This book serves a dual purpose: firstly to combine the treatment of circuits and digital electronics, and secondly, to establish a strong connection with the contemporary world of digital systems. The need for this approach arises from the observation that introducing digital electronics through a course in traditional circuit analysis is fast becoming obsolete. Our world has gone digital. Automata theory helps with the design of digital circuits such as parts of computers, telephone systems and control systems. A complete perspective is emphasized, because even the most elegant computer architecture will not function without adequate supporting circuits. The focus is on explaining the real-world implementation of complete digital systems. In doing so, the reader is prepared to immediately begin design and implementation work. This work serves as a bridge to take readers from the theoretical world to the everyday design world where solutions must be complete to be successful.

For more than four decades, the scaling of semiconductor process technologies has revolutionized electronics applications, with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology dominating the semiconductor industry in recent years. The scaling of CMOS technology coupled with advanced in circuits structures and microarchitectures have significantly increased the performance of integrated circuits (ICs). The side-effects of these performance and functional enhancements have traditionally been increased design complexity, greater power consumption, and higher fabrication cost. Multi-voltage design now plays a crucial role in allowing the industry to meet the growing customer demand for high-performance ICs offering a wider variety of applications at a reduced cost.

Multi-voltage CMOS Circuit Design provides an in-depth analysis of several new techniques for designing low-power and high-speed ICs with particular emphasis on the approaches based on using multiple supply and threshold voltages. Starting with a detailed overview of the evolution of IC technologies, the authors go on to examine: the sources of power consumption in CMOS ICs; the mechanism that produce sub-threshold and gate oxide leakage currents; advanced supply and threshold voltage scaling techniques for lowering power consumption and enhancing reliability; energy-efficient monolithic DC-DC conversion techniques for low voltage applications such as microprocessors; in-depth evaluation of the potential of emerging multi-voltage circuit techniques for sustaining the scaling trends of CMOS technologies.

A valuable text for researches and electronic engineers working in the semiconductor technology industry, Multi-voltage CMOS Circuit Design is also a useful reference for graduate students taking courses on advanced topics in IC design.

Traditionally, Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools have been used to create the nominal design of an integrated circuit (IC), such that the circuit nominal response meets the desired performance specifications. In reality, however, due to the disturbances ofthe IC manufacturing process, the actual performancesof the mass produced chips are different than those for the nominal design. Even if the manufacturing process were tightly controlled, so that there were little variations across the chips manufactured, the environmentalchanges (e. g. those oftemperature, supply voltages, etc. ) would alsomakethe circuit performances vary during the circuit life span. Process-related performance variations may lead to low manufacturing yield, and unacceptable product quality. For these reasons, statistical circuit design techniques are required to design the circuit parameters, taking the statistical process variations into account. This book deals with some theoretical and practical aspects of IC statistical design, and emphasizes how they differ from those for discrete circuits. It de scribes a spectrum of different statistical design problems, such as parametric yield optimization, generalized on-target design, variability minimization, per formance tunning, and worst-case design. The main emphasis of the presen tation is placed on the principles and practical solutions for performance vari ability minimization. It is hoped that the book may serve as an introductory reference material for various groups of IC designers, and the methodologies described will help them enhance the circuit quality and manufacturability. The book containsseven chapters."

This book shows readers to avoid common mistakes in circuit design, and presents classic circuit concepts and design approaches from the transistor to the system levels. The discussion is geared to be accessible and optimized for practical designers who want to learn to create circuits without simulations. Topic by topic, the author guides designers to learn the classic analog design skills by understanding the basic electronics principles correctly, and further prepares them to feel confident in designing high-performance, state-of-the art CMOS analog systems. This book combines and presents all in-depth necessary information to perform various design tasks so that readers can grasp essential material, without reading through the entire book. This top-down approach helps readers to build practical design expertise quickly, starting from their understanding of electronics fundamentals.

