VLSI Egypt Magazine Issue#1 by VLSI Egypt

First Year - Issue 1 - October 2011

How to be an Embedded Systems Engineer?

Hybrid Vehicles

Start-up Nation 2 Chip inside... You

Millimeter Waves

Leaders vs. Managers

Together we build the Innovation Tower

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3 Editorial Word

Welcome to VLSI Egypt magazine

4 Microelectronics in Egypt 6 VLSI Egypt

The past, the present and the future

10 Leaders vs Managers A mixed concept

A Quarter -Annual Magazine by VLSI Egypt

Editor in Chief Haytham Ashour Editorial Team Mohammad Omar

16 How to be an Embedded Systems Engineer?

20 Hybrid Vehicles

You can plug-in your car

22 Chip Inside...You! 24 Why do we need

millimeter waves?

Ahmad Abd El-Hamid Ahmad Ibrahim Website www.vlsiegypt.co.cc

Contacts management@vlsiegypt.co.cc

VLSI-Egypt is a nonprofit, service oriented, community based NGO

Should we understand the term "Start-up Nation" as the nation with the ‘largest’ number of startups or namely ‘successful’ startups?

10 Start-up Nation 2 2

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Editorial Word Welcome to VLSI Egypt magazine Welcome to the first issue of VLSI Egypt magazine. We are very excited to introduce this first issue which has been under preparation for more than a year and we hope it would be a prolific step in the enhancement of information flow among the VLSI community in Egypt.

First of all, we would like to thank all those who had supported this project throughout its evolution from an idea to its materialization in this current issue. We would also like to thank all the contributors who had offered their help and dedicated their time to aid with the incarnation of this issue.

VLSI-Egypt magazine’s target is to spread the knowledge available in the industry among the members of the community and the academia. VLSI industry is one of the most vibrant fields, it is always changing and developing with an ever-increasing pace that requires its members to be upto-date with the latest trends and state-of-the-art technologies in order to be competent and maintain their edge in the market. Such requirements do not only occur on the technical side, they also manifest themselves strongly on the management and business scale where there are countless examples of great ideas that has fallen into oblivion due to the lack of good business planning or marketing shortcomings. For these reasons, we believe we need to cover not only technical aspects but also business aspects in order to aid the community as much as possible. Although the articles are diverse, they cover yet a small part of the myriad aspects of the VLSI industry. Our choice of the covered areas was influenced by our will to cover as much of the fields as possible in order to encourage more collaboration and interaction with the community. We would like to seize this opportunity to ask you to collaborate and communicate with us. All your feedback and comments are highly appreciated. We also anticipate all your comments regarding the articles; they will be published starting with the next session. Those who are interested in publishing an article or column in the magazine are highly encouraged to contact us. In the end, we would like to thank you all for making VLSI Egypt such a lively community; we believe it is the members that make VLSI Egypt lively and vivacious. We hope the magazine proves to be an added value to the community and we hope VLSI Egypt plays an effective role in the advancement of VLSI in Egypt.

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VLSI Egypt Corner

Microelectronics in Egypt By: Dr. Muhammad Dessouky Looking back fifteen years ago, one should be proud of the microelectronics industry in Egypt right now. At that time, the first chip out of the Integrated Circuits lab, Ain Shams University, was sent for fabrication at the CMP using the 0.6 micron process technology. The free ALLIANCE[1] educational VLSI design system was employed for RTL simulation, synthesis, placement and routing. A DELL workstation occupying a complete bench was used. Students watched those working on that system as if driving a space station. Despite the fact that the IC was not 100% functional, it was quite an experience. We should compare this to what is happening right now; several design companies exist in the market dealing with a broad spectrum of design aspects ranging from RF, analog and mixed-signal to digital front-end and back-end design. Many successful tapeouts are done each year using state-of-the-art technologies, and complex IPs are developed and delivered to customers worldwide. Even, some of the most advanced design software and CAD tools are developed in the country. This is all a dream coming true for anyone working in that field. However, it is still a limited industry; design teams are still of small numbers, experience is hard to find, design houses are small and medium enterprises (SME), mostly working in isolated islands.

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How can microelectronics in Egypt grow to the next level, that of a mature industry? In order to answer this question, we should go through the electronics ecosystem. This includes not only existing companies, but also Universities, government initiatives and the local market. Companies have to start sharing ideas to grow their business. Eitisal[2] is a good initiative to group companies working in the information, telecommunications, electronics and software field together. There is a special electronics division. Companies are encouraged to use this framework more efficiently to communicate together in order to promote the microelectronics industry in the country. The main problem facing such industry and might limit future expansion in Egypt is the scarcity of experienced resources. This is badly felt by existing companies each time a new comer enters the market and starts pulling out their valuable resources. The only way to overcome such limitation is to reinforce the source of qualified engineers, i.e. the University. It is not a secret that among the existing companies, those who were able to scale their business are those with very tight cooperation with academia. Summer training and graduation projects are powerful tools to prepare future engineers to this experience-intensive field. Companies

underestimating these opportunities will sooner or later face human resources problem. It is also clear that without up-to-date education and stateof-the-art research, chances to grow the VLSI business will always remain bounded. While it is the job of University professors to lead these two activities, we find that many companies in this field have University staff among their co-founders, management, or employ professors as consultants. Professors on the other hand do not have much choice to survive depending only on the University income. This situation is fine as an intermediate phase, but on the long run it is not sustainable. With depleted resources, Universities will never be able to perform its role as a human education factory without full-time dedicated staff. At the same time, different research teams at the Universities must direct their research to serve existing companies, if they want to attract them for a win-win research relationship. They must identify their points of strength and their capabilities in order to know how to put them into use. This is actually what we are trying to do currently at the Integrated Circuits lab at Ain Shams University, through what we call the "Industry Interaction Initiative". Companies will be invited to share ideas, to introduce them to lab capabilities and resources, to get their feedback on the education curriculum and to brainstorm together on possible cooperation paths. Recently, the government has created the mechanisms to make this cooperation possible by providing several ways to fund research. Those interested should refer to the ITAC[3], the STDF[4], the RDI[5] and the NTRA[6] web sites.

companies are currently designing block or macro-block level IPs. This is essential to gain the required experience. The next step is to own a product, but down the road real value resides at the system-level. Nowadays, systems are not only a pure hardware issue, but there is also a lot of software, or what we call embedded systems. It is not a surprise that companies like Freescale and HP, known for their long history of hardware design, have recently shifted their focus to software and embedded systems design.

