Alfonso Maurelli

SoC and SiP, the Yin and Yang of the Tao for the New Electronic Era

ldquoMore than Moorerdquo is becoming the password for these coming years. New steps to overcome technology limitations to diffuse, on the same die, different chips to have a complete system have been developed. This approach is called system in package (SiP), a way to have in a package dies of logic, analog, memory, passive components, etc., assembled to obtain a miniaturized board. SiP performances and limitations are here analyzed to understand advantages versus system on chip (SoC). This paper is a discussion about the main items that can lead to the choice of the right approach-SiP or SoC-before a system design start. Three persons attend to our virtual meeting: an SoC technology development manager, expert in microcontroller embedded memories and technology integration; an SiP analog radio-frequency design senior expert; and a moderator that designed embedded memories and now SiP, all involved to understand how to reach a tradeoff among these two approaches. Like for the Yin and Yang, symbol of the equilibrium for the Taoist philosophy, the two opposites divide the circle of the life, with a piece of each in the other.

High performance Flash memory for 65 nm embedded automotive application

In this paper the results obtained for a new process flow that integrates a high performance flash cell for automotive application with a state of the art 65nm CMOS have been presented. Despite the several specific process steps introduced for the first time on embedded technologies, the MOS performances have not been impacted by the integration of the Flash cell and the related HV MOS and the results obtained on a 4Mbit Flash array are very promising.

Status and perspectives of embedded Non-Volatile memories

Embedded Non Volatile Memories have been a key enabler for the growth of several microcontroller related product families in the last twenty years. Several kinds of memory cells have been proposed and put in production, differently from what has happened for stand-alone memory products. Focusing on applications requiring memory array sizes larger than hundreds of kbytes, in this paper we will review the most popular Non-Volatile memory cell architectures. Some of the various challenges that the technology scaling is going to face in the coming years will be analyzed as well, looking at the possible alternatives in terms of cell architectures as well as of process integration schemes. Within this frame, relatively novel cell concepts will be considered too, in light not only of their technical features, but also of their maturity and of some manufacturing constraints.

Floating-Gate 1Tr-NOR eFlash Memory

In this chapter, we will highlight the peculiar features of one of the most popular implementations of the embedded flash cell: the so-called 1Tr-NOR. The one-transistor cell has been by far the most adopted cell architecture in the world of flash NOR stand-alone memory. As an almost natural consequence, 1Tr-NOR architecture has also been considered the first, and for sure one of the best, solutions in embedded non-volatile memory (NVM) applications and has been progressively replacing EEPROM cells. In this chapter, only embedded multi-megabit flash implementation will be reviewed: different solutions for 1Tr-NOR flash cell structure and design architectures have been successfully implemented and will be described. In particular, the focus hereinafter is based on the description of how the unique features offered by that cell can be efficiently and effectively integrated into MCUs , which represent one of the major fields fueled by embedded flash capability. In the following sections, after a short introduction devoted to highlighting some peculiar technology features related to 1Tr-NOR integration with state-of-the-art CMOS, three different kind of MCU products will be thoroughly analysed: the secure MCU. the general-purpose/low-power MCU. the automotive MCU.

A Flash technology programmable non-volatile switch

A modified Flash-EEPROM device is presented. This device operates as a non-volatile programmable pass transistor. Program and erase, operations are performed on a Flash-EEPROM cell coupled to a pass-transistor. Written and erased states of the flash cell correspond to the open and close states of the pass-transistor respectively. The Flash-programmable pass transistor (FPT) was developed for multi-context programmable-logic, and it was realized in a technology for embedded Flash-EEPROM NOR memory. No additional process steps are required. This novel device has the same program and erasing behavior as the standard Flash-EEPROM cell, measurements are reported for a 0.18 /spl mu/m technology implementation.