Category Archives: Applications

Some problems are so challenging to solve that even the most advanced computers need weeks, not seconds, to process them.

Now a team of researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Notre Dame has created a new computing system that aims to tackle one of computing’s hardest problems in a fraction of the time.

“We wanted to find a way to solve a problem without using the normal binary representations that have been the backbone of computing for decades,” said Arijit Raychowdhury, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Their new system employs a network of electronic oscillators to solve graph coloring tasks – a type of problem that tends to choke modern computers.

Details of the study were published April 19 in the journal Scientific Reports.  The research was conducted with support from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Semiconductor Research Corporation and the Center for Low Energy Systems Technology.

“Applications today are demanding faster and faster computers to help solve challenges like resource allocation, machine learning and protein structure analysis – problems which at their core are closely related to graph coloring,” Raychowdhury said. “But for the most part, we’ve reached the limitations of modern digital computer processors. Some of these problems that are so computationally difficult to perform, it could take a computer several weeks to solve.”

A graph coloring problem starts with a graph – a visual representation of a set of objects connected in some way. To solve the problem, each object must be assigned a color, but two objects directly connected cannot share the same color. Typically, the goal is to color all objects in the graph using the smallest number of different colors.

In designing a system different from traditional transistor-based computing, the researchers took their cues from the human brain, where processing is handled collectively, such as a neural oscillatory network, rather than with a central processor.

“It’s the notion that there is tremendous power in collective computing,” said Suman Datta, Chang Family professor in Notre Dame’s College of Engineering and one of the study’s co-authors. “In natural forms of computing, dynamical systems with complex interdependencies evolve rapidly and solve complex sets of equations in a massively parallel fashion.”

The electronic oscillators, fabricated from vanadium dioxide, were found to have a natural ability that could be harnessed for graph coloring problems. When a group of oscillators were electrically connected via capacitive links, they automatically synchronized to the same frequency – oscillating at the same rate. Meanwhile, oscillators directly connected to one another would operate at different phases within the same frequency, and oscillators in the same group but not directly connected would sync in both frequency and phase.

“If you suppose that each phase represents a different color, this system was essentially mimicking naturally the solution to a graph coloring problem,” said Raychowdhury, who is also the ON Semiconductor Junior Professor at Georgia Tech.

The researchers were able to create a small network of oscillators to solve graph coloring problems with the same number of objects, which are also referred to as nodes or vertices. But even more significant, the new system theoretically proved that a connection existed between graph coloring and the natural dynamics of coupled oscillatory systems.

“This is a critical step because we can prove why this is happening and that it covers all possible instances of graphs,” Raychowdhury said. “This opens up a new way of performative computation and constructing novel computational models. This is novel in that it’s a physics-based computing approach, but it also presents tantalizing opportunities for building other customized analog systems for solving hard problems efficiently.”

That could be valuable to a range of companies looking for computers to help optimize their resources, such as a power utility wanting to maximize efficiency and usage of a vast electrical grid under certain constraints.

“This work provides one of the first constructive ways to build continuous time dynamical system solvers for a combinatorial optimization problem with a working demonstration using compact scalable post-CMOS devices,” said Abhinav Parihar, a Georgia Tech student who worked on the project.

The next step would be building a larger network of oscillators that could handle graph coloring problems with more objects at play.

“Our goal is to reach a system with hundreds of oscillators, which would put us in striking distance of developing a computing substrate that could solve graph coloring problems whose optimal solutions are not yet known to mankind,” Datta said.

CITATION: Abhinav Parihar, Nikhil Shukla, Matthew Jerry, Suman Datta and Arijit Raychowdhury, “Vertex coloring of graphs via phase dynamics of coupled oscillatory networks,” (Scientific Reports, April 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-00825-1

 SiTime Corporation, a developer of MEMS-based timing solutions and a wholly owned subsidiary of MegaChips Corporation (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6875), today introduced the SiT1569 oscillator and SiT1576 Super-TCXO with expanded frequency range. These timing solutions, available in a tiny CSP (chip-scale package), enable coin-cell battery operated IoT sensors to run up to 10 years. By using SiTime’s revolutionary TempFlat MEMS and mixed-signal technology, these devices deliver increased timekeeping accuracy and system power savings. The ultra-reliable, low-jitter SiT1576 and SiT1569 reference clocks are designed to drive microcontrollers (MCUs) and analog front end (AFE) modules in a range of portable and IoT applications such as railroad activity sensors in harsh environments, seismic sensor interface applications, and personal medical diagnostics.