In fact, the role of the government in the electronics industry in any country is crucial. In addition to the above research initiatives, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has a considerable investment in what is called the “Microelectronics Science Park”. It is currently being constructed near Heliopolis, Cairo. Besides the Electronics Research Institute, the building will also host a MEMS cleanroom, a Microelectronics Services Center, and an industrial section to group electronics companies and startups. This would be a huge leap into the future of our country. This project is scheduled to be ready in an 18-month period of time. All parties should be ready to make use and support it. Otherwise it will only be a ‘park’. The microelectronics industry is a strategic cornerstone. It builds an essential

expertise for the country development. From an economic viewpoint, it results in high added-value products that are sold in the global market with very good returns. It also absorbs and retains high caliber engineers in a creative work that satisfies their capabilities instead of searching for jobs outside Egypt. However, the best value to the country would be in using this accumulated expertise to solve local problems, rather than going after global one-sizefits-all products. The best solution for any problem always comes out from those who live the situation and feel the needs. This is real creativity. We are not there yet, and the road might be still long. But this can expand the role of microelectronics from a mere economic one to social and political grounds where its effect on the daily life of Egyptians can be appreciated. Such applications lie at the system-level. In Egypt,

From all the above, I see an important role that this magazine can play; it is a local magazine concerned with the Egyptian microelectronics market, experiences and problems. It should be a forum to share innovative ideas and discussions from different parties of the ecosystem. It should avoid being a mere relay of advanced technology by copying interesting articles. Information is now accessible but innovation, proactive communications and creative ideas are what we need at this great moment of our history. ` Links: 1.http://www-asim.lip6.fr/pub/alliance/ 2.http://www.eitesal.org/ 3.http://www.itida.gov.eg/En/OurProgr ams/ResearchInnovation/ITacademiaC ollaboration/ 4.http://www.stdf.org.eg/ 5.http://www.rdi.eg.net/ 6.http://www.tra.gov.eg/english/DPages_DPagesDetails.asp?ID=472&Menu=1 Muhammad Dessouky Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

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VLSI Egypt Corner

VLSI Egypt the Past

the Present

the Future By: Haytham Ashour

any of us are part of this story. VLSIEgypt as a journey from an idea in a single person’s mind till the moment when it is starting to formulate and taking steps forward to become a pool of information and a link that gathers all players of this industry in Egypt in a single channel is the topic of this article. Let’s see the start

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VLSI-Egypt: The past

Circa 1999, when the VLSI industry was only a dream for many engineers in Egypt, one engineer Nabil Ibrahim- noticed the lack of a communication channel that would gather all people interested in this field. Back then, Eng. Nabil thought that he could create a simple Yahoo group to establish such a channel, which he did. He created and publicized the group, putting the following sentences as the description for his emerging group, “The aim of this group is providing a PERMANENT communication link between all people who are interested in VLSI design (Engineers, Professors and undergraduate students).” Many people started joining the group and rapidly many Egyptian people at different level of expertise, from both academic and industrial backgrounds, both inside and outside Egypt, started to join in.. A strong and diversified group was thus formulated and represented the nucleus of the group. Many fascinating technical discussions started that showed the level of expertise present within. In addition, some early trails to start outsourcing activity in the semiconductor industry by collecting resumes and trying to contact potential employees started at this time. These trails did not work well because the target of such activity was not clear enough in the minds of the group members and also because members were still not synchronized as to the target of the group. However, the group continued to

play an important role in information sharing, job announcements and answering questions that are facing people working in this industry. Some years later, due to personal reasons, Eng. Nabil decided to pass on his duties as group moderator to others who he found to be interested in the task. Till 2004, about 4 or 5 people were assigned to follow up the group’s moderation tasks. By the end of 2004, Eng. Nabil assigned myself, Haytham Ashour, as the moderator of the group. Eng. Haytham Ashour tried to understand the old moderation issues with the group and started to put some rules that were approved by the group members to facilitate such tasks. Once approved, these rules were strictly applied to group members and actions were taken against any group member who violated these rules. This allowed filtering of many un-related topics and put an end to a large portion of email spam. During this period, the following set of rules was approved by the members and was monitored by the moderator: 1-It is strictly prohibited to send religious, Charitable, or politically related emails on this group’s mailing list. 2- Emails of job announcements or other technically related topics are allowed. 3-Course announcements, promotions, and advertisements are allowed to be sent only once during a period of two weeks. The topic of a message is taken into consideration, and not the name of the sender. Therefore, if the same

course advertisement is sent more than once in two weeks it would be considered as a violation, even if sent by a different person. 4-It is not permitted to circulate any kind of topic concerning cracked tools within the VLSIEgypt group. In doing so, the group gained more credibility within the community and more people started to join. By the end of 2010, the number of group members reached 1000 members.

VLSI-Egypt: The present

Eventually, many group members came with ideas to extend the group’s activities and tried to formulate it. This was always hindered by the lack of resources in the moderation team; it was all done by a single person. One member, Ahmad Ibrahim, inquired about the possibility of creating a forum on which all activities may be discussed. The moderator welcomed this step and asked Eng. Ahmad Ibrahim to take on this task. A few months later, Eng. Ahmed Ibrahim was able to successfully launch the forum “http://vlsiegypt.co.cc”. It was a good step forward in allowing information and questions to be shared with the group and keeping track of it. In this way, the topics being shared were categorized and a database of all technical information available on the group was created. This step, however, was not fully accepted by the group members. Many members preferred to use the Yahoo group as the emails sent ISSUE 1

were automatically forwarded to their email accounts without the need to check the forum itself every now and then to check if there had been any activity. We would like to seize this opportunity and encourage members to register on the forum and send their topics on it as this would help in future for all group members to search and get answers for their questions and queries. At the start of 2010, the group moderator – Eng. Haytham Ashour – took the decision to start making a moderation committee by adding more people to the committee to help with him in making the group better. He asked people on the Yahoo group who were interested in enrolling in moderation roles to start contact him and a month later, a moderation committee was created and started to make monthly meetings to follow-up and discuss activities on the group. Currently the moderation committee is composed of four members (Haytham Ashour, Ahmed Ibrahim, Mohammed Omar and Ahmed Abdel- Hamid). The committee started first to try to formulate the group by putting a clear mission and vision for it. After long discussions, the committee agreed on the following statements for VLSI-Egypt as an entity and its vision and mission: VLSI-Egypt is a non-profit, service oriented, community based NGO. VLSI-Egypt has the following mission and vision: Vision Establishing a dynamic environ8

