System-on-chip: IIT achieves breakthrough

IIT Bombay and Infineon Technologies on Wednesday said they had jointly achieved a major breakthrough in integration of high voltage functionality for advanced CMOS technologies.

Modern CMOS technologies, a major class of integrated circuits, used in current generation computers and mobiles cannot handle high voltages but with this breakthrough, integration of high voltage application is possible, overcoming the current limitations, Professor V Ramgopal Rao from IIT's Electrical Department told PTI.

This new development can also help in making applications like high performance, low-cost single chip mobiles, Rao, who was also the team leader for the project, said.

Based on this, high voltage functionality ranging from USB interfaces to high voltage line drivers can be integrated into "system-on-silicon" solutions in 45 nm (nanometre) CMOS and below, he said adding the results would be presented at the International Reliability Physics Symposium at Montreal this weekend.

"This integration of high voltage functionality for advanced CMOS technologies was able to explain the mechanisms behind electrostatic discharge (ESD) events in high voltage field effect transistor (FET) devices," he said.