Varanasi, G. Steinhauer

Guru Subramanyam

Novel Barium Strontium Titanate (BST) thin film varactors with parallel capacitor architecture were designed fabricated and tested. Varactors with 2–6 parallel capacitors were experimentally verified using large area processed bst thin films. The multicapacitor varactor shunt switches provided improved isolation at the expense of higher insertion loss. The multicapacitor varactors yielded reduced overall parasitic series inductance and resistances, resulting in higher quality factor Q. This is the first time such a device is reported.

Performance Of Thin Film Ferroelectrics With Dopant-Ion Charges, Huadong Li, Guru Subramanyam, Jiadong Wang

Guru Subramanyam

This paper studied the effect of dopant-ion charges on the performance of thin film ferroelectrics. Field distributions and capacitance of ferroelectric thin films with different dopant-ion charge densities are analyzed. The non-linearity of the electric field inside the thin film increases with the dopant-ion charge density and decreases with the linear permittivity of the ferroelectric thin film. Once the applied voltage is strong enough, the field distribution will become linear. The FE thin film peak capacitance reduces with the dopant-ion charge density and the total area under the C-V curve between two large voltages with opposite signs is fixed.

Voltage Tunable Epitaxial Pb X Sr(1− X )Tio3 Films On Sapphire By Mocvd: Nanostructure And Microwave Properties, S. Dey, C. Wang, W. Cao, S. Bhaskar, J. Li, Guru Subramanyam

Guru Subramanyam

Frequency and phase agile microwave components such as tunable filters and phase shifters will require ferroelectric thin films that exhibit a nonlinear dependence of dielectric permittivity (ɛ _r ) with dc electric bias, as well as a high material (Δɛ _r /tan δ) and device (or K-factor in phase shift/dB) figure of merits (FOM). Therefore, voltage tunable (Pb_0.3Sr_0.7)TiO₃ (PST) thin films (90–150 nm) on (0001) sapphire were deposited by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition at rates of 10–15 nm/min. The as-deposited epitaxial PST films were characterized by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy, X-ray methods, field …

Feature Extraction Of Rich Texture Document, Innovative Research Publications Irp India, Prajwalita Satish Ravan, Shrinivas A. Patil, Swapnil V. Vanmore

Innovative Research Publications IRP India

We describe here an efficient algorithm for reassembling one or more unknown objects that have been broken or torn into a large number N of irregular fragments. The puzzle assembly problem has many application areas such as restoration and reconstruction of archeological findings, repairing of broken objects, solving jigsaw type puzzles, molecular docking problem, etc. The pieces usually include not only geometrical shape information but also visual information such as texture, color, and continuity of lines. This paper presents a new approach to the puzzle assembly problem that is based on using textural features and geometrical constraints. The texture of …

Very-Low-Specific-Resistance Pd/Ag/Au/Ti/Au Alloyed Ohmic Contact To P Gan For High-Current Devices, V. Adivarahan, A. Lunev, M. Asif Khan, J. Yang, Grigory Simin, M. S. Shur, R. Gaska

Grigory Simin

We report on Pd/Ag/Au/Ti/Au alloyed metallic contact to pGaN. An 800 °C anneal for 1 min in flowing nitrogen ambient produces an excellent ohmic contact with a specific contact resistivity close to 1×10−6 Ω cm2 and with good stability under high current operation conditions. This high-temperature anneal forms an alloy between Ag,Au, and pGaN resulting in a highly p-doped region at the interface. Using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and x-ray diffractionanalysis, we confirm that the contact formation mechanism is the metal intermixing and alloying with the semiconductor.