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ment for the electronics engineers and interested entities in order to help the advancement of the VLSI field in Egypt Mission 1-Develop methods to share technical knowledge between people 2-Develop methods to encourage people to join and interact on the group

Our Vision: “Establishing a dynamic environment for the electronic engineers and interested entities in order to help the advancement of the VLSI field in Egypt” 3-Develop channels between engineers and interested entities As per this mission and vision, the moderation committee decided to create more channels between group members. The committee started a Facebook group that has about 300 members as of the date of this article and a Facebook page that has almost the same number of followers. It was initiated mainly to add more socialization between the group members and it has little restriction on topics that can be sent on it compared to the Yahoo group. The Facebook group is currently representing the official interface of VLSI-Egypt on the web. It has all news about official activities that are carried out by the committee. As of the time of publishing of this article, we have an overall of 2000 members between the Yahoo group, forum, Facebook group and Facebook page. As per the activities, the committee started the “Share Your Know-

ledge” initiative. This initiative aims to encourage experienced people in the industry to share their knowledge with other members. VLSI-Egypt is aiming to be a pool of lecture and courses in each and every field that is related to the VLSI industry. The committee successfully managed to make a printed lecture series on microcontroller track “PIC16F87X Nuts and Bolts". This was a series of eight lectures with labs about PIC16F87X microcontroller and some applications using it. A webinar series on FPGA design titled "Unlocking FPGA Secrets" followed later on. This series is still in progress and is focused on illuminating the secrets of FPGA design. Another activity that has been started and which had taken a very long time in preparations and discussions is this magazine, “VLSIEgypt Magazine”. In this first issue, we hope to present something that would enhance the communication between the members of this field in Egypt.

VLSI-Egypt: The Future

After this long story, what we are targeting in the future? We see the future as bright as this story has been. Our plans for the future are shaped by the moderation committee and by group members who are willing to share their ideas with us. We see it more depending on you – the members – to help us in our activities and to be part of this success story. We want to continue in the magazine activity and we are planning to issue it quarterly. We want

to formulate an editorial group to take over this responsibility and to help with the moderation committee in making future issues of the magazine. We see this first issue as a start of a reputable and periodic magazine that gathers all news and presents new ideas in this industry. We want also to get contacts from people who are ready to share their knowledge with others and to arrange with them about courses that they can present. This would allow us to be able to continue “Share Your Knowledge” initiative. We see this as our way to make VLSIEgypt, after a few years, enriched with a pool of courses, lectures and webinars that could be downloaded for free to share our current knowledge with the new generations and fresh graduates and make them prepared for our everchanging field. We have ideas about starting an application notes or white papers activity that are written by engineers who have some specific experience about certain topics and are ready to share it with the community. This is also can be considered as a part of our effort to collect information from experienced people and sharing it. The difference here is that these white papers are more into tiny details and deep technical problems. This would allow more people, even fresh graduates, to share more information about the problems they faced and how they solved it.

As a policy, we are targeting to be at the same distance from all companies and universities that are working in this filed in Egypt. We want to build a successful relationship with them as sponsors and partners with us. We have many dreams in our mind that we feel that it can be real only by co-operation between all of us; committee and members. We are seeking all members who can allocate some of their time to help in driving and following up the activities that are carried over by the committee to contact us to join the committee as active members. We also want people who have expertise in any field and are ready to share this information with others to contact us to arrange with them the best way to share this information. We would be pleased to collect all your ideas, feed-back and questions to study it and take it into consideration in our future plans. Haytham Ashour, M.Sc VP of VLSI-Egypt Moderation Committee Board, M.Sc. Electronics & Communications Engineering Digital Design and Verification Leader, Consultant and Entrepreneur haytham.ashour@gmail.com

We have many more ideas about making VLSI-Egypt to be the interface of the VLSI industry in Egypt. ISSUE 1

Business & Enterprenurship

Leaders vs. Managers A mixed concept By: Kareem Refaat The words ‘leader’ and ‘manager’ are often use interchangeably, without any real awareness as to the difference in meaning between the two. In fact, these two positions require entirely different characteristics; otherwise, a manager can serve as the leader as well, and vice versa. To further resolve this issue, let us take a closer look at what a manager typically does and compare that to what a leader should do, so that we may evaluate whether both roles can be performed by one person, or whether each role represents separate characteristics.

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“

Managers are typically involved in the day to day operations and most of their time goes into running the system and ensuring it delivers the required results. Their scope of work include typical tasks like planning and budgeting, project management and follow up, setting the staff structure and putting the policies and procedures, delivery control and problem solving. Managers are typically involved in resource planning, execution progress and monitoring and control of the output. From the above we see that the involvement of management is mainly centralized to running the system putting some effort to align the staff to deliver the results. They are mainly concerned with the current situation or we can say the "AS IS" of the business to deliver the required results. Let us switch now to leaders and see what they are typically supposed to do. The word leader is generally associated with the word "direction", or we can say a "vision". Leaders set long term goals and stretch the mind of their employees to the future; they typically align staff on a specific direction and make all the necessary communication with their staff to make sure that everyone sees the same vision. Leaders inspire and motivate staff in every single way to drive them towards a common goal giving them the ability to overcome any possible barriers and think positively towards achieving the strategic goals of the organization. Leaders are futuristic and they always keep an eye on the long terms aspects rather than the short term operational issues, they are more inter-

ested in the "TO BE" of the business to establish a robust and healthy organization. Having reviewed the typical tasks of the manager and the leader we can conclude that we definitely need both in the organization, yet it is worth mentioning that a leader can do a manager’s work whereas a manager can't do a leader’s work. Leaders have the talent to work on the "people" aspect; they are concerned with developing people to become leaders of the future, while managers are concerned with systems, policies and procedures. Leaders have followers while managers have subordinates or employees; the followers of the leaders believe in the vision and the future while the employees of the managers believe in the short term results and the status of the operational cycle. Leaders are not understood by many people simply because they are few, they can't be developed, and they are born as leaders. The above discussion concludes that handling people is far more challenging than handling the systems, managers can be trained to handle the operational cycles while leaders are born to handle the people. Kareem Refaat Senior Business Consultant, Solutions Consulting M.Sc. System on Chip Design, KTH, Sweden MBA, Maastricht School of Management, Netherlands

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Business & Enterprenurship

Startup Nation 2 By: Muhammad Omara

ave you ever heard of the “Startup Nation” term before? We’re all probably familiar with the “Nation” part of it.. Still the “Startup” part can somehow be a new term to many, especially those who are not into business.