“SiTime’s unique timing solutions are solving the most difficult design challenges. Smaller size, long battery life, and timing accuracy are becoming increasingly important with the rapid growth of IoT,” said Piyush Sevalia, executive vice president of marketing at SiTime. “The SiT1569 oscillator and SiT1576 Super-TCXO offer the best size, power, and accuracy to enable new IoT applications.”

About the SiT1569 Oscillator and SiT1576 Super-TCXO
These MEMS timing solutions enable unprecedented size reduction and battery life by replacing bulky quartz oscillators that have limited frequency options, or internally-generated (MCU) power-hungry frequencies that lack accuracy and consume I/O pins.

Key specifications:

  • Smallest package, CSP-4, up to 80% smaller than quartz solutions
    • 1.5 mm x 0.8 mm (1.2mm2 footprint)
    • 0.60 mm height for lower profile
  • Power supply current
    • 2.5 µA (100 kHz, SiT1569)
    • 5.5 µA (100 kHz, SiT1576)
  • Frequency range (factory programmed for fast delivery)
    • 1 Hz to 2 MHz (SiT1576)
    • 1 Hz to 462 kHz (SiT1569)
  • All-inclusive frequency stability includes initial offset and variations over industrial temperature (-40 to +85°C); a more accurate clock enables better timekeeping and extends battery life
    • ±5 ppm (SiT1576)
    • ±50 ppm (SiT1569)
  • Excellent jitter performance
    • 2.2 ns RMS period jitter (100 kHz, SiT1576)
    • 4.0 ns RMS period jitter (100 kHz, SiT1569)
  • Up to 65% faster startup time
    • 300 milliseconds (max.)
  • Highest reliability and resilience; MEMS resonator mass is 500 to 1000 times smaller than quartz
    • 30 times higher shock and vibration resistance
    • 30 times higher reliability, at 1 billion hours MTBF

Samples of the SiT1576 Super-TCXO and SiT1569 oscillator are available now from SiTime for qualified customers. Production volume is planned for Q3 2017.

UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country’s researchers have explored superelasticity properties on a nanometric scale based on shearing an alloy’s pillars down to nanometric size. In the article published by the prestigious scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers have found that below one micron in diameter the material behaves differently and requires much higher stress for it to be deformed. This superelastic behaviour is opening up new channels in the application of microsystems involving flexible electronics and microsystems that can be implanted into the human body.

Superelasticity is a physical property by which it is possible to deform a material to a considerable extent, up to 10%, which is much higher than that of elasticity. So when stress is applied to a straight rod, the rod can form a U-shape and when the stress applied is removed, the rod fully regains its original shape. Although this has been amply proven in macroscopic materials, “until now no one had been able to explore these superelasticity properties in micrometric and nanometric sizes,” explained José María San Juan, lead researcher of the article published by Nature Nanotechnology and a UPV/EHU professor.

Researchers in the UPV/EHU’s Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Applied Physics II have managed to see that “the superelastic effect is maintained in really small devices in a copper-aluminium-nickel alloy”. It is an alloy with shape memory on which the research team has been working for over 20 years on a macroscopic level: Cu-14Al-4Ni, an alloy that displays superelasticity in ambient temperature.

Pillars were built using the Cu-Al-Ni alloy, each one with a diameter measuring about 500 nm (half a micrometre). Credit: José María San Juan / UPV/EHU

Pillars were built using the Cu-Al-Ni alloy, each one with a diameter measuring about 500 nm (half a micrometre). Credit: José María San Juan / UPV/EHU

By using a piece of equipment known as a Focused Ion Beam, “an ion cannon that acts as a kind of atomic knife that shears the material”, explained San Juan, they built micropillars and nanopillars of this alloy with diameters ranging between 2 μm and 260 nm –a micrometre is one millionth of a metre and a nanometre one thousand-millionth of a metre–. And to them they applied a stress using a sophisticated instrument known as a nanoindenter, which “allows extremely small forces to be applied,” and then they measured their behaviour.

