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...

Monte Carlo or Montecarlo?

I've had some nomenclature problems with this. To solve them, I've recurred to the easiest solution: I've 'googled' for it...

I've found a very interesting page at riskglossary. It seems that the first time it was cited explicitely was in this paper:
Metropolis, Nicholas and Stanislaw Ulam (1949). The Monte Carlo method, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 44 (247), 335-341

So, following the criteria that the first one to use it has the right to name it, I'll use "Monte Carlo" from now on.

And more papers

It seems that this is my week to read papers. Well, it's a good exercise... I strongly recommend it!

Another quite interesting paper: Analytical Charge and Capacitance Models of Undoped Cylindrical Surrounding-Gate MOSFETs. This time, it is from Oana Moldovan et al. This is a quite good paper, that continues their work on DG MOSFETs.

Another one from the same journal: Modeling of Surrounding Gate MOSFETs With Bulk Trap States. It is also interesting to read. Anyway, the approach is different to the previous one, and it is good to keep an open mind.

And the last one from this journal: Surface-Potential Solution for Generic Undoped MOSFETs With Two Gates. The topic has been discussed before, and I still think that the approach by Francisco and Adelmo is easier to understand. However, this is only an opinion.

Miscellanea

More of my personal obsession: plastic electronics. This week, in the 3GSM Conference, in Barcelona, Polymer Vision has presented (some people would say 'again') the Readius, which is a mobile phone with an integrated roll-up display. It seems that this time they are serious, thanks to Plastic Logic....

Another curious thing: for all those of you that love playing sudoku, you now may have a hard competitor: a quantum computer. I don't know how actually serious this is. However, I think that it may be indicative that people is starting to crave for quantum computers. The first step to be able to produce them should be letting people (engineers) how they work. So we need compact models for that. Anyway, I think that we're still a long way from the point where computers designers can actually use this.