Algan/Gan Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Heterostructure Field-Effect Transistors On Sic Substrates, M. Asif Khan, X. Hu, A. Tarakji, Grigory Simin, J. Yang, R. Gaska, M. S. Shur

Grigory Simin

We report on AlGaN/GaN metal–oxide–semiconductor heterostructurefield-effect transistors (MOS-HFETs) grown over insulating 4H–SiC substrates. We demonstrate that the dc and microwave performance of the MOS-HFETs is superior to that of conventional AlGaN/GaN HFETs, which points to the high quality of SiO2/AlGaNheterointerface. The MOS-HFETs could operate at positive gate biases as high as +10 V that doubles the channel current as compared to conventional AlGaN/GaN HFETs of a similar design. The gate leakage current was more than six orders of magnitude smaller than that for the conventional AlGaN/GaN HFETs. The MOS-HFETs exhibited stable operation at elevated temperatures up to 300 °Cwith excellent …

Mechanism Of Radio-Frequency Current Collapse In Gan-Algan Field-Effect Transistors, A. Tarakji, Grigory Simin, N. Ilinskaya, X. Hu, A. Kumar, A. Koudymov, J. Yang, M. Asif Khan, M. S. Shur, R. Gaska

Grigory Simin

The mechanism of radio-frequency current collapse in GaN–AlGaN heterojunctionfield-effect transistors(HFETs) was investigated using a comparative study of HFET and metal–oxide–semiconductor HFET current–voltage (I–V) and transfer characteristics under dc and short-pulsed voltage biasing. Significant current collapse occurs when the gate voltage is pulsed, whereas under drain pulsing the I–V curves are close to those in steady-state conditions. Contrary to previous reports, we conclude that the transverse electric field across the wide-band-gap barrier layer separating the gate and the channel rather than the gate or surface leakage currents or high-field effects in the gate–drain spacing is responsible for the current collapse. We …

Variable Attenuator Blends Dynamic Range, Linearity, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

A voltage variable attenuators (VVA) with compact dimensions and high linearity can be realized by connecting PIN diodes in the form of a π network. However this VVA's maximum frequency is limited to ~1 GHz because of signal leakage through the series diodes' parasitic capacitances. The ceiling frequency can significantly raised by resonating the parasitic capacitance with a parallel inductor. This technique has been previously demonstrated on a discrete design. To reduce component count and size, this work extends the technique to a standalone, highly-integrated module. This paper reports the performances achieved at 3.5 GHz.

The prototype's attenuation is adjustable …

Challenges And Opportunities For Multi-Functional Oxide Thin Films For Voltage Tunable Radio-Frequency/Microwave Components, Guru Subramanyam, M W. Cole, Nian X. Sun, Thottam S. Kalkur, Nick M. Sbrockey, Gary S. Tompa, Xiaomei Guo, Chonglin Chen, S P. Alpay, G A. Rossetti Jr., Kaushik Dayal, Long-Qing Chen, Darrell G. Schlom

Guru Subramanyam

There has been significant progress on the fundamental science and technological applications of complex oxides and multiferroics. Among complex oxide thin films, barium strontium titanate (BST) has become the material of choice for room-temperature-based voltage-tunable dielectric thin films, due to its large dielectric tunability and low microwave loss at room temperature. BST thin film varactor technology based reconfigurable radio frequency (RF)/microwave components have been demonstrated with the potential to lower the size, weight, and power needs of a future generation of communication and radar systems. Low-power multiferroic devices have also been recently demonstrated. Strong magneto-electric coupling has also been demonstrated …

Limiters Protect Adcs Without Adding Harmonics, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

High-speed Analogue to Digital Converters (ADC) are used for sampling at either the intermediate frequency (IF) or the radio frequency of wireless receivers. When the transmitter is nearby, the sampled signal can exceed the ADC’s maximum input level. So, amplitude limiting is necessary to prevent ADC damage or degradation. While automatic gain control is effective for controlling IF amplitude excursion in traditional single-carrier systems, it is not desirable in modern multi-carrier applications. One solution is to cap the IF amplitude excursion with a limiter. Unfortunately, a new problem is created – the strong non-linearity that is required of a good …

Lna Integrates Fast Shutdown Function, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

To minimize dead time in time domain duplex (TDD) transceiver, reception should ideally commence as soon as transmission ends. However, the low noise amplifier (LNA), which is typically shutdown during transmission to prevent device damage and receiver overload, can exhibit a turn-on delay. In older implementations, the shutdown function is external to the LNA device. So, one way to reduce part count and to miniaturize this class of LNA is to integrate the LNA and shutdown function in a microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC). The integration also allows the shutdown circuit to be connected to the LNA at an optimum …

A Fast-Converging Mppt Technique For Photovoltaic System Under Fast Varying Solar Irradiation And Load Resistance, Saad Mekhilef

