Stanislav Polonsky

The attack of the "Holey Shmoos": a case study of advanced DFD and picosecond imaging circuit analysis (PICA)

This paper will provide a case study of a particularly difficult debug problem (the Holey Shmoo problem) which developed while designing the IBM System/390 G6 637 MHz microprocessor chip. Resolution of this problem involved the use of some of todays newest DFD/DFT and diagnostics techniques. The discussion of the Holey Shmoo problem and its debug will serve to highlight and demonstrate some of these advanced techniques.

Non-invasive timing analysis of IBM G6 microprocessor L1 cache using backside time-resolved hot electron luminescence

Picosecond imaging circuit analysis (PICA) is recently demonstrated to be a practical measurement technique of internal timing of ICs. This paper describes application of PICA to analysis of individual MOSFET switching times in the L1 cache write control circuits of the S/390 G6 microprocessor chip.

Wafer-scale integration of sacrificial nanofluidic chips for detecting and manipulating single DNA molecules

Wafer-scale fabrication of complex nanofluidic systems with integrated electronics is essential to realizing ubiquitous, compact, reliable, high-sensitivity and low-cost biomolecular sensors. Here we report a scalable fabrication strategy capable of producing nanofluidic chips with complex designs and down to single-digit nanometre dimensions over 200 mm wafer scale. Compatible with semiconductor industry standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor logic circuit fabrication processes, this strategy extracts a patterned sacrificial silicon layer through hundreds of millions of nanoscale vent holes on each chip by gas-phase Xenon difluoride etching. Using single-molecule fluorescence imaging, we demonstrate these sacrificial nanofluidic chips can function to controllably and completely stretch lambda DNA in a two-dimensional nanofluidic network comprising channels and pillars. The flexible nanofluidic structure design, wafer-scale fabrication, single-digit nanometre channels, reliable fluidic sealing and low thermal budget make our strategy a potentially universal approach to integrating functional planar nanofluidic systems with logic circuits for lab-on-a-chip applications.

200 mm wafer-scale integration of sub-20 nm sacrificial nanofluidic channels for manipulating and imaging single DNA molecules

We report sub-20 nm sacrificial nanochannels that enable stretching and translocating single DNA molecules. Sacrificial silicon nano-structures were etched with XeF2 to form nanochannels. Translocations of linearized DNA single molecules were imaged by fluorescence microscopy. Our method offers a manufacturable wafer-scale approach for CMOS-compatible bio-chip platform.

Creation of a transient vapor nanogap between two fluidic reservoirs for single molecule manipulation

We introduce a new experimental technique for manipulating a segment of a charged macromolecule inside a transient nanogap between two fluidic reservoirs. This technique uses an FPGA-driven nanopositioner to control the coupling of a nanopipette with the liquid surface of a fluidic cell. We present results on creating a transient nanogap, triggered by a translocation of double-stranded DNA between a nanopipette and a fluidic cell, and measure the probability to find the molecule near the tip of the nanopipette after closing the gap. The developed platform will enable testing of our recent theoretical predictions for the behavior of charged macromolecule in a nanogap between two fluidic reservoirs.

Direct Measurement of Jitter in a JTL

A direct technique for the measurement of jitter in a Josephson transmission line (JTL), which is similar to an approach used to measure complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor latch metastability, is presented. The experiment yields a one-sigma jitter value of 74 fs per JTL stage in 1 kA/cm2 rapid single flux quantum technology. The experimental configuration has been modeled with JSIM, and the result agrees with the experimental data. Additionally, an analytical model has been developed to assess the scaling of the jitter-to-stage delay ratio with critical current density of the Josephson junctions comprising the JTL. Finally, we compare the measured upper bound jitter per stage of a 65-nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor inverter chain with that of a 1 kA/cm2 JTL.

Phenomenological theory of a charged polymer molecule in a nanosized gap between two fluidic reservoirs

We use a simple Born ion continuum model to analyse the effect of solvation energy change on the translocation of a charged linear polymer molecule through a nanosized vapor gap between two fluid reservoirs. As the effective radius of the discretely spaced charges increases, our model predicts a transition from trapping to diffusion of the molecule in the vapor gap. We discuss the applicability of our model to single-stranded DNA translocations in gaps, suggest experiments to validate our prediction and propose immediate applications of this new trapping mechanism for slowing down DNA motion for electronic DNA sequencing.

Non-invasive timing analysis of IBM G6 microprocessor L1 cache using picosecond imaging circuit analysis

The new non-invasive backside timing characterization technique, Picosecond Imaging Circuit Analysis (PICA), was applied to the identification and analysis of a race condition which occurred in an early design of the L1 cache of the S/390 microprocessor. The circuit switching activity was visualized in reconstructed slow motion videos of passing and failing conditions. An automated emission waveform extraction and analysis tool was used to perform a quantitative study of the failing condition.