Byung Wook Min

Graphene as an atomically thin barrier to Cu diffusion into Si

The evolution of copper-based interconnects requires the realization of an ultrathin diffusion barrier layer between the Cu interconnect and insulating layers. The present work reports the use of atomically thin layer graphene as a diffusion barrier to Cu metallization. The diffusion barrier performance is investigated by varying the grain size and thickness of the graphene layer; single-layer graphene of average grain size 2 ± 1 μm (denoted small-grain SLG), single-layer graphene of average grain size 10 ± 2 μm (denoted large-grain SLG), and multi-layer graphene (MLG) of thickness 5-10 nm. The thermal stability of these barriers is investigated after annealing Cu/small-grain SLG/Si, Cu/large-grain SLG/Si, and Cu/MLG/Si stacks at different temperatures ranging from 500 to 900 °C. X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy analyses confirm that the small-grain SLG barrier is stable after annealing up to 700 °C and that the large-grain SLG and MLG barriers are stable after annealing at 900 °C for 30 min under a mixed Ar and H2 gas atmosphere. The time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) test is used to evaluate graphene as a Cu diffusion barrier under real device operating conditions, revealing that both large-grain SLG and MLG have excellent barrier performance, while small-grain SLG fails quickly. Notably, the large-grain SLG acts as a better diffusion barrier than the thicker MLG in the TDDB test, indicating that the grain boundary density of a graphene diffusion barrier is more important than its thickness. The near-zero-thickness SLG serves as a promising Cu diffusion barrier for advanced metallization.

Capillary force-induced glue-free printing of Ag nanoparticle arrays for highly sensitive SERS substrates.

The fabrication of well-ordered metal nanoparticle structures onto a desired substrate can be effectively applied to several applications. In this work, well-ordered Ag nanoparticle line arrays were printed on the desired substrate without the use of glue materials. The success of the method relies on the assembly of Ag nanoparticles on the anisotropic buckling templates and a special transfer process where a small amount of water rather than glue materials is employed. The anisotropic buckling templates can be made to have various wavelengths by changing the degree of prestrain in the fabrication step. Ag nanoparticles assembled in the trough of the templates via dip coating were successfully transferred to a flat substrate which has hydrophilic surface due to capillary forces of water. The widths of the fabricated Ag nanoparticle line arrays were modulated according to the wavelengths of the templates. As a potential application, the Ag nanoparticle line arrays were used as SERS substrates for various probing molecules, and an excellent surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) performance was achieved with a detection limit of 10(-12) M for Rhodamine 6G.

RF Lens-Embedded Massive MIMO Systems: Fabrication Issues and Codebook Design

In this paper, we investigate a radio frequency (RF) lens-embedded massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system and evaluate the system performance of limited feedback by utilizing a technique for generating a suitable codebook for the system. We fabricate an RF lens that operates on a 77-GHz (millimeter-wave) band. Experimental results show a proper value of amplitude gain and an appropriate focusing property. In addition, using a simple numerical technique-beam propagation method-we estimate the power profile of the RF lens and verify its accordance with experimental results. We also design a codebook-multivariance codebook quantization-for limited feedback by considering the characteristics of the RF lens antenna for massive MIMO systems. Numerical results confirm that the proposed system shows significant performance enhancement over a conventional massive MIMO system without an RF lens.

Smart Small Cell with Hybrid Beamforming for 5G: Theoretical Feasibility and Prototype Results

In this article, we present a real-time 3D hybrid beamforming approach for 5G wireless networks. One of the key concepts in 5G cellular systems is the small cell network, which settles the high mobile traffic demand and provides uniform user-experienced data rates. The overall capacity of the small cell network can be enhanced with the enabling technology of 3D hybrid beamforming. This study validates the feasibility of 3D hybrid beamforming, mostly for link-level performance, through the implementation of a real-time testbed using a SDR platform and fabricated antenna array. Based on the measured data, we also investigate system-level performance to verify the gain of the proposed smart small cell system over LTE systems by performing system-level simulations based on a 3D ray-tracing tool.

Application of Stepped-Impedance Technique for Bandwidth Control of Dual-Band Filters

This paper demonstrates application of the popular stepped-impedance technique to control the bandwidths of dual-band filters independently. Unlike previous dual-band stepped-impedance filters, the role of the stepped-impedance technique is to control the bandwidths of the two bands rather than to provide dual-band performance. The exact relationship between stepped-impedance ratios and the ratio of the two absolute bandwidths is obtained through rigorous analysis. Moreover, since the proposed filters can be synthesized with popular transmission lines and coupled lines that are very-well characterized, time-consuming full-wave simulation can be minimized. Along with the complete set of design equations, experimental results for transmission-line and coupled-line dual-band filters are provided that verify the proposed approach.

Flexible graphene based microwave attenuators.

We demonstrate flexible 3 dB and 6 dB microwave attenuators using multilayer graphene grown by the chemical vapor deposition method. On the basis of the characterized results of multilayer graphene and graphene-Au ohmic contacts, the graphene attenuators are designed and measured. The flexible graphene-based attenuators have 3 dB and 6 dB attenuation with a return loss of less than -15 dB at higher than 5 GHz. The devices have shown durability in a bending cycling test of 100 times. The circuit model of the attenuator based on the characterized results matches the experimental results well.

Silicon-core Coaxial Through Silicon Via for Low-loss RF Si-interposer

In this letter, a new low-loss and low-cost through silicon via (TSV) process is presented. The proposed silicon-core coaxial via (S-COV) process is very simple and time-saving compared with a conventional TSV. In this structure, a metal-coated silicon-pole is used as a vertical interconnect instead of a fully filled metal via. The depth of the fabricated S-COV is 120 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation=LaTeX>

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A study on EMI generation from a capacitive touch screen panel

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Two Section Wideband 90° Hybrid Coupler Using Parallel-Coupled Three-Line

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