A “Startup”, as defined in Wikipedia, is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets. The term became internationally popular during the dot-com bubble that occurred roughly in the second nibble of the 90s ending around 2000. During this bubble a great number of dot-com companies were founded enriching what we call now the IT industry.

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failure. Still, the number of startups within a nation is insignificant until they positively contribute to the nation’s economy. But what about the “2.0” part that we skipped along the way? Does it mean that there is already a 1.0? The straight answer comes from DAN SENOR’s & SAUL SINGER’s book “Startup Nation: The story of Israel’s economic miracle”.

Although startup companies may come in any form, still the phrase “Startup Company” is often associated with high growth, and mostly technologyoriented companies. On the contrary, we have the “Established Business” term which we can use with companies like IBM, Intel, General Motors, etc. Successful startups are typically more scalable than an established business, in the sense that they can potentially grow rapidly with limited investment of capital, labor or land. Back to our “Startup Nation” term, should we now understand it as the nation with the ‘largest’ number of startups or namely ‘successful’ startups? From my own personal point of view, unsuccessful startups are also successful in the way they contribute to the successful ones that learn from their

YES, Israel is the current Startup Nation or what we technologically version as Startup Nation 1.0. Being an Egyptian doesn’t make me disbelieve in this fact. The economy of Israel is a technologically advanced market economy, consisting of a rapidly developing high-tech sector, mainly innovative startups, which is backed by a strong Venture Capital Industry. Israel is known for being a world leader in software, telecommunications and semiconductors development industries. Amazingly, it’s also known for being relatively poor in natural, and probably human, resources that make up the greatest nations. Israel depends on imports of coal, food, petro-

leum and the latest “Natural Gas” from our own beloved Egyptian Nation. A huge effort was exerted to make Israel the current Startup Nation. This effort came from three main tributaries: Government, Entrepreneurs and Investors. The erudite, eighty-three year old, two-time prime minister and Nobel Prize winner Shimon Perez along with the thirty-nine year old smart geek, who is of an Iraqi origin, Shai Agassi make the best example of the cooperation between Israeli state government and Israeli entrepreneurs leading to the Startup Nation 1.0. Perez invited the CEO’s of the world’s five largest carmakers to let Shai pitch his electric car idea in front of them. Doesn’t it look odd to pitch an electric car idea in 2007? Electric cars were popular in the late-19th century and early 20th century, until advances in internal combustion engine technology and mass production of cheaper gasoline vehicles led to a decline in the use of electric drive vehicles. The idea of the electric car came back to the scene after the huge rise in oil prices during the 2000’s. Shai decided to make a national project that allows Israel to be completely independent from its neighboring enemy, oil and natural gas. The good news here is that his, most probably 5 minute long pitch managed to raise a fund of $200 million dollars, out of which $130 million of the total amount came from only one risk-taking Israeli investor who wanted to build a better Israeli state. Shai’s pitch made his “Better Place” company the fifth-largest startup in the whole history. It is a no brainer; a state like this is the world’s Startup Nation given such persistent government, smart innovative entreISSUE 1

preneurs and risk-taking investors. Israel’s military service is obligatory the same way it is in Egypt. Yet, military service is only due after the completion of one’s high school education; unlike in Egypt. I won’t spend much time in comparing our military service to Israel’s. I will let you do that on your own after telling you about one of Israel’s military service programs/units. The “Talpiot” program has the distinction of being both the most selective unit and the one that subjects its soldiers to the longest training course in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) — a whopping forty-one months. This is comparable to our military service training camp of 45 days (now probably shortened after #Jan25 revolution). 14

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Those who enter the program sign on for an extra six years in the military, so their minimum obligatory service is a total of nine years! What’s so good about this program that imprisons people for a whole nine years! Each year, the top 2% of Israeli high school students are asked to try out – that’s two thousand students. Of these, only one in ten pass a battery of tests mainly in physics and math!! (Yes, physics and math as qualifications to enter military service!!!!!). These two hundred students are then run through two days of intensive personality and aptitude testing (this reminds me of the screening tests of Police Academy in Egypt). Once admitted into the program, Talpiot cadets blaze through an accelerated university degree in math of physics while they are

introduced to the technological needs of all IDF branches. The academic training they receive goes beyond what the typical university student would receive in Israel or anywhere else—they study more, in less time to get university degrees comparable to those obtained from MIT, Berkeley and Stanford. They also go through basic training with the paratroopers. The idea is to give them an overview of all the majorIDF branches so that they understand both the technology and military needs – and especially the connection between them. The Talpiot program as a whole is under Mafat, the IDF’s internal research and development arm, which is parallel to America’s DARPA (can we call the Arab Organization for Industrialization “AOI”, the Egyptian Army arm for R&D???).

More stories can be narrated about how Israel became the current Startup Nation. Still, this is not the end. They will do more to sustain their success and grow their illegal state. But where are we? What is our reaction towards that? Should we even have a reaction? Mafat has the coveted and sensitive job of assigning each Talpiot cadet (Talpion) to a specific unit in the IDF for their next six years of regular service. Talpiot training is optimized to maintain the IDF’s technological edge, the same combination of leadership experience and technical knowledge is ideal for creating new companies. Although the program has produced only about 650 graduates since it was founded after the historical defeat against Egypt in the 6th of October war, yet they have become some of Israel’s top academics and founders of the state’s most successful companies. NICE systems, the global corporation behind call-monitoring systems used by 85 of the Forbes 100 companies, was founded by a team of Talpions. So was Campugen, a leader in human-gnome decoding and drug development. Many of the Israeli technology companies traded on the NASDAQ were either founded by a Talpion or have alumni situated in key roles. We need to know that, after the United States, Israel has more companies listed on the NASDAQ than any other country in the world, including India, China, Korea, Singapore and Ireland. More stories can be narrated about how Israel became the current Startup Nation. Still, this is not the end. They will do more to sustain their success

and grow their illegal state. But where are we? What is our reaction towards that? Should we even have a reaction? Yes, we have to have a reaction. We successfully moved one step forward towards being an independent nation. We made a peaceful successful revolution against dictatorship that inspired even our enemies. We should continue to build a great nation. I, personally, believe that “Economy Comes First”. We should have a national dream, not like Turkey’s, not like Malaysia’s, not like Korea’s, not even like the United States’ or Israel’s. We should have our own model that, once again, redirects history towards this part of the world called Egypt. We should be the Startup Nation 2.0 in less than 10 years. Israel may have muscles, but it lacks both the spirit and belief inherent to achieving victory. What we have is true belief and a divine spirit; all we want now is awork out for our muscles. Muhammad Omara Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive officer of Fascila Technologies. M.Sc. Electronics & Communications Engineering

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Technical

How to be an

Embedded Systems Engineer? By: Amr Ali

From time to time, I am asked by young enthusiastic engineers the same question: “How can I an embedded engineer?” I will summarize the needed skills for a freshman to enter the embedded engineering field.

