David M. Cardamone, from the Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, and Charles A. Stafford and Sumit Mazumdar Department of Physics, from the Department of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona talk in the SPIE Newsroom about a novel kind of transistor. They claim that their device is not based on field-effect, but on quantum interference. They show some results obtained using a benzene molecule as device, and, frankly, the results are not bad at all. However, I have my doubts that this can be practical in a medium range, because many problems (mainly the interconnections, from my point of view) are left open. Moreover, I'd like to see a digital gate made using these devices. Or, better, an analog amplifier. That could be a real test.

S-Parameters

I've been sent a white paper from RF-globalnet on S-parameter extraction. For those of you who do not know what a S-parameter is, I shall recommend to read it. For the rest, it can be interesting reading another point of view. The paper is from Richard Wang, Applications Engineering Manager, RF Micro Devices, Inc., and Ming-Hsiang Cho, Ph.D. Candidate, National Chiao-Tung University (Taiwan). You can download it from this link (it's free!).

Hint: S-parameters are used in RF circuits...

Thin-film design guidelines

Did you ever wondered how thin-film transistors are made or what are the design rules you should use? I'm asking because, in order to get a proper model or to explain it to a designer (the final user of our models, let me remind you), you should be aware of all these things and how they affect to your model, because they are important. Diablo Industries, Inc. now has made available on-line a set of design rules and material description that is very interesting to read, even it you only perform a quick lecture.

Reliability

Another not-quite-in-topic entry. Today I was looking for information on a kind of defects (GOS) to get some information on how people do model them. I know this is not quite compact modeling, but you would be surprised on how much related they are. In fact, a GOS defect is usually modeled using a parasitic transistor. However, this is only an approximation, and a true physical model is still to come. I won't be the one developing it, though. I was only looking for some model that I could use with my transistor models. And, then, I found a gem. I've found a review paper (more than 20 pages!) about reliability. I think I'm going to use it as a textbook. You can access it here. The paper is:

Electronic circuit reliability modeling
Pages 1957-1979
J.B. Bernstein, M. Gurfinkel, X. Li, J. Walters, Y. Shapira and M. Talmor

European Microwave Week 2007 (EMW 2007) just after Oktoberfest!

This year the European Microwave Week (EMW) will take place in Munich, from October 8 to 12,...just after Oktoberfest!

The European Microwave Week is the main Microwave symposium in Europe. Besides, the European Microwave Exhibition constitutes the largest trade show on RF and microwaves in Europe.

EMW 2007 is composed of four conferences: the European Microwave Conference (EuMC), the European Conference on Wireless Technology (ECWT), the European Radar Conference (EuRAD), and the European Microwave Integrated Circuits (EuMIC).

EuMIC 2007 will be a very interesting conference and forum to present results on high-frequency compact modelling of semiconductor devices. Many of the indicated EuMIC topics can be related to compact modelling: Physics Based Device Modelling and Simulation, CAD Oriented Device Modelling, Noise Modelling, Linear and Non-linear CAD Techniques for Devices, Circuits & Systems (incl. Behavioural Modelling) (common Topic with EuMC), Linear CAD Techniques, Non-Linear CAD Techniques, Mixed-Signal Modelling.

Important: the deadline to submit summaries to EuMIC 2007 is February 25 2007!

I suggest high frequency compact model researchers to come one week earlier to Munich and start the compact modelling discussions while enjoying at the same time the Oktoberfest! For sure nice ideas can come then...