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On the Road |
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To make cars more
comfortable,
convenient, safe
and secure, leading
car makers such as
DaimlerChrysler,
BMW, Ford, GM
and VW are using
In-Vehicle
Networking (IVN)
systems that can
consist of anywhere
from 10 to 100 chips.
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The primary IVN
networking protocol,
Controller Area
Network or CAN, is used
throughout the car in
body, chassis and
powertrain electronics.
However, CAN, which is
also used in a wide array
of other industrial
applications, assumes
good connections and
interference-free signals
across the network. That’s
a real challenge in the hot
and electrically noisy
world under the hood.
You have the risk of physical
damage to chips and
wires, electromagnetic
interference and emissions, high temperatures,
plus a limited power supply.
How does Philips, arguably
the world leader in automotive CAN innovation,
solve these challenges?
In a word: SOI. As the
company states on the
very first page of its IVN
brochure, “Philips SOI
(Silicon-on-Insulator)
technology is the foundation for the outstanding
performance of our IVN
solutions. Developed
specifically to integrate
different device types -
power, analog and digital
- on a single die, Philips
A-BCD (Advanced Bipolar-
CMOS-DMOS) family of
fabrication processes
brings crucial protection to
sensitive electronics, low
power and superior EMC
(electromagnetic compatibility) performance. This
effectively eradicates potentially
perilous miscommunication in the electrically noisy and hazardous
automotive environment.”
With a run-rate of 3 million
transceivers per week, all Philips’
latest CAN transceivers are fabricated using SOI technology.
It’s no wonder they’re so popular:
SOI makes integrating networks a
lot easier for automotive designers.
The EMC performance eliminates
the need for complicated shielding
systems that protect the wires and
chips - and saves on vehicle
manufacturing costs. SOI’s miserly
consumption is easy on the power
budget. And as they’re able to
withstand temperatures of over
160°C (320°F), SOI chips can go
where none have gone before.
So as more and more people start
their car engines, chances are
good they’re riding on SOI •
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Overview of CAN physical layer
characteristics and application areas.
Courtesy of Philips Semiconductors.
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Serious Signal Processing in a Small Package |
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by Eran Strod, Director of Product Marketing, Defense Electronics Group, Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. |
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Many defense electronics
contractors have a need
for advanced signal
processing solutions that can
fit into space constrained
platforms, such as the
new, smaller Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), as
well as in pods under
manned aircraft and
smaller ground vehicles.
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The signal processing systems
on all these platforms must be
able to function under difficult
environmental conditions, including
excessive heat, humidity, poor air
quality, high altitude, shock and
vibration.
The MCP3 FCN multicomputer
system module from Mercury
Computer Systems meets these
requirements, delivering highly
flexible signal processing capability
in a space-efficient, rugged
3U CompactPCI (cPCI) format.
The MCP3 FCN employs both a
1 GHz SOI-based PowerPC 7447
and a Virtex II Pro P40 field-programmable gate array (FPGA).
These two processing units are
connected by means of a
Discovery II bridge chip.
The SOI-based solutions, which
Mercury first deployed in 2003,
offer excellent low-power capability,
making the devices ideal for
embedded applications. The
PowerPC 7447 delivers outstanding
compute performance combined
with low power consumption/heat
generation, which is critically
important to embedded defense
electronics. The vector processing
capability makes it especially well
suited to signal processing applications. Application software
can be partitioned so that certain
algorithms like non-data-dependent
operations go onto the FPGA,
while data-dependent operations
are sent to the PowerPC. Overall,
the SOI-based solution offers a
marked power/thermal improvement, and enables us to offer our
customers higher performance per
watt per cubic inch.
Fully capable of deployment in
harsh environments, the MCP3
FCN module is available in both
air-cooled and conduction-cooled
versions. The conduction-cooled
version is constructed with
ruggedized mechanical casework
that conducts heat to the edge of
the board and also stiffens the
board to withstand shock and
vibration •
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Mercury Computer System’s 3U CompactPCI rugged MCP3 FCN signal processing module employs
an SOI-based PowerPC. The system is designed for deployment in harsh environments, such as in
the high heat, humidity, shock, and vibration faced by this Predator UAV.
