Month of April 2002

During development of thin film silicon-on- insulator (TFSOI) devices, there were die-by-die and wafer-by-wafer threshold voltage (Vt) variations: they may be due to a doping concentration issue and/or other process integration/material problems. To clar- ity the mechanism, the doping concentrations should first be...

Positioning a source of decoupling capacitance very close to the input,and outputs of an integrated circuit (IC) is very desirable since it minimizes the parasitics, especially the inductance, of the intercon- nect linking the capacitance to the IC. The use of discrete multilayer ceramic capacitors is most com- mon,...

Most pagers on the market today offer a feature called "Duplicate Page Detection? This feature notifies the user if the page being read has been sent before, and is still in message memory. This infor- mation is almost meaningless to the user since he/she probably doesn't care if the page was in memory at the time or...

The problem to be solved by this design is the lack of full support in all directions, and the lack of dimensional stability for a copper clad steel wire loop antenna in an R.E product. Without support, the antenna is susceptible to damage during shipping, being forced out of it's optimal location, and being bent out...

Many current and emerging electronic applications require transient voltage protection on the low value range (for example 5V to 80V breakover range) along with low capacitance values for lower signal distortion on communication circuits. Prior art has used surface breakdown or offset buried region design concepts,...

This method provides an accurate method of maintaining the voltage differential condition imposed on a power system. It requires no external circuitry and takes up less space than known methods.

The main processor system in a GSM base station uses program code stored in volatile RAM. In a working system the base station is networked to a central office. On powerup boot code requests a code download using the network. When the unit is powered up in stand alone mode (i.e. not connected to a GSM network) it...

As the complexity of designs increase and higher- level tools become available for digital design, delay calculation continues to be a challenging area.

Metallization of three-dimensional (3D) molded polymer substrates by DC sputtering is an exciting alterna'tive to traditional electroless plating processes. This technology offers the ability to rapidly coat a three dimensional circuit base without the use of precious metal catalysts or plating baths that may be...

At times when minimum battery drain is required and a regulated voltage is needed to supply a circuit, such as a real time clock, commercially available regulators may draw many times the load current as their quiescient operating current. This circuit was developed to reduce the total current while providing a...