The researchers have for the first time confirmed and quantified that in diameters of less than a micrometre there is a considerable change in the properties relating to the critical stress for superelasticity. “The material starts to behave differently and needs a much higher stress for this to take place. The alloy continues to display superelasticity but for much higher stresses”. San Juan highlights the novelty of this increase in critical stress linked to size, and also stresses that they have been able to explain the reason for this change in behaviour: “We have proposed an atomic model that allows one to understand why and how the atomic structure of these pillars changes when a stress is applied”.

Microsystems involving flexible electronics and devices that can be implanted in the human body

The UPV/EHU professor highlighted the importance of this discovery, “spectacular superelastic behaviour on a small scale”, which opens up new channels in the design of strategies for applying alloys with shape memory to develop flexible microsystems and electromechanical nanosystems. “Flexible electronics is very much present on today’s market, it is being increasingly used in garments, sports footwear, in various displays, etc.” He also affirmed that all this is of crucial importance in developing smart healthcare devices of the Lab-on-a-chip type that can be implanted into the human body. “It will be possible to build tiny micropumps or microactuators that can be implanted on a chip, and which will allow a substance to be released and regulated inside the human body for a range of medical treatments.”

It is a discovery that “is expected to have great scientific and technological repercussions and offer the potential to revolutionise various aspects in related fields,” concluded San Juan, and he welcomed the fact that “we have managed to transfer all the necessary knowledge and to acquire the working tools that the most advanced centres can avail themselves of to open up a new line of research which can be fully developed at the UPV/EHU”.

At this week’s 2017 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, imec, a research and innovation hub in nano-electronics and digital technology, reported record breaking values below 10^-9 Ohm.cm² for PMOS source/drain contact resistivity. These results were obtained through shallow Gallium implantation on p-SiliconGermanium (p-SiGe) source/drain contacts with subsequent pulsed nanosecond laser anneal.

In future N7/N5 nodes, the source/drain contact area of the transistors becomes so small that the contact resistance threatens to become the dominating parasitic factor, resulting in suboptimal transistor functioning. Researchers have therefore been working on techniques to reduce the contact resistance on highly doped n-Si and p-SiGe source/drain contacts, aiming for values below 10^-9 Ohm.cm². Together with colleagues from the KU Leuven (Belgium), Fudan University (Shanghai, China), and Applied Materials (Sunnyvale, USA), imec’s specialists concentrated on p-SiGe contacts, comparing the effects of high-dose Boron and Gallium doping.

For the comparison, the researchers implanted SiGe separate wafers with a high dose of Gallium or Boron and applied various anneal processes. They then fabricated multi-ring circular transmission line model structures, which are highly sensitive to contact resistance. Subsequent measurements revealed the lowest contact resistance for the Gallium-implanted structures annealed with Applied Material’s nanosecond laser anneal. This process uniquely causes a Ge/Ga surface segregation, which is responsible for the ultralow sub-10^-9 Ohm.cm² contact resistivity. This result show a possible way to process next-generation technology nodes.

Naoto Horiguchi, distinguished member of the technical staff at imec indicated: “This breakthrough achievement in our search to develop solutions for next generation deeply-scaled CMOS provides a possible path for further performance improvement using the current source/drain schemes in N7/N5 nodes.”

Imec’s research into advanced logic scaling is performed in cooperation with imec’s key partners in its core CMOS programs including GlobalFoundries, Huawei, Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Samsung, SK Hynix, Sony Semiconductor Solutions and TSMC.

imec tin

Market for MEMS microphones and ECMs, micro-speakers and audio ICs will be worth US$20 billion in 2022. Compared to 2006, the audio business is about to experience profound changes.

When Yole Développement (Yole), part of Yole Group of Companies released its first microphone report in 2006, the MEMS microphone industry was at the early stage, with emerging players and applications. The “More than Moore” market research & strategy consulting company was announcing a US$116 million market for 260 million units. Today, market figures are at another scale. Therefore, 2017 volume will reach the 5 billion units milestone for a market value over US$1 billion.
Microphone has become a key technology for major MEMS and semiconductor companies. Knowles, Goertek, AAC as well as new comers such as Vesper are part of today’s landscape.

acoustic mems market

Acoustic MEMS & Audio Solutions report reviews the complete evolution of the audio world including MEMS microphones, ECMs, micro-speakers and audio ICs since 2010.

