Solid State Circuits Society

May 18, 2006

Our first speaker was   Mr. Aurangzeb Khan, M.S.E.E., M.S.E.M., B.S.E.E., B.S.C.S., B.S.N.E., B.Sc Phys. & Pure & Appl. Math (Cadence Design Systems), and the topic of his presentation was ” A 90nm Power Optimization Methodology and its’ Application to the ARM 1136JF-S Microprocessor ” and ” A 90nm Power Optimization Methodology and its’ Application to the ARM 1136JF-S Microprocessor. “

Abstract

An electrical and physical design power optimization methodology and design techniques developed to create an ARM 1136JF-S microprocessor in 90nm standard CMOS are presented. Multiple supply voltage operation, leakage current management, clock rate optimization, single-pass RTL synthesis, VDD selection, power optimization and timing and electrical closure considerations in a multi-VDD domain design are addressed. These techniques, and the methodology contributed to a 40% reduction in dynamic and a 46% reduction in leakage power dissipation while maintaining a 355 MHz operating clock rate under typical conditions. Functional and electrical design requirements in that IC were achieved with the first silicon. The results achieved via subsequent enhancements, such as the optimization of operational and sleep modes through power gating, will also be briefly discussed.

Biography

Aurangzeb Khan is Corporate Vice President for Market Development at Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Earlier, he was CVP/GM for Cadence Design Foundry (now part of engineering services), and focused on the IC design business, including IP development and integration. Aurangzeb joined Cadence in 2002 when Cadence acquired Simplex Solutions, where he served as EVP/GM of Simplex’s SoC Design Foundry. He co-founded Altius Solutions and served as its’ President and CEO, merging with Simplex Solutions and contributing to a successful IPO in May 2001. Before founding Altius, Aurangzeb was VP for Silicon Engineering at Cirrus Logic and Director of Engineering for systems technology development at Tandem Computers (now part of HP). He also developed high-speed SRAMs at Fairchild Semiconductor. Over the past 25 years, Aurangzeb contributed – in engineering and general management positions – to the development and business success of several generations of high-performance systems and ICs, such as the Sony GS®I-32 and PlayStation®2 Graphics Synthesizers, the Cirrus Logic 3Ci™ SOC and the NonStop™ Himalaya™ and Cyclone™ series of massively-parallel servers. Several products achieved ~$200M to $2B in annual revenues.

Aurangzeb holds two M.S. degrees from Stanford University, in Engineering Management and Electrical Engineering, as well as a double-major B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and Nuclear Engineering from U.C. Berkeley. He has a B.Sc. in Physics and Pure and Applied Mathematics from Government College, University of The Punjab (with the Academic Roll of Honor).

Our second speaker was   Dr. Minfan Pai (Discera, Inc.), and the topic of his presentation was ” A Programmable MEMS FSK Transmitter. “

Abstract

FSK modulation has been widely used in digital communication systems for applications such as remote keyless entry, telemetry, tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) and wireless sensor networks. Currently, most FSK modulation is achieved by loading a quartz crystal or a SAW resonator in an oscillator circuit with a switching capacitor, which is controlled by digital inputs, to change the oscillator frequency. This approach has limited frequency deviation and requires off-chip components for the frequency reference and modulation loading. Micromechanical resonators, on the other hand, have a natural frequency dependence of the polarization voltage and have been used for low phase noise reference oscillators. The MEMS FSK transmitter demonstrated accomplishes binary frequency-shifting of the MEMS synthesizer by switching between two polarization voltages of the resonator. In addition to the size reduction enabled by the MEMS resonator, the overall performance of the transmitter is as good as or better than current FSK transmitters on the market.

Biography

Minfan Pai received the B.S. degree in Physics from National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, in 1994, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in 1999 and 2001, respectively. His doctoral work focused on the development of MEMS optical switches for telecommunication applications.

He has been with Discera, Inc., CA, since March, 2002, where he is a Staff Engineer working on the development of MEMS resonator-based products. His technical interests involve design, simulation, fabrication, and wafer-level vacuum packaging of MEMS devices. Prior to joining Discera, he was a Research Scientist at Rockwell Science Center, CA, where he worked on the development of RF MEMS switches and tunable capacitors. He holds 2 U.S. patents with several pending in the MEMS field.

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