What is an Embedded System? Before plotting a learning track, let’s define an embedded system. An embedded system is a tightly coupled Hardware(HW) + Software (SW) system to perform a dedicated system. On average, a person meets around 100 embedded devices daily. Like any computer system, the architecture of an embedded system is: • Hardware • Firmware/Drivers • Operating System • Middleware • Application As shown in figure 1, the middleware and operating system are optional layers. The needed knowledge for embedded engineering is vast. It depends on which layer the engineer will focus on as well as the application domain.

Basic Learning Track The prerequisites for any embedded engineer are to understand what is meant by computer architecture and operating systems. These 2 topics are covered in most Egyptian universities, 16

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so I will skip them. In addition, to cover all layers, I suggest the following track.

C Programming By C programming I neither mean embedded C nor do I mean C for embedded. We have to discriminate between the language and where it is used. C itself is environment independent. Adding some extensions does not make it a new language. The problem with C is its flexibility and that it is poorly tutored both in universities and in training centers. You should focus on C language, data structures and algorithms as well as on how to write elite and bug free code. 2 good references I always point out are: • C Programming by Example • Writing Bug Free C Code

Real-Time Operating System An operating system is a piece of software that manages HW and SW in the system. The real-time adds the sense of correct timing as well as correct functionality. The goal is to learn how to do multitasking programming over RTOS. Multitasking programming is a very common programming method used heavily in embedded systems. The de facto for learning RTOS is μC/OS-II written by Jean J. Labrosse. www.embedded-tips.blogspot.com has

a complete free μC/OS-II with plenty of labs you can develop and test on your PC without the need of a development board.

ARM Architecture and Peripherals ARM is the dominant processor in the embedded industry. Its market share is around 75%. I highly recommend the ARM CortexM3 core. Many of the SoC manufacturers have adopted it. A good reference for the Cortex M3 core is “The Definitive Guide to the ARM Cortex M3”. After wards, going to the SoC is recommended. Famous SoC’s are NXP LPC, ST STm32, and TI Luminary Sterallis. For those who can’t purchase a development board, they can use QEMU to experience how to develop on Cortex M3 core and how to write different drivers for different peripherals. Again a quick introduction can be found in www.embeddedtips.blogspot.com about the ARM Cortex M3 and the ST STm32 Soc.

SW Engineering Embedded SW development is like any SW development, it needs to follow a disciplined process. An Embedded SW engineer should be familiar with: • Requirements Engineering • Design • Implementation • Testing • Configuration Management Plenty of references are available online. For those who are interested in courses, the Software Engineering Competence Center, there are really good courses to cover these topics. Amr Ali Embeddded Systems Engineer www.embedded-tips.blogspot.com

Fig.1: Embedded System Layered Architecture

Fig.2: Basic Learning Track

Fig.4: STm32 SoC Block Diagram

Fig.3: ARM Cortex M3 Core and CPU

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State of the Art

Hybrid Vehicles: You m By: Rania Hassan To reduce the harmful transport effects on the environment, different options are available such as advanced vehicle technologies, alternative fuels and improved conventional fuel quality. Road transport is responsible for 17-18% of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Significant improvements in fuel usage efficiency are required to decrease greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector. Besides CO2 emissions, the transport sector is responsible for an estimated 70-90% of air pollution in urban areas – especially in developing countries where fuel quality, vehicle technology, and inspection and maintenance regimes are inadequate. In summary, reducing vehicle emission and utilizing cleaner fuel are the main targets of the state of the art vehicles technology. A new generation of vehicles that use electricity is one of the solutions. The presence of electric power is intended to 18

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achieve better fuel economy than a conventional vehicle, less Co2 emission and less population. The electric drive vehicles can be divided into three categories: hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and allelectric vehicles (EVs).

Hybrid Electric Vehicles

HEVs utilize two or more different power sources. The regular gasoline engine is combined with another electric motor. The gasoline engine can run on conventional or alternative fuel and the electric motor uses energy stored in a battery. The extra power provided by the electric motor allows for a smaller engine, resulting in better fuel economy without sacrificing performance. HEVs combine the benefits of high fuel economy and low emissions with the power of conventional vehicles. HEVs do not require a plug to charge the battery; instead, they charge using regenerative braking and the internal comiliary power when idling.

may Plug-in your Car!!! Plug-in hybrid vehicles Plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles have recently emerged as a promising alternative that uses electricity to displace a significant fraction of fleet petroleum consumption. A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid-electric vehicle (HEV) with the ability to recharge its electrochemical energy storage with electricity from an off-board source (such as the electric utility grid). The vehicle can then drive in a charge-depleting (CD) mode that reduces the system’s state-of-charge (SOC), thereby using electricity to displace liquid fuel that would otherwise have been consumed. This liquid fuel is typically petroleum (gasoline or diesel), although PHEVs can also use alternatives such as bio-fuels or hydrogen. PHEV batteries typically have larger capacity than those in HEVs so as to increase the potential for petroleum displacement. PHEV batteries can be charged several ways: by an outside electric power source, by the internal combustion engine, or

through regenerative braking. If a PHEV is never plugged in to charge, its fuel economy will be about the same as that of a similarly sized HEV. If the vehicle is fully charged and then driven a shorter distance than its all-electric range, it is possible to use electric power only.