In parallel, System Plus Consulting and KnowMade combine their expertise to perform dedicated reports focused on leading microphone companies, Vesper and Knowles: the Vesper VM1000™ microphone report is a reverse engineering & costing analysis highlighting the innovative piezoelectric technology developed by Vesper. Indeed the company has developed the first piezoelectric MEMS technology microphone. “This innovation reshuffles the cards of the microphone industry, mainly based on capacitive silicon MEMS technologies until now”, commented Romain Fraux, System Plus Consulting’s CTO.

Under competitive conditions, Yole’s analysts interviewed Vesper’s CEO, Matt Crowley to understand Vesper’s strategy and learn more about its latest device. With this disruptive solution, Vesper starts playing the big league with leading companies such as Knowles, Goertek… Full interview: The future is voice-powered.

The Knowles MEMS Microphones patent-to-product mapping details the main patented features of Knowles’ device embedded in iPhone 7 Plus™. Mixing data from System Plus Consulting’s teardown and KnowMade’s IP analysis, this report makes the connection between the features of Knowles technologies and its patent portfolio. The report also reviews Knowles’s patent landscape and the IP litigations involving patents identified in the Patent-to-Product mapping analysis.
“The technology developed by Knowles in the early 2000s has strongly impacted the audio landscape triggering an unprecedented revolution,” said Coralie Legreneur, KnowMade’s IP analyst. Knowles never stopped improving its solution and today, within a very intense and competitive global market, the company is showing strong IP activities.

Audio is becoming a key function of multiple existing and new products that increasingly has to be analysed as a complete landscape compared to independent devices.

“From mobile phones to cars, from home assistants to drones, audio products like microphones, speakers and audio ICs are essential for all the new systems driving consumer electronic markets”, comments Guillaume Girardin Technology & Market Analyst, MEMS & Sensors at Yole.
The total audio business was worth more than US$15 billion in 2016. Moreover, Yole announces today a CAGR close to 6%, in 2022. The audio device market will become a key feature in all the applications it is involved in. According to the Acoustic MEMS & Audio Solutions report, there is clearly room for more benefits in the audio supply and value chain, as well as other significant changes.

At the device level, the MEMS microphone market has almost reached the US$1 billion milestone, with a value of US$ 993 million in 2016. Combined with the US$700 million ECM market, now the acquisition of sound is almost a US$2 billion value market.

The µspeaker market is estimated to be worth US$8.7 billion. In addition to these two visible elements of the audio chain, the audio IC market, which includes codecs, DSPs and amplifiers, should reach US$4.3 billion in 2016.

Mobile remains the main market segment for microphones. This sector was very demanding in terms of volume but not so much in terms of performance: against two microphones per smartphone initially, mobile manufacturers developed solutions with more than five devices per system. “We are today in a new phase. With innovative technologies, smarter software, more algorithms, we reach a new level of performances and see solutions with higher value,” said Guillaume Girardin from Yole.

Imec, a research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology, announced today at the 2017 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits the world’s first demonstration of a vertically stacked ferroelectric Al doped HfO2 device for NAND applications. Using a new material and a novel architecture, imec has created a non-volatile memory concept with attractive characteristics for power consumption, switching speed, scalability and retention. The achievement shows that ferro-electric memory is a highly promising technology at various points in the memory hierarchy, and as a new technology for storage class memory. Imec will further develop the concept in collaboration with the world’s leading producers of memory ICs.

Ferro-electric materials consist of crystals that exhibit spontaneous polarization; they can be in one of two states, which can be reversed with a suitable electric field. This non-volatile characteristic resembles ferromagnetism, after which they have been named. Discovered more than five decades ago, ferro-electric memory has always been considered ideal, due to its very low power needs, non-volatile character and high switching speed. However, issues with the complex materials, the breakdown of the interfacial layer and bad retention characteristics have presented significant challenges. The recent discovery of a ferro-electric phase in HfO2, a well-known and less complex material, has triggered a renewed interest in this memory concept.