Photos courtesy of Mercury Computer Systems.
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Perfect Timing |
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Casio calls its new
Atomic-Solar G-Shock
watch “the hottest
G-Shock available”.
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As heralded in a recent
press release, “The toughest watch in the world is
now the smartest watch in the
world.” It gets its power from the
sun and its time from the Atomic
Clock in Fort Collins, Colorado.
What is at the heart of this
phenomenon? An SOI-based
ultra-low power chipset from
Oki Electric’s Semiconductor
division. Oki engineers indicate
that the SOI version of the
chipset consumes about a
quarter of the power of the
bulk-substrate equivalent.
The solution enabled the Casio
design engineers to incorporate
solar power with a new RF calibration feature, which retrieves
date and time data from the
Atomic Clock several times a day.
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Since launching the G-Shock
line about 20 years ago, Casio
has shipped millions. A favorite
with celebrities, they are known
for their unparalled durability.
The G-Shock has attained cult
status, complete with on-line
discussion forums and an active
collectors’ market. Look for the
new SOI-enabled Atomic-Solar
version to shoot to the top of the
charts •
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SOI for RF & Low Power ICs |
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by Christophe Desrumaux, Field Application Engineer, Soitec |
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When an RF chip is built
on a bulk silicon substrate,
the semiconducting
properties of the silicon
induce RF signal loss in the
substrate. These capacitive
and resistive losses
negatively impact
energy management.
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The semiconducting properties
of the silicon also induce
transmission of parasitic
interferences (crosstalk) (see Figure 1).
Usage of an SOI substrate
improves significantly the high-
frequency behavior of the chip:
first, because the buried insulating layer reduces part of the electromagnetic field propagation;
second, because bonded SOI
technology enables the use of a
highly resistive (intrinsic silicon)
handle wafer, dramatically reducing
both resistive losses and crosstalk.
“High resistivity SOI” substrates
open new perspectives for RF &
SoC circuit designers. Functions
(e.g., antenna switch) usually
requiring expensive III-V compounds can now be integrated on
silicon, reducing the overall system
cost with comparable performance
and a higher integration level.
Denser chip layouts are also
achievable thanks to insulation
improvement (see Figure 2).
SOI also enables processed top
layer transfer onto electronically
inert substrates, (e.g., glass), further
improving the RF performance.
As traditional benefits of SOI
CMOS technology also include
the speed versus power-consumption trade-off, this designates SOI
as the ideal platform for low-power
RF systems. It is compatible
with lateral bipolar transistors
integration and with future transistor
architectures like FinFETs •
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Figure 1: RF circuit on bulkFigure 2: RF Circuit on SOI using High Resistivity (HR) Substrate
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Reaching farther
by Bob Mariner, VLSI RESEARCH INC
Although the basic
principles of Silicon-On-
Insulator (SOI) technology
are simple, the ramifications
are far reaching.
The use of SOI reduces
parasitic capacitance
around embedded circuit
elements, reduces leakage
currents, and enhances
isolation between circuit
elements.
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These improvements affect
switching speed, threshold
voltage, power consumption,
noise, and the minimum space
needed between components
embedded in the Integrated Circuit
(IC). How these various benefits
are used is for the IC designer to
decide, based upon the various parametric trade-offs required
to achieve optimal performance
for each specific application.
Although SOI has already
established a strong foothold in
production of high performance,
power-hungry, microprocessors,
it also offers equally strong benefits
for other very different applications. Over the coming years SOI
will be contributing major performance advances in RF, Analog,
Very-Low-Power, High-Voltage,
and Harsh Environments.
As of 2004, the semiconductor
industry was already consuming
more than 600,000 SOI wafers a
year. Over the next five years, we
expect to see this demand triple.
SOI is not just an alternative to
other emerging technology enhancements, such as Hi-K, SiGe, and
Strained Silicon, but is more an
umbrella environment within which
all these others can function to
help the semiconductor industry
continue its quest for ever greater
performance and functionality •
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