All-Electric Vehicles EVs use a battery to store the electrical energy that powers the motor. EV batteries are charged by plugging the vehicle into an electric power source. EVs are considered to be zero-emission vehicles because their motors produce no exhaust or emissions. Since EVs use no other fuel, they help reduce petroleum consumption. Currently available EVs have a shorter range per charge than most conventional vehicles have per tank of gas. Light-duty HEV, PHEV, and EV models are currently available from a number of auto manufacturers, with additional models expecISSUE 1

ages. The table above presents several EVSE options. Modern charging equipment and vehicles are designed with standard connectors and plug receptacles, so drivers do not need to worry about whether their vehicles are compatible with charging equipment. Utilities are also working to upgrade local distribution infrastructure in neighborhoods with higher EV and PHEV concentrations to handle increased electricity demand and ensure uninterrupted service. ted to be released in coming years. There are a variety of medium- and heavy-duty options available. The first gasoline-electric hybrid automobile in the world was developed in 1900 by Ferdinand Porsche (the LohnerPorsche Mixte Hybrid). The hybrid- electric vehicle did not become widely available until the release of the Toyota Prius in Japan in 1997, followed by the Honda Insight in 1999. Worldwide sales of hybrid vehicles produced by Toyota, the market leader, reached 1.0 million vehicles by May 31, 2007; the 2.0 million mark was reached by August 31, 2009; and 3.0 million units by February 2011, with hybrids sold in 80 countries and regions. Worldwide sales are led by the Toyota Prius, with cumulative sales of 2.0 million by September 2010, and sold in 70 countries and regions. The United States is the largest hybrid market in the world, with 2 million hybrid automobiles and SUVs sold through May 2011, and California is the biggest regional American market. The Prius is the top selling hybrid car in the U.S. market with 1 million units sold by April 2011.

How are EV and PHEV batteries charged? Charging EVs and PHEVs requires plug20

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ging the vehicle into charging equipment, also called electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). Charging times vary based on how depleted the battery is, how much energy it holds, and the type of battery and EVSE. The charging time for a fully depleted battery can range from 30 minutes to more than 20 hours, depending on the vehicle and the type of charging equipment used. Because charging an EV or PHEV takes significantly longer than fueling a conventional vehicle at a gas station, most EVSE will be available in locations where vehicles park for extended periods, including residences, workplaces, and parking gar-

Are electric drive vehicles safe? HEVs, PHEVs, and EVs undergo the same rigorous safety testing as conventional vehicles sold in the United States and must meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. In addition, their battery packs are encased in sealed shells and meet testing standards that subject batteries to conditions such as overcharge, vibration, extreme temperatures, short circuit, humidity, fire, collision, and water immersion. Manufacturers also design vehicles with insulated high-voltage lines and safety features that deactivate electric systems when they detect a collision or short circuit. For additional electric-drive

vehicle safety information, refer to the AFDC’s Maintenance and Safety of Hybrid, Plug-In Hybrid, and All-Electric Vehicles page

fuel costs for electric drive vehicles are generally less than conventional vehicles due to higher vehicle fuel economy and low costs for electricity.

How do maintenance requirements compare to those of conventional vehicles?

Electricity prices also tend to be more stable than conventional fuel prices, allowing greater certainty when budgeting for fuel costs. For EPA fuel economy ratings and fuel cost comparisons between different vehicle models currently available in the United States refer to the Fuel Economy.gov website.

Because HEVs and PHEVs have internal combustion engines, their maintenance requirements are comparable to conventional vehicles. The electrical system (battery, motor, and associated electronics) doesn’t require scheduled maintenance. Due to the effects of regenerative braking, brake systems on these vehicles typically last longer than those on conventional vehicles. EVs typically require less maintenance than conventional vehicles because: • They have fewer moving parts • Their brake fluid is the only fluid to change • Regenerative braking reduces brake wear • Their electrical systems don’t require regular maintenance.

How do fuel costs compare to those of conventional vehicles? When discussing electric drive vehicles, “fuel” includes the gasoline, diesel, or alternative fuel used in the internal combustion engine, as well as the electricity used to charge the EV or PHEV battery. Taking both fuel types into account,

What are the emissions benefits of electric drive vehicles? In general, HEVs, PHEVs, and EVs produce lower emissions than conventional vehicles. Vehicle emissions can be considered in terms of tailpipe emissions or

well-to-wheel emissions. Tailpipe emissions refer to emissions produced through fuel combustion during a vehicle’s operation. Well-to-wheel emissions take into consideration the production and distribution of the fuel as well as the actual operation of the vehicle. HEV tailpipe emissions are generated from the vehicle’s internal combustion engine and vary by vehicle and type of hybrid power system. Because HEVs generally achieve better fuel economy than comparable conventional vehicles, they produce lower emissions. Because PHEVs can operate either in all-electric mode or with the help of the internal combustion engine, emissions vary based on the vehicle’s operating mode. When the vehicle is charged by an electrical power source, emissions calculations must take electricity production into account. On average, most categories of emissions are lower for electricity generated from power plants than from engines running on gasoline or diesel. However, emissions from electricity production depend on the efficiency of the power plant and the mix of fuel sources used. To determine your region’s specific fuel mix, as well as the emissions rates of electricity in your zip code, see EPA’s Power Profiler. All-electric vehicles do not produce tailpipe emissions, so EVs are considered zero-emission vehicles by EPA. However, as with PHEVs, there are emissions associated with most U.S. electricity production. If electricity is generated from nonpolluting, renewable sources, EVs have the potential to produce zero well-to-wheel emissions. Rania Hassan Mekky, M.Sc. Senior Analog-Mixed Signal Design Engineer rania_mekky@ieee.org ISSUE 1

State of the Art

Chip Inside...You! By: Ahmad Abdel-Hamid

HAT IF your mother has to take 8 different drugs at differ-i ent times around the day, and you are not there to follow up her medication cycle around the clock? What if 3 of those are mandatory to keep her respiratory system and blood pressure at the appropriate level. What if you could actually monitor your family's health from work via internet?

Well, it's all possible using "intelligent medicine". Proteus Biomedical provides pills that integrate pharmaceutical technology with MEMS and typical silicon processing technologies all made from biological components that are loaded inside the drug.

Intelligent medicine

Andrew Thomson the CEO of Proteus Biomedical says: "We put a computer chip made of food that should be activated once you swallow it, and will dissolve in your body; it communicates through a personal health companion, a small bandage which will transfer data to your GSM then to your web profile. The bandage that lasts for a week can measure your heart rate, your respiration, moving angle, movement activ22

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ty… etc" This "electronic observed therapy" as Andrew Thomson likes to call it, can go everywhere a mobile phone can go. Mainly, to developed countries where patients can have these intelligent pills that will feed the doctors offshore the full profile of the patient. Moreover, it is an intelligent solution for those who would like to monitor their activity and health without going to a hospital on a frequent basis.

Lab on Chip

Advanced silicon processing for microfluidic devices enables unprecedented biomedical microsystems such as Labon- Chip (LoC) detection systems. The biomedical giant Novartis for instance, has sealed a contract with Pro-

teus Biomedical to bring their chip-pill technology to the pharmaceutical market. Novartis observed a potential in the idea which was presented at different Davos World Economic forums since 2009 and TED talks by Andrew Thomson himself. In this article we will focus on the LoC concepts necessary to follow up technology advancements by silicon engineers. We shall investigate a particular example that is Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms "SNPs" detection in human DNA where research is still in its preliminary stages.

