How Low Can You Go?

5/2/2017 [author]

Resarcher in clean room
Resarcher in clean room

By the 1990s, device dimensions had shrunk below 1 micrometer, and integrated circuits contained over 1 million transistors. At these dimensions, power consumption and reliability became major concerns in circuit design.

Power Estimation
The probabilistic power estimation technique made it possible to estimate, during the design stage, the power consumption of VLSI circuits. These techniques are now commonly used in tools supported by the electronic design automation industry.

Low-Power Design
A new information-theoretic framework for deep-submicron VLSI circuits extended the lower bounds on the energy efficiency that a VLSI system can achieve.

Self-Correcting Analog-to-Digital Conversion
CSL invented digital calibration for high-resolution analog-to-digital converters, a technique now widely used in industry. This technique made it possible to convert signals from analog to digital without distortion.

Reliability of Submicron Circuits
A new reliability simulator modeled and analyzed electrothermal and electrostatic discharge (ESD) failures in the I/O of VLSI circuits.

Optical Networks
In collaboration with others, CSL established a test-bed for studying electro-optic ATM networks. A fiber optic and electro-optic system tool kit was developed for simulating optical interconnect systems.