This book covers the theoretical background, experimental methods and implementation details to engineer for communication and imaging application, terahertz devices using metamaterials, in mainstream semiconductor foundry processes. This book will provide engineers and physicists an authoritative reference to construct such devices with minimal background. The authors describe the design and construction of electromagnetic (EM) devices for terahertz frequencies (108-1010 cycles/sec) using artificial materials that are a fraction of the wavelength of the incident EM wave, resulting in an effective electric and magnetic properties (permittivity and permeability) that are unavailable in natural materials.

This book provides a comprehensive coverage of System-on-Chip (SoC) post-silicon validation and debug challenges and state-of-the-art solutions with contributions from SoC designers, academic researchers as well as SoC verification experts. The readers will get a clear understanding of the existing debug infrastructure and how they can be effectively utilized to verify and debug SoCs.

In recent years the mathematical modeling of charge transport in semi conductors has become a thriving area in applied mathematics. The drift diffusion equations, which constitute the most popular model for the simula tion of the electrical behavior of semiconductor devices, are by now mathe matically quite well understood. As a consequence numerical methods have been developed, which allow for reasonably efficient computer simulations in many cases of practical relevance. Nowadays, research on the drift diffu sion model is of a highly specialized nature. It concentrates on the explora tion of possibly more efficient discretization methods (e.g. mixed finite elements, streamline diffusion), on the improvement of the performance of nonlinear iteration and linear equation solvers, and on three dimensional applications. The ongoing miniaturization of semiconductor devices has prompted a shift of the focus of the modeling research lately, since the drift diffusion model does not account well for charge transport in ultra integrated devices. Extensions of the drift diffusion model (so called hydrodynamic models) are under investigation for the modeling of hot electron effects in submicron MOS-transistors, and supercomputer technology has made it possible to employ kinetic models (semiclassical Boltzmann-Poisson and Wigner Poisson equations) for the simulation of certain highly integrated devices."

This book gives the first unified presentation of the physics and applications of optoelectronic devices. It covers the devices whose operation relies on the properties of quantum wells and fiber optics as well as their applications for optical communications and optical signal processing. The reader will benefit from a comprehensive mathematical treatment and from a state of the art presentation of the latest results in applied optoelectronics and semiconductor physics. The two different and complementary physical theories for describing optoelectronic devices, namely the electromagnetic field theory and quantum mechanics, are treated together in a combined manner, such that links and analogies are made apparent wherever possible.

This book introduces readers to various threats faced during design and fabrication by today's integrated circuits (ICs) and systems. The authors discuss key issues, including illegal manufacturing of ICs or "IC Overproduction," insertion of malicious circuits, referred as "Hardware Trojans", which cause in-field chip/system malfunction, and reverse engineering and piracy of hardware intellectual property (IP). The authors provide a timely discussion of these threats, along with techniques for IC protection based on hardware obfuscation, which makes reverse-engineering an IC design infeasible for adversaries and untrusted parties with any reasonable amount of resources. This exhaustive study includes a review of the hardware obfuscation methods developed at each level of abstraction (RTL, gate, and layout) for conventional IC manufacturing, new forms of obfuscation for emerging integration strategies (split manufacturing, 2.5D ICs, and 3D ICs), and on-chip infrastructure needed for secure exchange of obfuscation keys- arguably the most critical element of hardware obfuscation.

As the complexity and the density of VLSI chips increase with shrinking design rules, the evaluation of long-term reliability of MOS VLSI circuits is becoming an important problem. The assessment and improvement of reliability on the circuit level should be based on both the failure mode analysis and the basic understanding of the physical failure mechanisms observed in integrated circuits. Hot-carrier induced degrada tion of MOS transistor characteristics is one of the primary mechanisms affecting the long-term reliability of MOS VLSI circuits. It is likely to become even more important in future generation chips, since the down ward scaling of transistor dimensions without proportional scaling of the operating voltage aggravates this problem. A thorough understanding of the physical mechanisms leading to hot-carrier related degradation of MOS transistors is a prerequisite for accurate circuit reliability evaluation. It is also being recognized that important reliability concerns other than the post-manufacture reliability qualification need to be addressed rigorously early in the design phase. The development and use of accurate reliability simulation tools are therefore crucial for early assessment and improvement of circuit reliability: Once the long-term reliability of the circuit is estimated through simulation, the results can be compared with predetermined reliability specifications or limits. If the predicted reliability does not satisfy the requirements, appropriate design modifications may be carried out to improve the resistance of the devices to degradation."