Pharmaceutical Basis

The DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is often called as the blueprint of life, since it contains instructions to construct

other components of cells. In other terms the DNA is the "Programming Code" needed by any organism to develop, survive, or reproduce. The DNA is a polymer of smaller units, each called "nucleotide". Each nucleotide consists of one sugar unit, a phosphate group, and one of 4 nitrogenous bases: Adenine, Thymine, Guanine and Cytosine (i.e. A, T, G and C). The DNA is finally described by genetic scientists as a double helix in which the two DNA strands are connected together by base pairing between the nitrogenous bases (i.e A-T, C-G). DNA replicates in order to allow the organism to develop or reproduce. Yet, it is possible that an error occurs during this replication process. If the error occurs in a single base pair it is called a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP pronounced “snip”).SNPs are often found to be a cause of many diseases or a direct influencer for the response of human bodies to drugs. The SNP information is made available for you at the hospital by means of

large table-top tools for fluid manipulation, which might be expensive as well. Yet, the information is very useful to personalize your medical treatment by doctors, or to "predict" some diseases that you will acquire in the future. The SNP information is also available now by means of LoC using a smaller, faster and portable version.

SNP detection

SNP detection is known to be done by two different methods: 1. Fluorescence based detection or 2. Electrochemical based detection. The one used in LoC is typically the second one (EC). The EC detection requires many sample processing steps. An LoC device is a cost-effective and portable solution. The necessary microfluidics research components are typically: pumps, filters, valves, heaters, mixers and micro-channels. A typical EC analysis is done by means of five stages: 1. A micropump: where blood is fed from a mixer, the mixer takes another input from enzymes reagents. 2. The output of the mixer is allowed to pass to a "thermal reaction chamber" with heaters. Sensors allow control where cell lysis (breaking down the cell wall to extract the DNA) and multiplication of the target DNA is

done (named as PCR operation). 3. Extraction of the target DNA chain is done by a coarse grain filter. 4. A micropillar filter is used to separate DNA (shown in the image above). 5. DNA replication is carried out to detect SNP via thermal chambers and electrochemical sensors. The whole detection process is carried out on a certain DNA chain. In the state of the art experimental chips by IMEC research lab, VUB university labs and Panasonic, five SNPs are detected all at once at the final SNP detection stage each with 50 base pairs, with a 20ul input sample(0.5ul in the near future) by means of electrochemical sensors. The SNP detection silicon implementation includes in the package a high pressure micro-pump (8mm pump), a thermal chamber for PCR, a fast and selective micropillar filter and an SNP detector. The core technology for all is microfluidics for MEMS technology. For instance the deep-UV patterned silicon pillar array was realized using advanced MEMS technology. It consists of many micronscale pillars, being typically 20μm high and with 1-2μm inter-pillar distance (as shown in the image above).

science, It is evident that advanced silicon technology, with electrochemical sensors, microfluidics and pharmaceutical sciences are necessary to carry out such work. Yet, the advantages and potential applications are outstanding. In our upcoming articles we shall focus on the low power processors and communication architectures for such systems with their prospective and state of the art area and power constraints.

Ahmad Abdel-Hamid Nanoelectronics researcher at IMEC, PhD student of university of Brussels VUB, a@ahmedabdelhamid.com www.ahmedabdelhamid.com/main

Various MEMS based microfluidic devices are necessary to start biomedical LoC detection systems. In this article we posed the heterogeneous nature of ISSUE 1

State of the Art

Current Trends in RF and Microwave Integrated Circuits Research (1)

Why do we need millimeter-wave?

By: Muhammad Elkholy

RFIC and microwave-IC research can be divided into many areas such as ultra low power RF frontends, wide band circuits and cognitive radio design, the aim of this research it to build a universal radio frontend, self healing RF circuits with Built In Self Test (BIST), and millimeter-wave circuits and systems from 30-300 GHz

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frequency range. Within this article current trends in millimeter-wave research are addressed from devices performance metrics to highly integrated radio frontends. It also provides some design aspects and precautions for such high frequency circuits and systems.

There are two main applications for millimeter- wave systems, wireless communication as well as millimeter-wave radar and imaging. Fig. 1 shows the current trend in the wireless communication data rate and technologies. In the next few years Wireless LAN and wireless PAN data rates should be within the range of 1-10 Gbps. As the required data rate increases the RF channel bandwidth increases accordingly. Based on Shannon’s Theorem, the maximum data-rate of a communication channel, known as channel capacity, C, is related to the frequency bandwidth of the channel, BW, and the signal-to-noise ratio, SNR as in C=BW.log2(1+SNR) (1) The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has allocated several frequency bands at millimeter waves for high data rate wireless communication. Fig. 2 shows selected parts of the FCC-allocated frequency spectrum. Also shown in this figure are frequency allocations for automotive radar applications. The radar azimuth resolution (perpendicular to the radar wave) and range resolution (in the direction of radar wave) are inversely proportional with the carrier frequency and bandwidth, respectively, explaining the choice of such high frequencies and bandwidths. While the

Fig. 1 Roadmap of wireless and some wireline personal communication [5] 22-29 GHz frequency band is allocated for short-range applications such as park assist, stop-and-go, and blind spot detection, the 77 GHz band is used for the long-range automatic cruise control application. These radars are currently realized using compound semiconductor technologies and limited to higher end cars. Radar range resolution is inversely proportional to the bandwidth of the transmitted pulse. Therefore, the FCC has allocated a wide frequency spectrum around 24 GHz (22-29 GHz) for short range automotive radar applications. The FCC allocated frequency band allows using the ultra wideband

Fig. 2 The mm-wave band allocation in the United State [4].

(UWB) technology to achieve a higher resolution for short range vehicular sensing applications such as blind spot detection, side and rear impact sensing, blind spot detection, and stop-and-go. One desirable objective is pedestrian detection and protection as illustrated in Fig. 3. New potential systems such as millimeter wave imaging and sub-THz chemical detectors are implemented in current silicon technologies with the application in astronomy, chemistry, physics and security. Those systems are designed for specific frequencies such as 90 GHz, 140 GHz, and 300 GHz; those are the attenuation windows of the millimeter wave spectrum at with the attenuation either minimum or maximum as depicted in Fig. 4. (previous sentence not understood) Another potential application for mm-wave technology is passive millimeter wave imaging. By detecting only the natural thermal radiation of objects in the mmwave band, images of objects can be formed in a very similar fashion as in an optical system. Either a group of receivers or a movable mechanical anISSUE 1

tenna is required to scan the area of interest. Unless special techniques are employed, due to the relatively large wavelength, the resolution of this approach is limited to objects on the order of a millimeter. The millimeter wave image is clearly able to penetrate through the fog and rain and provide a clear image. In security applications, passive (or active) millimeter wave images of a person can be used to find hidden weapons Unlike X-ray based imaging systems, which can only be used with limited dosage with living organisms, passive mm wave imaging does not use any additional radiation than what is naturally present. Fig. 4 The propagation attenuation characteristics [dB/km] versus frequency (wavelength) for Earth’s atmosphere under various conditions [6].

