STMicroelectronics

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

Novel numerical and experimental analysis of dynamic responses under board level drop test

Abstract: Board level solder joint reliability during drop test is a great concern to semiconductor and electronic product manufacturers. A new JEDEC standard for board level drop test of handheld electronic products was just released to specify the drop test procedure and conditions. In this paper, comprehensive dynamic responses of PCB and solder joints, e.g., acceleration, strains, and resistance, are measured and analyzed in detail with a multi-channel real-time electrical monitoring system. It is found experimentally and numerically that the mechanical shock causes multiple PCB bending or vibration which induces the solder joint fatigue failure. A novel input acceleration (input-G) method is developed to simulate the exact drop test process using ANSYS-LSDYNA software. The model can be applied to simulate the overall impact responses including PCB cyclic bending, which are very critical for understanding of board level drop test.

Backside illuminated SPAD image sensor with 7.83μm pitch in 3D-stacked CMOS technology

Abstract: We present the first 3D-stacked backside illuminated (BSI) single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) image sensor capable of both single photon counting (SPC) intensity, and time resolved imaging. The 128×120 prototype has a pixel pitch of 7.83 μm making it the smallest pixel reported for SPAD image sensors. A low power, high density 40nm bottom tier hosts the quenching front end and processing electronics while an imaging specific 65nm top tier hosts the photo-detectors with a 1-to-1 hybrid bond connection [1]. The SPAD exhibits a median dark count rate (DCR) below 200cps at room temperature and 1V excess bias, and has a peak photon detection probability (PDP) of 27.5% at 640nm and 3 V excess bias.

Optimal deadline assignment for scheduling soft aperiodic tasks in hard real-time environments

Abstract: We present a novel scheduling approach for servicing soft aperiodic requests in a hard real time environment, where a set of hard periodic tasks is scheduled using the Earliest Deadline First algorithm. The main characteristic of the proposed algorithm is that it achieves full processor utilization and optimal aperiodic responsiveness, still guaranteeing the execution of the periodic tasks. Another interesting feature of the proposed algorithm is that it can easily be tuned to balance performance versus complexity for adapting it to different application requirements. Schedulability issues, performance results, and implementation complexity of the algorithm are discussed and compared with other methods, such as Background, the Total Bandwidth Server, and the Slack Stealer. Resource reclaiming and extensions to more general cases are also considered. Extensive simulations show that a substantial improvement can be achieved with a little increase of complexity, ranging from the performance of the Total Bandwidth Server up to the optimal behavior.

A Low Cost Network-on-Chip with Guaranteed Service Well Suited to the GALS Approach

Abstract: The paper presents the DSPIN micro-network, that is an evolution of the SPIN architecture DSPIN is a scalable packet switching micro-network dedicated to GALS (Globally Asynchronous, Locally Synchronous) clustered, multi-processors, systems on chip The DSPIN architecture has a very small foot-print and provides to the system designer both guaranteed latency, and guaranteed throughput services for real-time applications

Non-linear adaptive image filter for filtering noise such as blocking artifacts

Abstract: A filter reduces artifacts, such as grid noise and staircase noise, in block-coded digital images with image block boundaries. The type of filtering is determined after an estimation of the image global metrics and local metrics. For areas of the image near grid noise, the filter performs low pass filtering. For image fine details, such as edges and texture, no filtering is performed so that masking is avoided. The filter operates in intra-field mode and uses a fuzzy logic process, pixel deltas, and dual ramp generators to determine the horizontal and vertical length of a processing window surrounding an image block boundary.