STMicroelectronics

About: STMicroelectronics is a company organization based out in Geneva, Switzerland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Signal & Transistor. The organization has 17172 authors who have published 29543 publications receiving 300766 citations. The organization is also known as: SGS-Thomson & STM.

A physically based mobility model for numerical simulation of nonplanar devices

Abstract: A semiempirical model for carrier mobility in silicon inversion layers is presented. The model, strongly oriented to CAD (computer-aided design) applications, is suitable for two-dimensional numerical simulations of nonplanar devices. A local mobility function, set up in terms of a simple Mattiessen's rule, provides a careful description of MOSFET operation in a wide range of normal (or gate) electric fields, channel impurity concentrations of between 5*10/sup 14/ cm/sup -3/ and 10/sup 17/ cm/sup -3/ for the acceptor density of states and 6*10/sup 14/ cm/sup -3/ and 3*10/sup 17/ cm/sup -3/ for the donor density of states; and temperatures between 200 K and 460 K. Best-fit model parameters are extracted by comparing the calculated drain conductance with a very large set of experimental data points. >

New insights in the relation between electron trap generation and the statistical properties of oxide breakdown

Abstract: In this paper it is demonstrated in a wide stress field range that breakdown in thin oxide layers occurs as soon as a critical density of neutral electron traps in the oxide is reached. It is proven that this corresponds to a critical hole fluence, since a unique relationship between electron trap generation and hole fluence is found independent of stress field and oxide thickness. In this way literature models relating breakdown to hole fluence or to trap generation are linked. A new model for intrinsic breakdown, based on a percolation concept, is proposed. It is shown that this model can explain the experimentally observed statistical features of the breakdown distribution, such as the increasing spread of the Q/sub BD/-distribution for ultrathin oxides. An important consequence of this large spread is the strong area dependence of the Q/sub BD/ for ultrathin oxides.

Electronic switching in phase-change memories

Abstract: A detailed investigation of electronic switching in chalcogenide-based phase-change memory devices is presented. An original bandgap model consistent with the microscopic structure of both crystalline and amorphous chalcogenide is described, and a physical picture of the switching mechanism is proposed. Numerical simulations provide, for the first time, a quantitative description of the peculiar current-voltage curve of a Ge/sub 2/Sb/sub 2/Te/sub 5/ resistor, in good agreement with measurements performed on test devices.

The Blur Effect: Perception and Estimation with a New No-Reference Perceptual Blur Metric

Abstract: To achieve the best image quality, noise and artifacts are generally removed at the cost of a loss of details generating the blur effect. To control and quantify the emergence of the blur effect, blur metrics have already been proposed in the literature. By associating the blur effect with the edge spreading, these metrics are sensitive not only to the threshold choice to classify the edge, but also to the presence of noise which can mislead the edge detection. Based on the observation that we have difficulties to perceive differences between a blurred image and the same reblurred image, we propose a new approach which is not based on transient characteristics but on the discrimination between different levels of blur perceptible on the same picture. Using subjective tests and psychophysics functions, we validate our blur perception theory for a set of pictures which are naturally unsharp or more or less blurred through one or two-dimensional low-pass filters. Those tests show the robustness and the ability of the metric to evaluate not only the blur introduced by a restoration processing but also focal blur or motion blur. Requiring no reference and a low cost implementation, this new perceptual blur metric is applicable in a large domain from a simple metric to a means to fine-tune artifacts corrections.

Dynamic multiobjective optimization problems: test cases, approximations, and applications

Abstract: After demonstrating adequately the usefulness of evolutionary multiobjective optimization (EMO) algorithms in finding multiple Pareto-optimal solutions for static multiobjective optimization problems, there is now a growing need for solving dynamic multiobjective optimization problems in a similar manner. In this paper, we focus on addressing this issue by developing a number of test problems and by suggesting a baseline algorithm. Since in a dynamic multiobjective optimization problem, the resulting Pareto-optimal set is expected to change with time (or, iteration of the optimization process), a suite of five test problems offering different patterns of such changes and different difficulties in tracking the dynamic Pareto-optimal front by a multiobjective optimization algorithm is presented. Moreover, a simple example of a dynamic multiobjective optimization problem arising from a dynamic control loop is presented. An extension to a previously proposed direction-based search method is proposed for solving such problems and tested on the proposed test problems. The test problems introduced in this paper should encourage researchers interested in multiobjective optimization and dynamic optimization problems to develop more efficient algorithms in the near future.