Patrice M. Parris

Impact of low-doped substrate areas on the reliability of circuits subject to EFT events

External stresses, such as those generated due to Electrical Fast Transient (EFT) events, generate over-voltages which may result in reliability failures at the IClevel either in the form of recoverable or permanent damage of the IC. In the present paper, the relationship between the technology characteristics within a design framework and the permanent failures that such an EFT event can produce are discussed. Solutions to minimize the impact of such EFT events are presented.

MIM-based ISFET sensors with CLOSED/OPEN Sense Plates for pH detection

We present electrochemical measurements obtained from chemical sensors that integrate conventional MOSFET devices along with SENSE/RE plates based on MIM (Metal-Insulator-Metal) structures that are all-integrated to the gate oxide of transistors using standard 0.18 μm CMOS fabrication processing. Depending on the CMOS-based materials used as sensing plates for pH detection, different sensitivities to hydrogen ion activities are found and they are all related to the bias conditions of the sensor structure.