Co-integration of sensors with their associated electronics on a single silicon chip may provide many significant benefits regarding performance, reliability, miniaturization and process simplicity without significantly increasing the total cost.

Micromachined Thin-Film Sensors for SOI-CMOS Co-integration covers the challenges and interests and demonstrates the successful co-integration of gas-flow sensors on dielectric membrane, with their associated electronics, in CMOS-SOI technology.

We firstly investigate the extraction of residual stress in thin layers and in their stacking and the release, in post-processing, of a 1 Am-thick robust and flat dielectric multilayered membrane using Tetramethyl Ammonium Hydroxide (TMAH) silicon micromachining solution. The optimization of its selectivity towards aluminum is largely demonstrated.

The second part focuses on sensors design and characteristics. A novel loop-shape polysilicon microheater is designed and built in a CMOS-SOI standard process. High thermal uniformity, low power consumption and high working temperature are confirmed by extensive measurements. The additional gas flow sensing layers are judiciously chosen and implemented. Measurements in the presence of a nitrogen flow and gas reveal fair sensitivity on a large flow velocity range as well as good response to many gases. Finally, MOS transistors suspended on released dielectric membranes are presented and fully characterized as a concluding demonstrator of the co-integration in SOI technology.

Low Power Analog CMOS for Cardiac Pacemakers proposes new techniques for the reduction of power consumption in analog integrated circuits. Our main example is the pacemaker sense channel, which is representative of a broader class of biomedical circuits aimed at qualitatively detecting biological signals.
The first and second chapters are a tutorial presentation on implantable medical devices and pacemakers from the circuit designer point of view. This is illustrated by the requirements and solutions applied in our implementation of an industrial IC for pacemakers. There from, the book discusses the means for reduction of power consumption at three levels: base technology, power-oriented analytical synthesis procedures and circuit architecture.

This proceedings volume archives the contributions of the speakers who attended the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Science and Technology of Semiconductor-On-Insulator Structures and Devices Operating in a Harsh Environment" held at the Sanatorium Puscha Ozerna, th th Kyiv, Ukraine, from 25 to 29 April 2004. The semiconductor industry has maintained a very rapid growth during the last three decades through impressive technological achievements which have resulted in products with higher performance and lower cost per function. After many years of development semiconductor-on-insulator materials have entered volume production and will increasingly be used by the manufacturing industry. The wider use of semiconductor (especially silicon) on insulator materials will not only enable the benefits of these materials to be further demonstrated but, also, will drive down the cost of substrates which, in turn, will stimulate the development of other novel devices and applications. In itself this trend will encourage the promotion of the skills and ideas generated by researchers in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and their incorporation in future collaborations.

This book contains reviews of recent experimental and theoretical results related to nanomaterials. It focuses on novel functional materials and nanostructures in combination with silicon on insulator (SOI) devices, as well as on the physics of new devices and sensors, nanostructured materials and nano scaled device characterization. Special attention is paid to fabrication and properties of modern low-power, high-performance, miniaturized, portable sensors in a wide range of applications such as telecommunications, radiation control, biomedical instrumentation and chemical analysis. In this book, new approaches exploiting nanotechnologies (such as UTBB FD SOI, Fin FETs, nanowires, graphene or carbon nanotubes on dielectric) to pave a way between "More Moore" and "More than Moore" are considered, in order to create different kinds of sensors and devices which will consume less electrical power, be more portable and totally compatible with modern microelectronics products.

This book contains reviews of recent experimental and theoretical results related to nanomaterials. It focuses on novel functional materials and nanostructures in combination with silicon on insulator (SOI) devices, as well as on the physics of new devices and sensors, nanostructured materials and nano scaled device characterization. Special attention is paid to fabrication and properties of modern low-power, high-performance, miniaturized, portable sensors in a wide range of applications such as telecommunications, radiation control, biomedical instrumentation and chemical analysis. In this book, new approaches exploiting nanotechnologies (such as UTBB FD SOI, Fin FETs, nanowires, graphene or carbon nanotubes on dielectric) to pave a way between "More Moore" and "More than Moore" are considered, in order to create different kinds of sensors and devices which will consume less electrical power, be more portable and totally compatible with modern microelectronics products.

