EL-239 Analog Integrated Circuits

July 17, 2020

Hashim Raza Khan

Assistant Professor
 Course Outline
Review: Review of modern MOS device physics, MOS secondary effects
Dr. Ghous Bakhsh Narejo

Integrated Circuits: Introduction to IC processing for MOS integrated circuits, Modeling and
integration of passive devices
IC Packaging: Different types of packaging and their need, Wire-bond vs. flip-chip

Output Stages: Introduction to Power Amplifier classes (A, B, C, AB etc): Class A power
Amplifier, Class B Power Amplifier, Class AB Power Amplifier
Integrated Circuits: Historical background and modern semiconductor industry
Op-amp: Review of discrete amplifier design, One and Two-stage CMOS Op Amps, Input
common mode range, voltage gain, and slew rate
Hashim Raza Khan

Frequency Response: Introduction, High frequency small-signal model of MOSFET, Miller’s

Theorem Open circuit and short circuit time constants methods, Analysis of
Common-Source, Common-Gate, Common-Drain
Feedback: General consideration of feedback circuits, feedback topologies, Two-port
networks, properties of negative feedback

Oscillators: Introduction to feedback and s-plane, Birkhausen criterion, Amplitude

limiter, different types of oscillators
2
 Books
1. Text Book: Microelectronic Circuits, Sedra/Smith 6th edition, Oxford
University Press, USA, 2009.
2. Text Book: Design of Analog Integrated Circuits, Behzad Razavi, Mc Graw
Hill, USA, 2004
3. Reference Book: Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits, Paul
R. Gray, Paul J. Hurst, Stephen H. Lewis, Robert G. Meyer, 5th edition,
Wiley USA, 2009.

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A Brief History of Electronics
• History is boring, just a collection of names and dates…
– It’s much more than that!
• History of electronics will enable you to understand
– Causality
– Need behind the invention
– What made a technology obsolete?
– Why is the electronics industry in the present state and
where will it go from here?
– How can we think about innovation, invention and
disruption?

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 Electronics
• Definition: Branch of electrical engineering that
deals with the passage of electricity from non
conductors
• Early Electronics (19th century)
– Evacuated tubes → Crookes tube experiment
– Works on thermionic emission, studied just as a
phenomenon.
– Rectifying properties discovered in early 20th century,
the era of vacuum tubes
• Diodes, triodes, pentodes ……..
• Mainly used in radio and
telephony
5
Is/Are there any use(s) of vacuum
tube today?

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Vacuum tubes in the 21st century

Magnetron from a
microwave oven

70 W rms x 2, audio amplifier

by space tech laboratory.
Price: $4,680.00 only

Vacuum channel transistor: a cross

between vacuum tube and transistor
Source: IEEE Spectrum, July 2014 issue

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 Right. What about solid state
electronics? It started with
invention of transistor after 2nd

World War.

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 Solid state electronics
• Crystal diode and cat’s whisker Amplitude
Modulated
Vin Vout (AM) Receiver
aka AM Radio
Amplitude
Modulated
(AM) Waves

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 Evolution of transistors and
integrated circuits
• MOSFET was invented before BJT!
– Fabrication problem impedes its growth
• Si transistor introduced in 1954 by TI
(Gordon Teal)
• Earliest integrated circuit was BJT based
in the late 50s
• Transistor radio and television
dominated the transistor market
• Earliest ICs include many analog designs
– LM101 in 1963 by Bob Widlar
– 741 in 1968
– 555 in 1971

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Once we had integrated circuits in
the 50s, that is pretty much the
end of journey of history of
electronics. Right?

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 Electronics: The technology enabler
Era Electronics Technology Dominant Application*
1910-1930s Vacuum Tube Wireless, radio, telephony
1939-1945 Vacuum Tube Radar, cryptography, warfare
1945-1950s Transistors Radio & computer
1950s-1970s Integrated Circuits Television & computers
1970s LSI Audio video entertainment (walkman, VCR)
1980s VLSI Personal Computers, video gaming
1990s VLSI PCs and mobiles
2000s VLSI Internet Servers, mobiles and laptops
2010s VLSI Mobiles, connected devices, renewables,
electric vehicles
2020s VLSI? ??
*These applications were popular in common person’s knowledge. Otherwise military, space, power generation
and distribution, and many other fields benefitted from Electronics
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 Moore’s Law by Gordon Moore
“Number of transistors possible in an IC will get
doubled in every two years”
• First proposed in 1965
• Self fulfilling prophecy
• Responsible for the business
model and design cycle in
semiconductor industry
• When will it end and what’s
next?
– 3D ICs
– Quantum computing
– Spintronics
– Carbon Nanotubes/graphene

