2019 IEEE BiCMOS and Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuits and Technology Symposium (BCITS), Nashville 3-6 November, 2019
OTTAWA, ON, November 07, 2019 /Neptune100/ — The 2019 IEEE BiCMOS and Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuits and Technology Symposium (BCITS) held in Nashville this week combined a strong technical program around leading edge bipolar/BiCMOS devices and technology, 5G ICs, GaN HPAs, InP THz PAs, optical CMOS/SiGe transceivers, GaN HEMT power devices, and advances in compact modeling.
“As we tour the world and participate in high quality conferences like BiCMOS/BCITS we’re learning about better ways to communicate the exception of the CiFET platform technology – essentially, highly configurable analog in scalable digital,” said Greg Waite, CEO of InventionShare the lead investor in Circuit Seed.
Circuit Seed’s Enabling Technology Paper provides a detailed explanation of how the Complementary Current-Injection Field Effect Transistor (CiFET) platform works to process analog signals using 100% digital components. It provides good examples as to how the platform can be used, and some performance measurements that have been confirmed with silicon.
The CiFET complementary pair is produced from a CMOS inverter with an extra diffusion called the iPort™. Injection current introduced into the iPort control terminal increases the diffused charge density (number of carriers per volume) throughout the source channel, making that source channel even more conductive. The rate of conductivity change is exponential, similar to that found in ‘weak-inversion’. This determines the extra node’s iPort input impedance, transResistance gain (rm), and frequency response to the CiFET device. The location of the diffusion determines the important iRatio™ which is the relative strength ratio of the split channel segments. CiFET properties are, fundamentally, determined by the iRatio. Semiconductor parametric sensitivities and temperature degradation are circumvented.
The impact of the CiFET and 5G will be significant.
Devices with multiple transmitting and receiving antennas face many challenges with interference, power consumption, range and heat. The versatile CiFET uses the iRatio to perfectly match the input impedance of a 50-ohm antenna with no additional circuitry, providing very low power consumption, small size and less complexity. Low power consumption reduces the overall heat producing better performance and reliability.
The CiFET is also insensitive to temperature beyond military specifications without special packaging. The much lower noise floor extends that range and increases sensitivity. Since 100% digital components are used, there is greater flexibility for filtering and modulating signals at 5 GHz and up.
The CiFET uses existing manufacturing process and EDA tools. The EKV equations for weak inversion are used to correctly model circuit performance. These are available in BSIM6. As always, ‘best practices’ for trade-offs in digital circuit design are still required but the analog limitations are no longer a concern.
All of these performance capabilities translate into lower cost circuits and better performing products for 5G applications.
For more media information, contact Lesley Gent, Client Relations [email protected] or (613) 225-7236 Ext. 131
About Circuit Seed
Circuit Seed enables a new portable family of building block circuit designs for processing low power analog signals in an all-digital domain. It is based on a new Complementary Current Field-Effect Transistor (the CiFET) with a channel fusion for fully integrating analog functionality with unique properties while eliminating separate analog chips and external components on the circuit board. Noise is markedly reduced, and sensitivities are considerably increased. The CiFET designs use 100% digital transistor channels to overcome many traditional analog restrictions – including parametric variations and temperature sensitivities. The designs provide an ultra-linear response over an extended dynamic range and the capability of operating at low supply voltages below 800mV with low power consumption at any threshold voltage.
About InventionShare
InventionShare functions as a perpetual and exclusive ‘Breakthrough Invention Fund’ that creates and develops ‘Invention Companies’ rather than high risk ‘Operating Companies’. This approach dramatically accelerates the adoption of breakthrough technologies by augmenting the innovation pipeline of large global companies – for extraordinary financial outcomes and high social impact. We do this by attracting and representing credible senior inventors with a track record, through our ‘inventor friendly’ success-based model, and we support, amplify, protect and validate their seminal inventions with non-dilutive financial capital – in stark contrast to operating companies. The dramatic financial and social leverage we achieve is through our deep and distinct intellectual and relationship capital, industry and IP expertise, intelligence tools, process, diligence and discipline.
