News & Events

BSAC Seminar: 3D Imaging in Standard CMOS

December 16, 2010
Prof. Alyosha Molnar School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University BSAC MS 2003 December 16, 2010 | 10:00 to 11:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Kris Pister

Techniques for building and using arrays of angle-sensitive pixels (ASPs) in standard CMOS will be discussed. ASPs are built from stacked metal diffraction gratings over photodiodes and provide significant information about the incident angle, as well as intensity of light detected. Arrays of ASPs provide a much richer description of the light field than...

BSAC Seminar: Design of Silicon Carbide JFET-Based Operational Amplifiers

December 14, 2010
Dr. Ayden Maralani December 14, 2010 | 12:30 to 01:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: John Huggins

Demand for capable and reliable semiconductor and fabrication technology for high temperature and power electronics applications has been rapidly increasing in recent years. Silicon Carbide (SiC), as a wide bandgap compound semiconductor, demonstrates superior characteristics such as high thermal conductivity, high breakdown voltage, and long-lasting reliable operation at elevated temperature. SiC-based circuits and systems are capable to...

BSAC Seminar: The Importance of New Companies for Pharmaceutical Innovation and University-Industry Cooperation in Japan, with Insights into Entrepreneurial Bottlenecks

January 18, 2011
Robert Kneller, J.D., M.D., M.P.H. Visiting Professor, Stanford Medical School January 18, 2011 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: John Huggins

Identifying the inventors of all the drugs approved by the FDA between 1998 and 2007 shows that discovery of innovative drugs relies disproportionately on new companies. Moreover, the initial development of scientifically novel university drugs depends almost exclusively on new companies (biotechs). Biotechs discover a substantial proportion of new drugs in the US, Canada and...

BSAC Seminar: Micromirrors for Integrated Tunable Mid-Infrared Detectors and Emitters

February 8, 2011
Dr. Niels Quack Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Postdoctoral Researcher February 8, 2011 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Ming Wu

State-of-the-art infrared micro-spectrometers can be fabricated using MEMS technologies. An overview of selected MEMS infrared micro-spectrometers will be presented, including discussion of integrated narrow-band tunable mid-infrared detectors and emitters developed at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. In these systems, IV-VI semiconductor thin film...

BSAC Seminar: Hard-boiled Electrons: Using Thermionic Emission for Solar Energy Generation

February 15, 2011
Dr. Igor Bargatin Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University Postdoctoral Researcher February 15, 2011 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Roya Maboudian

An interdisciplinary team of Stanford researchers is currently building MEMS-based prototypes of new heat-to-electricity and solar-to-electricity energy converters. The first type of device converts very high temperature heat (>1000 C) to electricity via the evaporation of electrons from solid surfaces (thermionic effect). The second device simultaneously...

BSAC Seminar: High Temperature Bonding Technology for SiC Devices

October 25, 2011
Torleif Tollefsen SINTEF & Vestfold University College, Norway October 25, 2011 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Debbie Senesky

Au-Sn solid-liquid-interdiffusion (SLID) bonding is a novel and promising interconnect technology for high temperature (HT) applications. In combination with Silicon Carbide (SiC) devices, Au-Sn SLID has the potential of being a key...

BSAC Seminar: Micro and Nanoscale Acoustic Devices for Communication, Sensing, and Energy

February 16, 2011
Dr. Maryam Ziaei-Moayyed Advanced MEMS Department, Sandia National Laboratories BSAC MS 2005 February 16, 2011 | 02:00 to 03:00 | 400 Cory Hall, Hughes Room Host: Clark Nguyen

Continued scaling of micromechanical systems has enabled devices with improved performance and new functionalities that address needs in electronic, telecommunication, and medical industries. The presentation will focus on micro- and nano-scale Silicon Carbide (SiC) acoustic devices which are lithographically defined and fabricated using standard CMOS-...

BSAC Seminar: Energy Harvesting for Wireless Autonomous Sensor Systems

February 25, 2011
Dr. Ruud Vellers IMEC/Holst Centre, Micropower Group February 25, 2011 | 02:00 to 03:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Liwei Lin

Batteries that power wireless autonomous transducer systems limit the possibilities of this emerging technology. The goal is to generate and store power at the microscale to improve autonomy and reduce size. Energy harvesters fabricated by microsystem technology can realize this goal. The choice of harvesting principle depends on the application and vibration, thermal, photovoltaic and radiofrequency power...

BSAC Seminar: How We Wanted to Revolutionize X-Ray Radiography and "Accidentally" Discovered Single-Photon Imaging

February 22, 2011
Prof. Peter Seitz CSEM/EPFL February 22, 2011 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Kris Pister

Since the discovery of X-rays in 1895, radiography imagery has only been black-and-white. The reason for this can be found in any textbook on X-rays: the linear attenuation coefficient of a pure chemical element factorizes into a universal product of a power of the atomic number Z times a power of the X-ray photon energy E. Our careful analysis has shown that the simple textbook equation with constant exponents is incorrect, and...

BSAC Seminar: Integrated On-Chip Inductors With Magnetic Material

March 15, 2011
Dr. Don Gardner Intel Corporation March 15, 2011 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Liwei Lin

On-chip inductors with magnetic material are integrated into both advanced 130 and 90 nm CMOS processes. Increases in inductance of up to 30 times corresponding to an inductance density of up to 1,700 nH/mm2 were demonstrated, significantly greater than air-core and other on-chip inductors with magnetic material. With such improvements, the effects of eddy currents, skin effect, and proximity effect become clearly visible at...