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 CMOS Process Node
• 10 µm – 1971 • 65 nm – 2005
• 6 µm – 1974 • 45 nm – 2007
• 3 µm – 1977 • 32 nm – 2009
• 1.5 µm – 1981 • 22 nm – 2012
• 1 µm – 1984 • 14 nm – 2014
• 800 nm – 1987 • 10 nm – 2016
• 600 nm – 1990 • 7 nm – 2018
• 350 nm – 1993 • 5 nm – 2020
• 250 nm – 1996 Future
• 180 nm – 1999 • 3 nm – ~2023
• 130 nm – 2001 • 2 nm – ~2025?
• 90 nm – 2003

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15
 Semiconductor Industry
• Silicon Producer
• Silicon Wafer producer
• Integrated Device Manufacturers
• Fabless Companies
• Pureplay semiconductor companies (foundries)
• Electronic Design Automation Tools
• Foundry Requirements & Tools
• Test & Verification
• Packaging
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 Polysilicon production
• Requires 9N (99.9999999%) pure silicon
• Czochralski process is used to get the Si ingot
• Ingot is 200 mm to 300 mm in diameter.
• Elkem, Wacker Chemie AG, and Renewable Energy
Corporation are major suppliers

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 Silicon wafer production
• Produces wafer from silicon ingot
• Polishing, epitaxial layer, resistivity of
substrate, SoI option are done
• Siltronic, Sumco, Sun Edison are major players

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 Integrated Device Manufacturers

• Classical business model

• Design and fabrication operations are
performed within the company
• Intel, Infineon, Samsung are IDMs
– Large corporations can do this
• Requires heavy capital investment
• Low RoI

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 Pure Play semiconductors
• Provides contract services to fabricate ICs
designed by others
• TSMC, Global Foundries (Ex AMD), UMC
• Taiwan is the global leader
• Capital intensive market.
• Barrier to entry is high

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 Fabless Companies
• Companies only design ICs and get them
fabricated through a pure play company
• Apple, IBM, NVIDIA, Broadcom, Qualcomm, AMD
• Less capital intensive
• Barrier to entry is low
• Fabless companies have already grown bigger
than some IDMs!
• Qualcomm and Broadcom are No. 2 and No. 4
semiconductor company in the world!!

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 Fablite companies
• IDMs are becoming fabless, e.g. AMD
• Supply chain becomes risqué
• Instead of going completely fabless, they IDM
have little in-house fabrication and outsource a
part to pure play semiconductor
– A certain node, peak demand capacity, regular
production…….
• Gives better control over the product life cycle
and subsequent improvement
• Is it viable?
– The jury is out.
22
 Top 10 Semiconductor Companies
in the world
• 1. Samsung
• 2. Intel
• 3. TSMC
• 4. SK Hynix
• 5. Micron Technology
• 6. Broadcom
• 7. Qualcomm
• 8. Texas Instruments
• 9. Toshiba Ref: https://www.bizvibe.com/blog/top-semiconductor-companies/

• 10. Nvidia
(As of March 2020)

Department of Electronic Engineering 23

 MPW service
– The service provider has access to several foundries with
different technology nodes through agreements
– Service provider with permission of the foundry provide
technology file (Process Development Kit) to the customer
(university, small companies, etc)
– Customers submit their IC designs to the service provider.
– The service provider aggregates designs of same technology in
a single big design. Cost of design masks are shared among
different ASIC designer groups.
– After the design is fabricated by the foundry, it is returned to
the service provider who cuts every design out and send it to
respective designers

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 Cost Effective ASIC Design
• A modern fab costs ~ 3-4 billion USD!
• Lack of Capital, human resources 
• Pure Play Semiconductor! Companies fabricate design of fabless
clients ☺
• BUT…….A 65nm ASIC mask set costs > 1m USD 
• Multi Project Run Solutions:
– Cost of a tape-out: 15,000USD approx. for a 2mm x 2mm design
on 130nm CMOS process
– A 2.2 mm x 2.2 mm design on 1.2 µm process costs 1030 USD
only ☺ ☺
– CMP (France), CMC (Canada), Europractice (European Union),
SilTerra (Malaysia), MOSIS (USA) ☺
25
Are there any prospects of IC
designing in Pakistan?

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