North Carolina State University

Other

Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

John R Hauser

Jimmie J Wortman

Furman Y Sorrell

Effiong Etukudo Ibok

Nguyen Duc Bui

Robert J Markunas

Salah M Bedair

Sherra E Diehl-Nagle

Michael L Timmons

James A Hutchby

Khaled Z Ahmed

Mark J Fordham

An apparatus and method used in extracting polysilicon gate doping from C&minus;V analysis in strong inversion, especially for ultrathin gate oxides. For sub-20-angstrom oxide MOS devices, transistors with channel lengths less than about 10 &mgr;m are connected in parallel to avoid an extrinsic capacitance roll-off in strong inversion. The upper limit of the channel length is estimated using a transmission-line-model of the terminal capacitance, which accounts for the non-negligible gate tunneling current and finite channel resistance.

MOSFET test structure for capacitance-voltage measurements

A three zone rapid thermal processing system includes three arrays of radiant heating lamps for heating a semiconductor wafer. The arrays are positioned along the axis of the wafer such that one array is adjacent one face of the wafer, the second array is adjacent the second face of the wafer and the third array is adjacent the edge of the wafer. A wafer holder holds the wafer face transverse to the common axis of the radiant heating lamps. Reflectors at each array reflect radiant heat onto the wafer. The arrays are independently connected to power sources and a controller to provide efficient coupling of the heat sources and a uniform temperature distribution across a wafer.

Three-zone rapid thermal processing system utilizing wafer edge heating

A conical rapid thermal processing system includes a conical thermal radiation reflector and a plurality of elongated radiant heating sources within the conical thermal radiation reflector. The elongated radiant heating sources pass through an imaginary conical surface within the conical thermal radiation reflector. A wafer holder within the imaginary conical surface holds the wafer face transverse to the common axis of the conical reflector and the conically arranged radiant heating lamps. The conical thermal radiation reflector and conically arranged lamps provide uniform radiant heating across the face of a wafer without significantly degrading coupling efficiency.

Conical rapid thermal processing apparatus

A multijunction solar cell is disclosed which uses a patterned intercell ohmic connection as the tunnel junction to connect a top solar cell in electrical and optical series with a bottom solar cell. By confining this patterned tunnel junction to shadowed areas directly beneath the top surface metallization grid, the tunnel junction is set free from the requirement that it be transparent and have band gaps greater than or equal to those of the top solar cell.

Patterned tunnel junction

A CMOS SRAM exhibiting a high level of immunity to single event upset errors, such as caused by ionizing radiation, is disclosed. In CMOS SRAM cells with small feature sizes, single event errors result from ion interactions with transistor drains on the side of a cell holding a low voltage. The configuration of the cell presents a high impedance between these low voltage drains and the low voltage gate on the opposite side of the cell, while presenting a high impedance between corresponding components with high voltages. The SRAM cell is protected from single event errors while minimizing the increase in switching speed which accompanies any increase in internal cell impedance.

High impendance-coupled CMOS SRAM for improved single event immunity

Growing community of inventors

Raleigh, NC, United States of America

John R Hauser