Anna Arbat

A specific integrated controller for nanomicroscopy and cellular manipulation

A specific integrated controller for a wireless and autonomous microrobot of 1cm/sup 3/ is presented. The robot is equipped with an AFM probe, an injection needle, a gripper, or a micropipette. Hence, its main functionality and the controller design is focused on nanomicroscopy and cellular manipulation. The circuit manages the robot locomotion unit and its tools with nanometric resolution. Communication is done by means of the IrDA protocol implemented in the controller.

An Improved Temperature Compensation Technique for Current Biasing

A novel current source architecture is presented operating at 1.2 V for low power applications. The source has improved temperature compensation with respect to reported works. The circuit has been designed and fabricated in a 0.13mum ultra low power CMOS technology. The output current is 1 muA with measured variations less than 20 nA from RT up to 70degC.

Readout electronics for low dark count pixel detectors based on Geiger mode avalanche photodiodes fabricated in conventional CMOS technologies for future linear colliders

High sensitivity and excellent timing accuracy of the Geiger mode avalanche photodiodes make them ideal sensors as pixel detectors for particle tracking in high energy physics experiments to be performed in future linear colliders. Nevertheless, it is well known that these sensors suffer from dark counts and afterpulsing noise, which induce false hits (indistinguishable from event detection) as well as an increase in the necessary area of the readout system. In this work, we present a comparison between APDs fabricated in a high voltage 0.35 mm and a high integration 0.13 mm commercially available CMOS technologies that has been performed to determine which of them best fits the particle collider requirements. In addition, a readout circuit that allows low noise operation is introduced. Experimental characterization of the proposed pixel is also presented in this work.

High voltage vs. high integration: a comparison between CMOS technologies for SPAD cameras

In the last years the fabrication of SPAD cameras has become one of the main fields of interest in 3-D imaging and bioapplications. In this paper we present the comparison between two standard CMOS technologies to fabricate SPADs cameras. The two technologies used in the comparison are a high voltage 0.35μm technology from AMS and a high integration 130nm technology from STM. The advantage of using a standard CMOS technology among a dedicated is the possibility of integrating the control/reading electronics into the same die. Neither of the processes is optimized for optical applications, and no post-processing has been applied to improve the features. The technologies have been selected due to the different integration density, and different intrinsic process parameters with similar cost. Comparison has been done by fabricating several structures in both technologies which allow analyzing sensibility, noise, and time response. Experimental results show that the high voltage technology has a lower level of dark counts than the 130nm. Instead, the high integration technology has a shorter quenching time, 1.5ns, which reduces the afterpulsing events to a negligible level. In optical applications it is important to have a high integration of the camera reducing the pitch of the pixel, while noise effects can be corrected in post-processing. For low frequency events, such as high energetic particle tracking, the noise frequency has to be lower, but it is also required a high fill factor. Depending on the specific application this analysis allows to opt for the most suitable technology.

An ultra low power IC for an autonomous mm 3 -sized microrobot

This paper is focused on the main issues of designing a SoC for a completely autonomous mm3-sized microrobot. It is described how all the electronics are included in a unique chip, the special requirements in the assembly process and how the hard constraints in power consumption are managed. Power in the robot is delivered by solar cells mounted on top and two supercapacitors which act as batteries. The maximum available energy for the SoC is 400 muW for driving the robot actuators and 1 mW for data processing. The special architecture of the SoC and power awareness are required to manage the very low available power.

Readout electronics for low dark count Geiger mode avalanche photodiodes fabricated in conventional HV-CMOS technologies for future linear colliders

This work presents low noise readout circuits for silicon pixel detectors based on Geiger mode avalanche photodiodes. Geiger mode avalanche photodiodes offer a high intrinsic gain as well as an excellent timing accuracy. In addition, they can be compatible with standard CMOS technologies. However, they suffer from a high intrinsic noise, which induces false counts indistinguishable from real events and represents an increase of the readout electronics area to store the false counts. We have developed new front-end electronic circuitry for Geiger mode avalanche photodiodes in a conventional 0.35 μm HV-CMOS technology based on a gated mode of operation that allows low noise operation. The performance of the pixel detector is triggered and synchronized with the particle beam thanks to the gated acquisition. The circuits allow low reverse bias overvoltage operation which also improves the noise figures. Experimental characterization of the fabricated front-end circuit is presented in this work.

A Wake-Up Circuit With Temperature Compensated Clock In 1.2V-0.13 μm CMOS Technology

This paper reports on the design and implementation of a low-voltage, low-power Wake-Up circuit consisting on a Power-on-Reset module and a clock generator. No external components are used neither for the Power-on- Reset nor for the clock generation. The clock generator module is temperature compensated by applying a current limiting technique. The Wake-Up circuit has been fabricated in a 130 nm ultra-low power technology of STMicroelectronics in an area of 40 μm times 40 μm.

Towards co-operative autonomous 1cm/sup 3/ robots for micro and nanomanipulation applications: MICRON

The micro and nanomanipulation is one of the main challenges in our days. One approach is based on the use of a limited cluster of microrobots working in a cooperative way. For the development of the activity each robot of the cluster has assigned a different task. This implies that each robot has a different specialization. Our objective is to present in this paper the design of the electronics developed for these robots, taking into account the important challenges regarding the available area, and that the robot should possess enough autonomy. The most versatile solution is pursued because a particular electronics is not to be developed for each specialized robot. In function of the robots specialty it will receive the necessary orders, being permeable the electronics to any case. In this paper is presented in a general way these different specializations.

An integrated controller for a flexible and wireless atomic force microscopy

Nowadays Atomic Force Microscopy is one of the most extended techniques performed in biological measurements. Due to the higher flexibility in respect to conventional equipments, a novel approach in this field is the use of a microrobot equipped with an AFM tool. In this paper it is presented an integrated controller for an AFM tool assembled in a 1 cm3 wireless microrobot. The AFM tool is mounted on the tip of a rotational piezoelectric actuator arm. It consists on a XYZ positioning scanner, based in 4 piezoelectric stacked actuators, and an AFM piezoresistance probe. Two types of AFM working modes are implemented in the controller, i.e., nanoidentation and AFM scanning. Correction of the mismatch of the piezoactuators composing the arm is possible. A programmable PID control is included in the controller in order to get more flexibility in terms of scanning speed and resolution. An IrDA protocol is used to program the parameters of the AFM tool controller and the positioning of the robot in the working area. Then the values of the nanoindentation or of the scanning can be read through the IrDA interface without any other external action. Due to the strong power and area restrictions, the controller has been implemented in specific logic in a 0.35um technology. The design has been done using functional specifications with high level tools and RTL synthesis. The AFM scanner can be positioned with a resolution of 10 nm and scan areas up to 1 μm2 with an expected vertical resolution of 1nm.

Non volatile memory for FPGA booting in space

This paper proposes a new non-volatile memory (NVM) architecture that would increase the radiation hardness of standard design. The memory allows storing the configuration bit-stream for on-satellites FPGAs reducing the necessity of information exchange with ground control to recover the system. A 1Mbit non-volatile memory prototype has been fabricated using a standard 180nm CMOS process using a Tower Semiconductors proprietary S-Flash cell.