PhD Defense of Vipin VELAYUDHAN

This thesis focuses on the study of vectorial measurement methods for analysing microelectronic circuits in integrated technology at millimeter wave frequencies. Current calibration and de-embedding methods are less precise for successfully extracting the intrinsic parameters of devices and circuits at millimeter wave frequencies, while the targeted operating frequencies are above 100 GHz. This is especially true for the characterization of passive devices such as propagation lines. The initial motivation of this thesis work was to explain the exact origin of the additional loss measured in Slow-Wave Coplanar Waveguides (S-CPW) lines at millimeter wave frequencies. Was it a problem of raw measurement or a problem of de-embedding method, which underestimates the losses? Or was it a problem of insufficient modeling of the effects of adjacent cells, or even the creation of a perturbation mode of propagation?
This work consists of estimating many de-embedding methods beyond 65 GHz and classifies these methods into three groups to be able to compare them in a meaningful way. This study was conducted in three phases.
In the first phase, we compared all the de-embedding methods with known electrical model parasitics of pad/accessline. This phase identifies the optimal conditions to use and apply these de-embedding methods.
In the second phase, the modeling of test structures is performed using a 3D electromagnetic simulator based on finite element method. This phase tested the robustness of the methods and considered an original de-embedding method called Half-Thru de-embedding method. This method gives comparable results to the TRL method, which remains the most effective method. However, it remains difficult to explain the origin of additional losses obtained in measured S-CPW line.
A third modeling phase was analysed to take into account the measurement of probes and the adjacent cells near our device under test. More than 80 test structures were designed in AMS 0.35 μm CMOS technology to compare the different de-embedding methods and analyse the link with adjacent cells, measuring probes and perturbation mode of propagation.
Finally, this work has identified a number of precautions to consider for the attention of microelectronic circuit designers wishing to characterize their circuit with precision beyond 110 GHz. It also helped to establish Half-Thru Method de-embedding method, which is not based on electrical model, unlike other methods.


Members of the  jury :
•    Jean-Daniel ARNOULD - Supervisor
•    Emmanuel PISTONO - CoSupervisor
•    JunWu TAO - Rapporteur
•    Didier VINCENT - Rapporteur