Fig. 3 Top view of an automobile and the desired sensors.

Why Silicon for millimeter wave application?

The main premise behind using silicon at millimeter waves is the higher level of integration offered at a high yield that leads into lower cost systems. Over the relatively short span of five years, several highly integrated and complex millimeter wave systems have been reported by academia and industrial research labs such as IBM research [8]. These fully integrated chips consist of several 26

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thousand RF and digital transistors and on-chip passives in multi metal-layer silicon processes and include all the receiver, transmitter and even transceiver building blocks such as low noise amplifiers, mixers, voltage controlled oscillators, phase locked loops, power amplifiers, and in some cases on-chip antennas. Moreover, in many cases multiple receive and transmit paths are integrated in a single chip to realize fully integrated phased arrays. If silicon technology has adequate performance to implement the front-end portions of the transceiver, the ability to integrate digital logic in CMOS increasing densities offers the opportunity to drastically lower overall system cost. Lower cost could be the prime motivator for the use of BiCMOS or CMOS over III-V technologies. Again considering fT as a measure of performance, the SiGe BiCMOS HBT has comparable performance to the NFET at roughly twice the minimum feature size. For standalone RF functions, where area is dominated by passive devices and I/O pads, BiCMOS may be the lower-cost option despite the approximately 20% additional process complexity required to form the HBT. III-V transistor performance at substantially relaxed lithography dimensions is comparable with leading edge CMOS. So, again for purely RF devices, III-V implementations may of-

fer a lower cost especially when utilizing existing designs and time-to-market is considered.However, when even modest amounts of digital logic are to be integrated, CMOS has a clear advantage as circuit density and chip size scale with the square of the minimum lithographic dimension.

Limitations at Millimeter wave frequencies for silicon technologies

The current silicon technologies suffer from high noise and lower output power at millimeter wave frequencies compared to III-V counterparts. It seriously limits the link budget of Gbps transmission. The SNR affects both the communication data rates and distance. For a given distance, the received signal experience higher attenuation as the frequency increases. It is due to smaller antenna size higher absorption in air and other materials. In a multipath environment, multiple replicates of the transmitted signal that are reflected from various objects reach the receiver at different times with different amplitudes and phases, causing unwanted signal fading. The amount of attenuation due to unwanted multi-path effects depends on the size of scattering objects relative to the carrier frequency as well as their type and location. Both high intrinsic noise of the current silicon technologies and low received signal

scale at least as quickly in the near-term future. Fig. 6 shows the different types of RF devices.

Active Devices Bipolar Devices Silicon Heterojunction Bipolar transistors offer some advantages compared to CMOS devices such as lower 1/f noise, higher output resistance and higher voltage capability for a given speed. The range of technologies on the market today offers HBTs with fT > 200GHz and sometimes fmax > 300GHz [9] as shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 5 Cutoff frequency by year of production comparing silicon and III-V compound semiconductor devices [7] . power due to attenuation and multipath, results in lower SNR. And lower SNR is translated to either lower distance or data rate. Before discussing how to overcome these limitations let’s present the performance of the state of the art silicon technologies at millimeter wave frequencies.

Millimeter wave Silicon Devices As stated earlier the performance of silicon technologies is inferior if compared to the III-V semiconductors technologies. They suffer from relatively low carrier motilities and hence low devices figure of merit (FOM). High resistive or semi insulating silicon substrate is very hard to implement resulting in lower isolation and higher substrate losses in passives devices and interconnects at millimeter wave frequencies. However, the recent advances in silicon technologies driven by high performance digital circuits enhanced the performance of the active devices in millimeter wave frequencies. The performance of the active device is quantified by fT , fmax or NFmin . The performance is dramatically increased

with geometry scaling and technology enhancements in both CMOS and SiGe HBT [7]. The roadmap of the cutoff frequency (fT ) comparing a number of IIIV semiconductor devices with the silicon CMOS NFET and SiGe HBT as taken from the 2006 ITRS are plotted in Fig. 5. It is evident that silicon technology currently exhibits small signal gains that are competitive with those of III-V transistors and are predicted to

CMOS devices CMOS transistors follow the well known Moore’s Law of scaling, thus leading to always increasing functional integration. The 65nm node still uses poly silicon gate, but the carrier mobility is sometimes increased by using several technological solutions as described previously. As depicted in Fig. 8 , fT as high as 150GHz and 200GHz are reached in the 65nm node for Low Power (LP) and General Purpose (GP) devices, respectively.

Fig. 6. Main high-frequency device types. ISSUE 1

References [1]http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/php/pu bs/pubs.php/1278/jwu_thesis2009.pdf [2]http://www2.imec.be/be_en/research /green-radios/cognitive-radio.html [3]http://www.ek.isy.liu.se/~jdab/Tamp ere-LoopbackBiST.pdf [4]http://www.ieeevtc.org/plenaries/vtc2 007fall/28.pdf [5]L.Yujiri,M. Shoucri, P.Moffa, “Passvie mm-Wave Imaging,” IEEE Microwave Magazine, vol. 4, issue 3, pp. 39-50, Sept. 2003. [6]International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, http://www.itrs.net/ [7]http://domino.watson.ibm.com/com m/research_projects.nsf/pages/mmwave .pubs.html

Fig. 7. fT - BVCEO chart built with various Si/SiGeC HBTs available in 130-nm CMOS node. Different architectures with different maturities are compared (technology trials at STMicroelectronics).

[8]P. Chevalier, et al., “Advanced SiGe BiCMOS and CMOS platforms for Optical and Millimeter-Wave Integrated Circuits,” IEEE CSICS 2006 Muhammad Aly El-Kholy Microwave, milli-meter researcher , IHP M.Sc Electronics and communications

Fig. 8 Evolution of fT with physical gate length for different NMOS devices (LP and GP) of 130-nm, 90-nm and 65-nm CMOS nodes.

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