The addition of thin-film alloy magnetic materials to integrated circuit processing enables a number of novel monolithic circuits. Examples include fully integrated magnetic field sensors, signal and power galvanic isolation circuits, and power supplies on chip (PwrSoC). There are several benefits to integrating these traditionally off-chip devices, including improved manufacturability,...
In advanced integrated circuit (IC) processes, the metal fill inserted to meet foundry imposed density requirements degrades the performance of interconnects and passive components which ultimately affects the overall circuit performance. Accounting for this degradation through electromagnetic and equivalent circuit modeling is becoming a critical aspect of IC design. However,...
The design of high-performance, high-speed clock generation and distribution becomes challenging in terms of phase noise, jitter and power consumption, due to the fast development of communication and computing systems. Injection locking is a promising clocking technique since it can significantly improve the energy efficiency, suppress the phase noise of...
This work presents a new energy saving technique for modern digital designs. We propose Time Interleaved Multi-Rail (TIMR) - a method for providing two dynamic supply rails to a circuit. This technique uses the first supply rail to mask the transition delay while changing the voltage of the second rail....
The central focus of this thesis is the design, fabrication and characterization of amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS) thin-film transistor (TFT) current mirrors. The thin-film deposition and circuit fabrication methods used to realize zinc tin oxide (ZTO) TFT
current mirrors are addressed in order to elucidate the processing challenges for this...
With increasing transistor operating frequencies, interconnects and passive devices are becoming performance limiters in integrated circuit (IC) designs. To combat this, the interconnect layers above the active silicon are trending toward low-κ dielectrics and Cu metallization. The use of these new materials has popularized chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) to planarize...
A duty-cycle controlled switched resistor is a tunable resistive element that uses pulse width modulation as the method of tuning. This thesis will describe the operation of switched resistors and propose several circuit architectures that are well suited to the use of switched resistors. These architectures include filters, mixers, and...
Variability in circuit performance due to process defects is a major concern in integrated circuit (IC) fabrication. Advanced IC manufacturing processes employ Chemical-Mechanical Polishing (CMP) for planarization of oxide and metal layers. CMP defects result in variations in the oxide and metal topographical profile. To reduce these topographical variations, electrically...
Low noise oscillators are universally needed in digital systems for clock generation and synchronization, and in radio-frequency communication front-ends for frequency up- and down-conversion. Noise in oscillators results in timing jitter, and limits the clock frequency of digital systems. In radio-frequency communication systems, phase noise in oscillators lowers the signal-to-noise...
Contemporary circuit design involves significant computer-based simulation, calling for a balance between circuit model accuracy and simulation run time. Traditionally, circuit modelers concentrated on producing either (1) physically-based models, where each element in the model correlates to a physically meaningful aspect of the device being modeled or (2) mathematically-based "macromodels,"...