This thesis reports on an outstanding research advance in the development of Application Specific Printed Electronic (ASPE) circuits. It proposes the novel Inkjet-Configurable Gate Array (IGA) concept as a design-manufacturing method for the direct mapping of digital functions on top of new prefabricated structures. The thesis begins by providing details on the generation of the IGA bulk, and subsequently presents Drop-on-Demand configurable methodologies for the metallization of IGAs. Lastly, it demonstrates IGAs' suitability for personalization and yield improvement, and reports on the integration of various circuits into IGA bulk. In addition to highlighting novel results, the thesis also offers a comprehensive introduction to printed electronics, from technology development, to design methods, tools and kits.

This book features the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute "Manipulating Quantum Coherence in Solid State Systems," held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, August 2005, which presented a fundamental introduction to solid-state approaches to achieving quantum computation. This proceedings volume describes the properties of quantum coherence in semiconductor spin-based systems and the behavior of quantum coherence in superconducting systems.

This book focuses on the latest research and developments in photovoltaic (PV) power plants, and provides extensive coverage of fundamental theories, current research and developmental activities, and new approaches intended to overcome a number of critical limitations in today's grid integration technologies. The design and implementation process for large-scale solar PV power plants is introduced. The content provided will actively support the development of future renewable power plants and smart grid applications. The book will be of interest to researchers, professionals and graduate students in electrical and electronics fields seeking to understand the related technologies involved in PV power plants.

This book addresses future video coding from the perspective of hardware implementation and architecture design, with particular focus on approximate computing and the energy-quality scalability paradigm. Challenges in deploying VLSI architectures for video coding are identified and potential solutions postulated with reference to recent research in the field. The book offers systematic coverage of the designs, techniques and paradigms that will most likely be exploited in the design of VLSI architectures for future video coding systems. Written by a team of expert authors from around the world, and brought together by an editor who is a recognised authority in the field, this book is a useful resource for academics and industry professionals working on VLSI implementation of video codecs.

This book presents state-of-the-art techniques for radiation hardened high-resolution Time-to-Digital converters and low noise frequency synthesizers. Throughout the book, advanced degradation mechanisms and error sources are discussed and several ways to prevent such errors are presented. An overview of the prerequisite physics of nuclear interactions is given that has been compiled in an easy to understand chapter. The book is structured in a way that different hardening techniques and solutions are supported by theory and experimental data with their various tradeoffs. Based on leading-edge research, conducted in collaboration between KU Leuven and CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research Describes in detail advanced techniques to harden circuits against ionizing radiation Provides a practical way to learn and understand radiation effects in time-based circuits Includes an introduction to the underlying physics, circuit design, and advanced techniques accompanied with experimental data

Analog CMOS Microelectronic Circuits describes novel approaches for analog electronic interfaces design, especially for resistive and capacitive sensors showing a wide variation range, with the intent to cover a lack of solutions in the literature. After an initial description of sensors and main definitions, novel electronic circuits, which do not require any initial calibrations, are described; they show both AC and DC excitation voltage for the employed sensor, and use both voltage-mode and current-mode approaches. The proposed interfaces can be realized both as prototype boards, for fast characterization (in this sense, they can be easily implemented by students and researchers), and as integrated circuits, using modern low-voltage low-power design techniques (in this case, specialist analog microelectronic researchers will find them useful). The primary audience of Analog CMOS Microelectronic Circuits are: analog circuit designers, sensor companies, Ph.D. students on analog microelectronics, undergraduate and postgraduate students in electronic engineering.