“With HfO2, there is now a material with which we can process ferro-electric memories that are fully CMOS compatible. This allows us to make a ferro-electric FET (FeFET) in both planar and vertical varieties,” noted Jan Van Houdt, imec’s chief scientist for memory technology. “We are working to overcome some of the remaining issues, such as retention, precise doping techniques and interface properties, in order to stabilize the ferro-electric phase. We are now confident that our FeFET concept has all the required characteristics. It is, in fact, suitable for both stand-alone and embedded memories at various points in the memory hierarchy, going all the way from non-volatile DRAM to Flash-like memories. It has particularly interesting characteristics for future storage-class memory, which will help overcome the current bottleneck caused by the differences in speed between fast processors and slower mass memory.”

Imec recently presented the first, extremely positive results to its partners. The research center is now offering further development and industrialization of the vertical FeFET as a program to all its memory partners, which include the world’s major companies producing memory ICs.

“FeFETs can be used as a technology to build memory very similar to Flash-memory, but with additional advantages for further scaling, simplified processing, and power consumption,” added Van Houdt. “With our longstanding R&D and processing experience on advanced Flash, we are uniquely positioned to offer our partners a head start in this exciting opportunity. They can then decide how best to fit ferro-electric memories in their products and chips.”

Imec’s research into advanced memory is performed in cooperation with imec’s key partners in its core CMOS programs including GlobalFoundries, Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Samsung, SK Hynix, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Toshiba, Sandisk and TSMC.

imec ferroelectric

By Walt Custer, Custer Consulting Group, and Dan Tracy, SEMI

SEMI’s year-to-date worldwide semiconductor equipment billings year-to-date through March show a 59.6 percent gain to the same period last year.

Understanding volatility in the electronic equipment supply chain can be valuable in forecasting future business activity.  A useful way to compare relevant electronic industry data series is by using 3/12 growth rates.  The 3/12 growth is the ratio of three months of data, compared to the same three months a year earlier.

Chart 1 compares the 3/12 growth rates of four data series:

  • World semiconductor equipment shipments (SEMI; www.semi.org)
  • Taiwan chip foundry sales (company composite maintained by Custer Consulting Group)
  • World semiconductor shipments (SIA, www.semiconductors.org & WSTS, www.wsts.org)
  • World electronic equipment sales (composite of 238 global OEMS maintained by Custer Consulting Group).

supply-chain-dynamics

Highlights

  • Semiconductor capital equipment sales are by far the most volatile of the four series in Chart 1, followed by foundry sales.
  • Foundry sales are a good leading indicator for semiconductor equipment shipments ─ leading SEMI equipment by 3-4 months on a 3/12 growth basis.
  • Foundry growth peaked in November 2016.
  • SEMI equipment growth appears to have peaked in February 2017.
  • Semiconductor shipments may have peaked in March 2017. March semiconductor revenues were up 18.5 percent in 1Q’17 vs 1Q’16 and, although still very strong, their rate of growth appears to have plateaued.

Note that 3/12 values greater than 1.0 indicate growth.  Declining 3/12 values (but greater than 1.0) indicate growth but at a slower rate.  Values below 1.0 indicate contraction.

Based upon Chart 1, semiconductor equipment 3/12 growth will likely reach zero in August or September of this year. Considering the unstable world geopolitical situation, uncertainty clearly exists.

SEMI members can access member-only market data and information at www.semi.org/en/free-market-data-semi-members.

Custer Consulting Group (www.custerconsulting.com) provides market research, business analyses and forecasts for the electronic equipment and solar/photovoltaic supply chains including semiconductors, printed circuit boards & other passive components, photovoltaic cells & modules, EMS, ODM & related assembly activities and materials & process equipment.

Electronic systems that improve vehicle performance; that add comfort and convenience; and that warn, detect, and take corrective measures to keep drivers safe and alert are being added to new cars each year. Consumer demand and government mandates for many of these new systems, along with rising prices for many IC components within them, are expected to raise the automotive IC market 22% this year to a new record high of $28.0 billion (Figure 1).

Over the past several years, the global automotive IC market has experienced some extraordinary swings in growth.  After increasing 11.5% in 2014, the automotive IC market declined 2.5% in 2015, but then rebounded with solid 10.8% growth in 2016.  It is worth noting that the sales decline experienced in 2015 was primarily the result of falling ASPs across all the key automotive IC product categories—microcontrollers, analog ICs, DRAM, flash, and general- and special-purpose logic ICs, which offset steady unit growth for automotive ICs that year.