Saad Mekhilef

Under fast varying solar irradiation and load resistance, a fast-converging maximum power point tracking system is required to ensure the photovoltaic system response rapidly with minimum power losses. Traditionally, maximum power point locus was used to provide such a fast response. However, the algorithm requires extra control loop or intermittent disconnection of the PV module. Hence, this paper proposes a simpler fast-converging maximum power point tracking technique, which excludes the extra control loop and intermittent disconnection. In the proposed algorithm, the relationship between the load line and the I–V curve is used with trigonometry rule to obtain the fast response. …

Wave-Shaped Mask Of Fabricating Nano-Scaled Structure, Fang-Tzu Chuang

Fang-Tzu Chuang

A wave-shaped mask for fabricating a nano-scale structure is disclosed. The wave-shaped mask comprises an elastomeric transparent substrate having an upper surface and a lower surface, and a light-penetrable thin film layer disposed on the upper surface of the elastomeric transparent substrate. The upper surface of the elastomeric transparent substrate and the light-penetrable thin film layer are in a periodic wave shape, and the lower surface of the elastomeric transparent substrate is in a plate shape.

Low Loss Configuration For Integrated Pin-Schottky Limiters, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

Compared to the PIN diode limiter, the Schottky-PIN limiter improves receiver protection, but has a higher insertion loss. Low cost, plastic packaged diodes can further worsen the loss. Diode stacking, mesa diode construction, and isolating the Schottky diode with a high-impedance quarter wave line or a directional coupler can reduce loss, but detrimentally raises the limiting threshold and/or adds bulk or cost. The PIN-Schottky limiter’s insertion loss can be improved by integrating the diodes’ parasitic capacitances into a low pass ladder network, but this solution requires the PIN diode to have two anode connections. Recently, the PIN-Schottky limiter was integrated …

Novel Configuration For Multilevel Dc-Link Three-Phase Five-Level Inverter, Saad Mekhilef

Saad Mekhilef

new multilevel DC-link three-phase five-level voltage source inverter topology is introduced here. A multilevel DClink formed from single DC voltage supply and two cascaded half-bridge (CHB) power cells is connected to 12-switch threephase bridge in such a way that the proposed inverter produces five levels in the output voltage waveform. Compared to comparable inverters, such as symmetrical CHB and hybrid multilevel inverters, the proposed topology maximises the number of voltage levels and reduces the number of utilised DC voltage supplies, switches, gate driver circuits and installation area. A modified fundamental frequency modulation technique based on determination of switching states of …

Method Of Fabricating Wave-Shaped Mask For Photolithography And Exposure Method Of Fabricating Nano-Scaled Structure Using The Wave-Shaped Mask, Fang-Tzu Chuang

Fang-Tzu Chuang

A method of fabricating wave-shaped mask is disclosed. The method of fabricating wave-shaped mask comprises the steps of providing an elastomeric transparent substrate comprising an upper surface and a lower surface, applying a stable force to the elastomeric transparent substrate for deforming the elastomeric transparent substrate, forming a light-penetrable thin film layer on the upper surface of the elastomeric transparent substrate, and removing the force applying to the elastomeric transparent substrate, whereby the upper surface of the elastomeric transparent substrate and the light-penetrable thin film layer are in a periodic wave shape and the lower surface of the elastomeric transparent …

Boundary Control Of Dual-Output Boost Converter Using State-Energy Plane, Saad Mekhilef

Saad Mekhilef

A boundary control scheme for dual-output boost converter (DBC) with enhanced performance using second-order switching surface is presented in this study. The derivation of the switching surface is performed in state-energy plane rather than the state-plane to obtain a general geometrical representation that provides a good dynamic response during start-up and sudden load changes, achieving steady state in two switching actions. To illustrate the control characteristic and performance, a detailed mathematical analysis is fully developed and compared with other control methods for the DBC. The proposed control was simulated, implemented in a digital signal processor TMS320F2812, and tested using prototype …

Active Neutral Point Clamped Converter For Equal Loss Distribution, Saad Mekhilef

Prof. Dr. Saad Mekhilef

No abstract provided.