Co-integration of sensors with their associated electronics on a single silicon chip may provide many significant benefits regarding performance, reliability, miniaturization and process simplicity without significantly increasing the total cost.

Micromachined Thin-Film Sensors for SOI-CMOS Co-integration covers the challenges and interests and demonstrates the successful co-integration of gas-flow sensors on dielectric membrane, with their associated electronics, in CMOS-SOI technology.

We firstly investigate the extraction of residual stress in thin layers and in their stacking and the release, in post-processing, of a 1 um-thick robust and flat dielectric multilayered membrane using Tetramethyl Ammonium Hydroxide (TMAH) silicon micromachining solution. The optimization of its selectivity towards aluminum is largely demonstrated.

The second part focuses on sensors design and characteristics. A novel loop-shape polysilicon microheater is designed and built in a CMOS-SOI standard process. High thermal uniformity, low power consumption and high working temperature are confirmed by extensive measurements. The additional gas flow sensing layers are judiciously chosen and implemented. Measurements in the presence of a nitrogen flow and gas reveal fair sensitivity on a large flow velocity range as well as good response to many gases. Finally, MOS transistors suspended on released dielectric membranes are presented and fully characterized as a concluding demonstrator of the co-integration in SOI technology."

Power reduction is a central priority in battery-powered medical implantable devices, particularly pacemakers, to either increase battery lifetime or decrease size using a smaller battery. Low Power Analog CMOS for Cardiac Pacemakers proposes new techniques for the reduction of power consumption in analog integrated circuits. Our main example is the pacemaker sense channel, which is representative of a broader class of biomedical circuits aimed at qualitatively detecting biological signals.
The first and second chapters are a tutorial presentation on implantable medical devices and pacemakers from the circuit designer point of view. This is illustrated by the requirements and solutions applied in our implementation of an industrial IC for pacemakers. There from, the book discusses the means for reduction of power consumption at three levels: base technology, power-oriented analytical synthesis procedures and circuit architecture.
At the technology level, we analyze the impact that the application of the fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD SOI) technology has on this kind of analog circuits. The basic building block levels as well as the system level (pacemaker sense channel) are considered. Concerning the design technique, we apply a methodology, based on the transconductance to current ratio that exploits all regions of inversion of the MOS transistor. Various performance aspects of analog building blocks are modeled and a power optimization synthesis of OTAs for a given total settling time (including the slewing and linear regions) is proposed.
At the circuit level, we present a new design approach of a class AB output stage suitable for micropower application. In our design approach, the usual advantages of the application of a class AB output stage are enhanced by the application of a transconductance multiplication effect. These techniques are tested in experimental prototypes of amplifiers and complete pacemaker sense channel implementations in SOI and standard bulk CMOS technologies. An ultra low consumption of 110 nA (0.3u W) is achieved in a FD SOI sense channel implementation.
Though primarily addressed to the pacemaker system, the techniques proposed are shown to have application in other contexts where power reduction is a main concern."

This proceedings volume archives the contributions of the speakers who attended the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Science and Technology of Semiconductor-On-Insulator Structures and Devices Operating in a Harsh Environment" held at the Sanatorium Puscha Ozerna, th th Kyiv, Ukraine, from 25 to 29 April 2004. The semiconductor industry has maintained a very rapid growth during the last three decades through impressive technological achievements which have resulted in products with higher performance and lower cost per function. After many years of development semiconductor-on-insulator materials have entered volume production and will increasingly be used by the manufacturing industry. The wider use of semiconductor (especially silicon) on insulator materials will not only enable the benefits of these materials to be further demonstrated but, also, will drive down the cost of substrates which, in turn, will stimulate the development of other novel devices and applications. In itself this trend will encourage the promotion of the skills and ideas generated by researchers in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and their incorporation in future collaborations.