Kyu-Taek Lee

Study of vertical Si/SiO2 interface using laser-assisted atom probe tomography and transmission electron microscopy.

Laser-assisted atom probe tomography has opened the way to three-dimensional visualization of nanostructures. However, many questions related to the laser-matter interaction remain unresolved. We demonstrate that the interface reaction can be activated by laser-assisted field evaporation and affects the quantification of the interfacial composition. At a vertical interface between Si and SiO2, a SiO2 molecule tends to combine with a Si atom and evaporate as a SiO molecule, reducing the evaporation field. The features of the reaction depend on the direction of the laser illumination and the inner structure of tip. A high concentration of SiO is observed at a vertical interface between Si and SiO2 when the Si column is positioned at the center of the tip, whereas no significant SiO is detected when the SiO2 layer is at the center. The difference in the interfacial compositions of two samples was due to preferential evaporation of the Si layer. This was explained using transmission electron microscopy observations before and after atom probe experiments.

A Novel High Performance Scan Architecture with Dmuxed Scan Flip-Flop (DSF) for Low Shift Power Scan Testing

Power dissipation during scan testing is becoming an important concern as design sizes and gate densities increase. The high switching activity of combinational circuits is an unnecessary operation in scan shift mode. In this paper, we present a novel architecture to reduce test power dissipation in combinational logic by blocking signal transitions at the logic inputs during scan shifting. We propose a unique architecture that uses dmuxed scan flip-flop (DSF) and transmission gate as an alternative to muxed scan flip-flop. The proposed method does not have problems with auto test pattern generation (ATPG) techniques such as test application time and computational complexity. Moreover, our elegant method improves performance degradation and large overhead in terms of area with blocking logic techniques. Experimental results on ITC99 benchmarks show that the proposed architecture can achieve an average improvement of 30.31% in switching activity compared to conventional scan methods. Additionally, the results of simulation with DSF indicate that the powerdelay product (PDP) and area overhead are improved by 28.9% and 15.6%, respectively, compared to existing blocking logic method.

Development of highly accurate real-time large scale speech recognition system

This paper describes the development of the framework and the algorithm for large scale automatic speech recognition systems. Technical advances include the acceleration of decoding speed by leveraging the computational power of many-core graphic processing units (GPU), in order to solve the issue of training data sparseness, improvement in the accuracy by Subspace Gaussian Mixture Models (SGMM), and employing novel methods of language models such as the Instant Language Model Adaptation (ILMA) method. We present the effectiveness of each technique by evaluating it with actual usage data collected from television sets. It is shown that the proposed engine can recognize speech at real time with high accuracy.

Potential risk factors for haematological cancers in semiconductor workers

BACKGROUND There has recently been increased interest in cancer incidence in electronics workers. AIMS To determine the cancer incidence ratio in electronics workers and the potential factors affecting the risk for development of cancer. METHODS Epidemiological study performed in electronics workers who were employed between 1999 and 2008 in South Korea. Cancer incidence ratio was analysed with respect to departments, divisions, job titles, gender, age, hepatitis B and C virus infection and work duration. We compared the incidence of haematological cancer in this cohort with that expected in the general population. RESULTS The study population was 56283. Overall, the standardized incidence ratio (SIR) for haematological cancer was 0.85. In particular, the SIR for leukaemia was 0.86 and for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) was 0.93, which were not statistically significant. The SIR for NHL was significantly increased [SIR 5.23, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.31-20.95] in female office workers. We also found that the SIR for NHL was significantly increased in female workers who tested positive for hepatitis virus infection (SIR 7.69, 95% CI 1.08-54.60). CONCLUSIONS The raised SIR for NHL among female workers was due to potential risk factors such as hepatitis virus infection although additional research and an ongoing, long-term, prospective epidemiological cohort study is needed.

A novel multisite testing techniques by using frequency synthesizer

Same output frequencies at each DUT of the testing circuit are multiplied by different LO frequencies signals at mixers stages, which different frequency-translated spectrums were captured at capture port simultaneously for achieving fully parallel test of RF device.

An efficient scan diagnosis methodology according to scan failure mode for yield enhancement

Yield has always been a driving consideration during fabrication of modern semiconductor industry. Statistically, the largest portion of wafer yield loss is defective scan failure. This paper presents efficient failure analysis methods for initial yield ramp up and ongoing product with scan diagnosis. Result of our analysis shows that more than 60% of the scan failure dies fall into the category of shift mode in the very deep submicron (VDSM) devices. However, localization of scan shift mode failure is very difficult in comparison to capture mode failure because it is caused by the malfunction of scan chain. Addressing the biggest challenge, we propose the most suitable analysis method according to scan failure mode (capture / shift) for yield enhancement. In the event of capture failure mode, this paper describes the method that integrates scan diagnosis flow and backside probing technology to obtain more accurate candidates. We also describe several unique techniques, such as bulk back-grinding solution, efficient backside probing and signal analysis method. Lastly, we introduce blocked chain analysis algorithm for efficient analysis of shift failure mode. In this paper, we contribute to enhancement of the yield as a result of the combination of two methods. We confirm the failure candidates with physical failure analysis (PFA) method. The direct feedback of the defective visualization is useful to mass-produce devices in a shorter time. The experimental data on mass products show that our method produces average reduction by 13.7% in defective SCAN & SRAM-BIST failure rates and by 18.2% in wafer yield rates.