Modified Incremental Conductance Algorithm For Photovoltaic System Under Partial Shading Conditions And Load Variation, Saad Mekhilef

Saad Mekhilef

Under partial shading conditions, multiple peaks are observed in the power–voltage (P–V ) characteristic curve of a photovoltaic (PV) array, and the conventional maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms may fail to track the global maximum power point (GMPP). Therefore, this paper proposes a modified incremental conductance (Inc Cond) algorithm that is able to track the GMPP under partial shading conditions and load variation. A novel algorithm is introduced to modulate the duty cycle of the dc–dc converter in order to ensure fast MPPT process. Simulation and hardware implementation are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm …

Long-Term Wind Speed Forecasting And General Pattern Recognition Using Neural Networks, Saad Mekhilef

Saad Mekhilef

Long-term forecasting of wind speed has become a research hot spot in many different areas such as restructured electricity markets, energy management, and wind farm optimal design. However, wind energy with unstable and intermittent characteristics entails establishing accurate predicted data to avoid inefficient and less reliable results. The proposed study in this paper may provide a solution regarding the long-term wind speed forecast in order to solve the earlier-mentioned problems. For this purpose, two fundamentally different approaches, the statistical and the neural network-based approaches, have been developed to predict hourly wind speed data of the subsequent year. The novelty of …

New Three-Phase Multilevel Inverter With Reduced Number Of Power Electronic Components, Saad Mekhilef

Saad Mekhilef

In this paper, a new configuration of a three-phase five-level multilevel voltage-source inverter is introduced. The proposed topology constitutes the conventional three-phase two-level bridge with three bidirectional switches. A multilevel dc link using fixed dc voltage supply and cascaded half-bridge is connected in such a way that the proposed inverter outputs the required output voltage levels. The fundamental frequency staircase modulation technique is easily used to generate the appropriate switching gate signals. For the purpose of increasing the number of voltage levels with fewer number of power electronic components, the structure of the proposed inverter is extended and different methods …

Limiting And Transient Performances Of A Low Loss Pin-Schottky Limiter, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

The main cause of loss in the PIN-Schottky limiter is the diodes’ parasitic capacitances. Techniques to counter the parasitic capacitances include using bare chip, air cavity packaging, diode stacking, mesa construction, isolating the Schottky diode from the signal path and connecting the diodes to a low impedance node. But the aforementioned techniques either sacrifice cost, manufacturability, size, performances or thermal ruggedness. To reduce loss in the PIN-Schottky limiter, we re-configured its parasitics into a low pass ladder network. This paper reports on the new configuration’s changed large signal and transient performances. We observed improved isolation at 0.9 and 2.4 GHz, …

Experimental And Theoretical Study Of Polarization-Dependent Optical Transitions In Inas Quantum Dots At Telecommunication-Wavelengths (1300-1500 Nm), Muhammad Usman, Susannah Heck, Edmund Clarke, Peter Spencer, Hoon Ryu, Ray Murray, Gerhard Klimeck

Gerhard Klimeck

observed, in contrast to recent reports for single QDJOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 109, 104510 (2011)The design of some optical devices, such as semiconductor optical amplifiers for telecommunication applications, requires polarization-insensitive optical emission at long wavelengths (1300–1550 nm). Self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) typically exhibit ground state optical emissions at wavelengths shorter than 1300 nm with highly polarization-sensitive characteristics, although this can be modified by the use of low growth rates, the incorporation of strain-reducing capping layers, or the growth of closely-stacked QD layers. Exploiting the strain interactions between closely stacked QD layers also affords greater freedom in the choice of …

Balanced Uhf Lna Simplifies Cell Towers, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

Cellular basestations' low noise amplifiers (LNA) must have input impedances that are closely matched to the antennas. Unfortunately, the amplifier devices cannot be conjugate matched without sacrificing their noise performances. Current solutions such as the isolator and the balanced LNA can satisfactorily solve the matching problem but at the expense of increased cost, weight and size. On the other hand, the confined space atop cellular towers makes the current solutions unattractive. To shrink the balanced LNA for cellular infrastructure service, we pair a highly integrated dual-amplifier MMIC with miniature multilayer couplers. This MMIC also achieves the distinction of being the …