The success of VHDL since it has been balloted in 1987 as an IEEE standard may look incomprehensible to the large population of hardware designers, who had never heared of Hardware Description Languages before (for at least 90% of them), as well as to the few hundreds of specialists who had been working on these languages for a long time (25 years for some of them). Until 1988, only a very small subset of designers, in a few large companies, were used to describe their designs using a proprietary HDL, or sometimes a HDL inherited from a University when some software environment happened to be developped around it, allowing usability by third parties. A number of benefits were definitely recognized to this practice, such as functional verification of a specification through simulation, first performance evaluation of a tentative design, and sometimes automatic microprogram generation or even automatic high level synthesis. As there was apparently no market for HDL's, the ECAD vendors did not care about them, start-up companies were seldom able to survive in this area, and large users of proprietary tools were spending more and more people and money just to maintain their internal system.

This monograph is motivated by the challenges faced in designing reliable VLSI systems in modern VLSI processes. The reliable operation of integrated circuits (ICs) has become increasingly dif?cult to achieve in the deep submicron (DSM) era. With continuouslydecreasing device feature sizes, combinedwith lower supply voltages and higher operating frequencies, the noise immunity of VLSI circuits is decreasing alarmingly. Thus, VLSI circuits are becoming more vulnerable to noise effects such as crosstalk, power supply variations, and radiation-inducedsoft errors. Among these noise sources, soft errors(or error caused by radiation particle strikes) have become an increasingly troublesome issue for memory arrays as well as c- binational logic circuits. Also, in the DSM era, process variations are increasing at a signi?cant rate, making it more dif?cult to design reliable VLSI circuits. Hence, it is important to ef?ciently design robust VLSI circuits that are resilient to radiation particle strikes and process variations. The work presented in this research mo- graph presents several analysis and design techniques with the goal of realizing VLSI circuits, which are radiation and process variation tolerant.

When it comes to frameworks, the familiar story of the elephant and the six blind philosophers seems to apply. As each philoso pher encountered a separate part of the elephant, each pronounced his considered, but flawed judgement. One blind philosopher felt a leg and thought it a tree. Another felt the tail and thought he held a rope. Another felt the elephant's flank and thought he stood before a wall. We're supposed to learn about snap judgements from this alle gory, but its author might well have been describing design automation frameworks. For in the reality of today's product development requirements, a framework must be many things to many people. xiv CAD Frameworks: Integration Technology for CAD As the authors of this book note, framework design is an optimi zation problem. Somehow, it has to be both a superior rope for one and a tremendous tree for another. Somehow it needs to provide a standard environment for exploiting the full potential of computer-aided engineering tools. And, somehow, it has to make real such abstractions as interoperability and interchangeability. For years, we've talked about a framework as something that provides application-oriented services, just as an operating system provides system-level support. And for years, that simple statement has hid the tremendous complexity of actually providing those services."

Leaf Cell and Hierarchical Compaction Techniques presents novel algorithms developed for the compaction of large layouts. These algorithms have been implemented as part of a system that has been used on many industrial designs. The focus of Leaf Cell and Hierarchical Compaction Techniques is three-fold. First, new ideas for compaction of leaf cells are presented. These cells can range from small transistor-level layouts to very large layouts generated by automatic Place and Route tools. Second, new approaches for hierarchical pitchmatching compaction are described and the concept of a Minimum Design is introduced. The system for hierarchical compaction is built on top of the leaf cell compaction engine and uses the algorithms implemented for leaf cell compaction in a modular fashion. Third, a new representation for designs called Virtual Interface, which allows for efficient topological specification and representation of hierarchical layouts, is outlined. The Virtual Interface representation binds all of the algorithms and their implementations for leaf and hierarchical compaction into an intuitive and easy-to-use system. From the Foreword: ...In this book, the authors provide a comprehensive approach to compaction based on carefully conceived abstractions. They describe the design of algorithms that provide true hierarchical compaction based on linear programming, but cut down the complexity of the computations through introduction of innovative representations that capture the provably minimum amount of required information needed for correct compaction. In most compaction algorithms, the complexity goes up with the number of design objects, but in this approach, complexity is due to the irregularity of the design, and hence is often tractable for most designs which incorporate substantial regularity. Here the reader will find an elegant treatment of the many challenges of compaction, and a clear conceptual focus that provides a unified approach to all aspects of the compaction task...' Jonathan Allen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Computer-Aided Design of Analog Circuits and Systems brings together in one place important contributions and state-of-the-art research results in the rapidly advancing area of computer-aided design of analog circuits and systems. This book serves as an excellent reference, providing insights into some of the most important issues in the field.