Figure 1

Figure 1

However, in the second half of 2016, steadily rising ASPs (along with demand for the new automotive systems) helped return the automotive IC market to double-digit growth. In 2017, exceptionally strongincreases in DRAM and flash memory prices are expected to help drive the total automotive IC market to an extraordinary increase of 22.4%.

IC Insights recently revised its IC market outlook for 2017 and now shows DRAM average selling prices rising 50% in 2017, NAND flash ASPs increasing 28%, and the average selling price for automotive special-purpose logic devices increasing 34%. these strong ASPs gains, coupled with ongoing system demand, are driving the strong automotive IC market growth this year (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Figure 2

Collectively, microcontrollers, analog, standard logic, and memory ICs used in automotive applications accounted for only about 8% of total IC marketshare by system type in 2016, but that share is forecast to increase to more than 10% in 2020, when automotive is expected to become the third-largest end-use category for ICs, trailing only the communications and computer segments.   Through 2020, IC Insights anticipates that advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) will be the biggest user of automotive ICs.  Various ADAS systems are currently helping cars and drivers remain safe on the road and they are proving to be essential building blocks to semi autonomous and autonomous vehicles that are being proposed for the next decade.

By Paula Doe, SEMI

Autonomous automobiles, smart manufacturing, smart buildings, mobile human health monitoring, and 4G+ communications hardware for connecting all these devices will drive strong 24 percent growth in units and 14 percent in value for the MEMS sector, according to Yole Développement. “These emerging markets will give a noticeable boost to MEMS growth going forward,” says Yole Founder and President Jean Christophe Eloy, who will discuss the changes coming to the sector at SEMICON West 2017, on July 11.

These emerging applications are changing what’s required from MEMS suppliers. We are seeing bigger building blocks with higher value, integration of more functions and more processing power in the package, and increased demand for software intelligence to turn the sensor data into useful information, Eloy notes. This probably also means a shake up in the players, as it’s not clear who will capture the value of this growth opportunity, as the key skills move even more towards integration and software to enable functions.

Emerging smart autos, manufacturing, healthcare and increasingly complex high speed communications will boost MEMS market to more than $25 billion in the next six years. Source: Yole Développement.

Emerging smart autos, manufacturing, healthcare and increasingly complex high speed communications will boost MEMS market to more than $25 billion in the next six years. Source: Yole Développement.

Demand for smart audio, smart visual and more RF

The demand for RF filters required by the increasing complexity of communicating all this data with high-speed 4G/4G+ mobile technology will make RF MEMS BAW filters the fastest-growing segment of the MEMS business, likely seeing some 35 percent compound annual growth, jumping from $2.2 billion in 2017 to a $10.2 billion market in 2022, according to Yole analysts.

Demand for audio processing will also be particularly strong, with 11 percent growth in units for MEMS microphones, increasingly for more sophisticated applications that use the devices in an always-listening capacity, continually sensing what is happening around in the home, in the car or in the factory. That means more processing power and software are needed to detect key sounds form the background noise, and even recognize what they mean. .

Another coming change: MEMS micro speakers will soon finally hit the market. STMicroelectronics is currently making wafers for USound for qualification. “Micro speakers will happen next year,” says Eloy, noting that this will enable a proliferation of small and diffuse audio applications, and will increase demand for more and more sophisticated audio ICs for processing, as audio increasingly becomes a more main used human-machine interface.

Growing opportunity for adding audio value based on MEMS means interest by a host of competing players. Source: Yole Développement.

Growing opportunity for adding audio value based on MEMS means interest by a host of competing players. Source: Yole Développement.

Smarter image sensing will also make its way into more applications, while various types of 3D imaging like ultrasonics, radar, and LIDAR are starting to get traction not only in automotive applications, but also in smartphones for autofocus and for facial recognition for security.

Adding intelligence at the edge

The next generation of sensor technology will also clearly integrate more intelligence. IoT applications are generating immense amounts of data, which needs to be intelligently processed into useful information for local action. However, sending all that data to the cloud and back for processing is often not practical. “Now that we have so much sensor data available ─ not just motion, but also sound, imaging, IR, UV, and other spectra ─ the next opportunity is to add artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning at the edge, so the sensors report only the selective information required to signal problems that need action,” says Pete Beckman, co-director, Northwestern/Argonne Institute for Science and Engineering, Argonne National Laboratory. Beckman will talk at SEMICON West (July 11-13) about his lab’s open platform that allows researchers to experiment with adding machine learning to sensor nodes.

