Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SENSOTERIC (Smart Sensor Analog Front-End powered by Emerging Reconfigurable Devices)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2024-01-01 al 2025-06-30
Smart cities and smart homes, autonomous vehicles, and industry 4.0 are driving the technology market away from a processing-information-centric past to a sensing-and-actuation-centric future. The technological needs for this transformation are complex, as sensing technologies are very diverse and not driven solely by scaling, performance, and cost as opposed to the case of CMOS electronics. From the view of Europe’s industrial landscape, smart sensors are key technologies in the important automotive and healthcare/medical market segments. With the increasing number of applications scenarios, the demand for flexibility, re-usability, and adaptability on the sensor systems is also increasing.
SENSOTERIC’s global objective is to address these needs by the development of a reconfigurable platform to accommodate both a generic analog front-end sensor interface able to adapt to the change in environmental conditions, reducing power consumption and improving the signal quality, as well as a dedicated reconfigurable sensor transducer element for the detection of cancer biomarkers. Reconfigurable Field Effect Transistors (RFETs) hold the promise to provide the much-needed flexibility for such electronic systems, as they allow for the fine-tuning of their characteristics at run-time, e.g. the dynamic switching from p-type to n-type behavior or a negative differential resistance (NDR) mode, allowing the alteration of the circuit behavior after manufacturing. RFETs are integrable as add-on into classical scaled CMOS processes. Thus, both the developed front-end circuits as well as the sensor transducer have the potential to be co-integrated into conventional CMOS architectures. To sum up, in SENSOTERIC smart sensing solutions for environmental monitoring and healthcare, in specific cancer detection are investigated, where both the reconfigurable sensor transducer and the analog front end utilize the capabilities of emerging RFET and NDR elements as novel key enabling technologies.
SENSOTERIC’s global objective is to address these needs by the development of a reconfigurable platform to accommodate both a generic analog front-end sensor interface able to adapt to the change in environmental conditions, reducing power consumption and improving the signal quality, as well as a dedicated reconfigurable sensor transducer element for the detection of cancer biomarkers. Reconfigurable Field Effect Transistors (RFETs) hold the promise to provide the much-needed flexibility for such electronic systems, as they allow for the fine-tuning of their characteristics at run-time, e.g. the dynamic switching from p-type to n-type behavior or a negative differential resistance (NDR) mode, allowing the alteration of the circuit behavior after manufacturing. RFETs are integrable as add-on into classical scaled CMOS processes. Thus, both the developed front-end circuits as well as the sensor transducer have the potential to be co-integrated into conventional CMOS architectures. To sum up, in SENSOTERIC smart sensing solutions for environmental monitoring and healthcare, in specific cancer detection are investigated, where both the reconfigurable sensor transducer and the analog front end utilize the capabilities of emerging RFET and NDR elements as novel key enabling technologies.
Within the first reporting period, significant technical progress has been made in all work packages, highlighted by eight accepted journal publications and eight accepted conference contributions; many of them as joint work between multiple partners. A test-chip for multi-gated RFETs based on a 22 nm FDSOI processing technology has been brought to tape-out in collaboration with GlobalFoundries, showcasing operational RFET at different designs and voltage levels. First electrical data has been acquired regarding yield, variability, and reliability. The data enabled the TCAD and Compact modelling tasks, leading to a first physical compact model including the effect of the back-bias present in the FDSOI technology. With respect to the SiGe-lab technology, a composition with 33% Ge was chosen for demonstrators of analog building blocks, due to the high p- and n-type symmetry of its current-voltage characteristics. As a first analog building block, a reconfigurable current mirror has already been fabricated in the lab. A reconfigurable operational amplifier has been designed as the first test vehicle utilizing the flexibility given by the RFET technology. Currently, table models are used to characterize their functionality. Further, sigma-delta-modulators have been identified as potential front-ends to accommodate our disruptive key-enabling technologies. Gas sensing and cancer detection were recognized as target applications, unifying the potential of low-noise amplifier design and bio-functionalization of the RFET technology. Different layouts for the sensor transducer have been designed, and a functionalization strategy as well as a set of analyte molecules have been identified.
Besides the achievements mentioned above, so far, no fully completed experimental results are to be reported in the early stage of the project.