Physical Design for Multichip Modules collects together a large body of important research work that has been conducted in recent years in the area of Multichip Module (MCM) design. The material consists of a survey of published results as well as original work by the authors. All major aspects of MCM physical design are discussed, including interconnect analysis and modeling, system partitioning and placement, and multilayer routing. For readers unfamiliar with MCMs, this book presents an overview of the different MCM technologies available today. An in-depth discussion of various recent approaches to interconnect analysis are also presented. Remaining chapters discuss the problems of partitioning, placement, and multilayer routing, with an emphasis on timing performance. For the first time, data from a wide range of sources is integrated to present a clear picture of a new, challenging and very important research area. For students and researchers looking for interesting research topics, open problems and suggestions for further research are clearly stated. Points of interest include: Clear overview of MCM technology and its relationship to physical design; Emphasis on performance-driven design, with a chapter devoted to recent techniques for rapid performance analysis and modeling of MCM interconnects; Different approaches to multilayer MCM routing collected together and compared for the first time; Explanation of algorithms is not overly mathematical, yet is detailed enough to give readers a clear understanding of the approach; Quantitative data provided wherever possible for comparison of different approaches; A comprehensive list of references to recent literature on MCMs provided.

Integrated Fiber-Optic Receivers covers many aspects of the design of integrated circuits for fiber-optic receivers and other high-speed serial data links. Fundamental concepts are explained at the system level, circuit level, and semiconductor device level. Techniques for extracting timing information from the random data stream are described in considerable detail, as are all other aspects of receiver design. Integrated Fiber-Optic Receivers is organized in two parts. Part I covers the theory of communications systems as it applies to high-speed PAM (Pulse Amplitude Modulation) systems. The primary emphasis is on clock recovery circuits. Because theoretical concepts are generally grasped more easily by example, Part II is devoted to circuit design issues that illustrate example realizations of architectures described in Part I. Part II presents the transistor-level design, and measured results, of fundamental building blocks and test circuits. For practicing engineers, more than just reporting on the results of specific circuits, this book serves as a tutorial on the design of integrated high-speed broadband PAM data systems, such as: repeaters in long-haul, fiber-optic, trunk-lines transceivers for use in LANs and WANs; read channels for high-density data storage devices; and wireless communication handsets. Integrated Fiber-Optic Receivers may be used as a text for advanced courses in both analog circuit design and communication systems.

Describing and designing complex electronic systems has become an overwhelming activit)' for which VHDL is showing increasingly useful and promising support. Although created as a description language. VHDL is being increasingly used as a simulatable and synthcsizablcdcsign language. For the first time, here is abook which describesa number of unique and powerful ways VHDL can be used to solve typical design problems in systems ** ones which must be designed correctly in vcry short periodsoflime. Typically useful lcchniquessuch as switch-level modeling, mixed analog and digital modelling, and advanced synthesis for which VHDL showsgrealpromisearefully presented. Thesemeth* ods are bOlh immedial.ely applicable. and indicale lIle potential of VHDL in efficiently modelling Ihe real worldofelectronic systems. Sinceitsinception.there hasbeen adesireforananalogdescription languageconsistent with (and integrated with) VHDL. Until recently. VHDL could onl)' be applied to digital circuits.ootlhedreamofdescribingandsimulatingmixedanalogand digitalcircuitsis now a reality as described herein. Describing the functionality of analog circuits including intetoperability with digital circuits using the VHDL paradigm is surprisingly easy and powerful. The approach outlined by the authors presages a significant advance in the simulation of mixed systems.