The Argonne Waggle platform includes a Linux-based single board computer to handle encrypted networking and data caching.  It also pulls sensor data from customized boards or off-the-shelf sensor devices.  The Waggle management (wagman) board controls power and diagnostics.  The third key component is a single board computer focused completely on edge computing, supporting AI and machine learning.  With eight CPU cores and a GPU, the edge processor can be trained to recognize sounds and images or other patterns, using open source software like UC Berkeley’s Caffe deep learning software and the OpenCV computer vision package. “We isolated this part on a separate board to run the newest software available, and out on the leading edge of development, all of this AI software can still be a little buggy,” Beckman notes.

The group is working with the city of Chicago on a network of these smart nodes to monitor things like traffic incidents, air pollution, ice on roads, or potential flooding.  Other researchers are the using the platform to measure pollen and particulates in air to predict asthma outbreaks, or monitor water flow patterns across a prairie site.

Adding intelligence to development

“If the MEMS industry is going to innovate more smartly, we can’t keep doing things the same old way we always have, and the foundries have to do their part to do things differently as well,” notes Tomas Bauer, Silex Microsystems‘ SVP Sales & Business Development, who will discuss Silex’s efforts to use tailored IT systems to speed the development of MEMS devices. Since most innovative MEMS devices depend on developing a whole new wafer process, ramping to stable volume production has often taken years. So Silex has worked on developing information systems to track the wafers through development, with a cockpit view for easy access to all the statistics on the runs and the risk items, immediate notification of potential issues, and more sophisticated queuing and optimization of pathways of development batches to speed throughput in the high-mix fab, Silex’s also uses optical inspection tools during processing so its engineers can roll back the images to see what went wrong. “Instead of trying to standardize the process, we need to find ways to speed the development of the custom process,” Bauer suggests.

At SEMICON West 2017 (July 11-13), the MEMS and Sensors session also features David Horsley from University of California (Davis) on piezoelectric MEMS opportunities, and Thin Film’s Arvind Kamoth  and Princeton’s James Sturm on new technologies for systems integrating sensors and CMOS on flexible substrates.

See the SEMICON West Agenda-at-a-Glance; for best pricing, register now for SEMICON West 2017.

The 63rd annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), to be held at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square hotel December 2-6, 2017, has issued a Call for Papers seeking the world’s best original work in all areas of microelectronics research and development.

The paper submission deadline this year is Wednesday, August 2, 2017. For the second year in a row the IEDM submission deadline is about 1½ months later than what had been the norm, reducing the time between paper submissions and publication of the cutting-edge research results for which the conference is known. Authors are asked to submit four-page camera-ready abstracts (instead of the traditional three pages), which will be published as-is in the proceedings.

Only a very limited number of late-news papers will be accepted. Authors are asked to submit late-news abstracts announcing only the most recent and noteworthy developments. The late-news submission deadline is September 11, 2017.

“Based on the success of the later paper-submission deadline last year, we have decided to make it an IEDM tradition,” said Dr. Barbara DeSalvo, Chief Scientist at Leti. “This helps ensure a rich and unique technical program.”

At IEDM each year, the world’s best scientists and engineers in the field of microelectronics gather to participate in a technical program consisting of more than 220 presentations, along with special luncheon presentations and a variety of panels, special sessions, Short Courses, IEEE/EDS award presentations and other events highlighting leading work in more areas of the field than any other conference.

This year special emphasis is placed on the following topics:
Advanced memory technologies
More-than-Moore device concepts
Neuromorphic computing/machine learning
Optoelectronics, photonics, displays and imaging systems
Package-device level interactions
Sensors and MEMS devices for biological/medical applications
Spin for memory and logic
Steep subthreshold devices
Technologies for 5nm and beyond

Overall, papers in the following areas of technology are encouraged:

  • Circuit and Device Interaction
  • Characterization, Reliability and Yield
  • Compound Semiconductor and High-Speed Devices
  • Memory Technology
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Nano Device Technology
  • Optoelectronics, Displays and Imagers
  • Power Devices
  • Process and Manufacturing Technology
  • Sensors, MEMS and BioMEMS