Safety, Security, and Health Care
(Thrust leader: Yiorgos Makris, University of Texas at Dallas)
The efforts in the Safety, Security, and Health care thrust focus on improving safety by mitigating various reliability threats in analog/RF devices, as well as by developing effective machine learning-based design, verification and self-test solutions. Particular emphasis has been placed on characterizing circuit aging, in-field detection and localization of both hard and soft analog faults, as well as for low-cost design, test and calibration of RF MIMO systems. Machine learning assisted solutions for improving testability, statistically characterizing effectiveness of test suites through analog test metrics, performing outlier detection for analog security are also being developed. Additionally, this thrust investigates submillimeter electromagnetic waver radar imaging, steerable focal plane arrays and PLMs for lidar and holographic displays, as well as sensors for biomedical applications and for cross-modal human sensing in complex environments. This thrust also investigates methods for motor health monitoring, laser systems for creating single-event effects that can be used to study radiation tolerance, as well as efficient temperature sensors for thermal performance characterization in power ICs.
Figure 3. (Top left) Solid-state, wide FOV and long-range lidar (Y. Takashima, University of Arizona). (Top center) Die photo of a 410-GHz imaging concurrent transceiver pixel (K. K. O, University of Texas at Dallas). (Top right) Cross-sectional STEM images of an E-mode P-GaN HEMT device (M. Kim, University of Texas at Dallas). (Middle center) Temperature variations on a SiC power module after 200,000 discharge cycles (B. Akin, University of Texas at Dallas). (Middle right) Layout of a 3-segment interpolation string DAC (D. Chen, University of Iowa). (Bottom left) In-vehicle mm-Wave radar sensing via deep learning algorithms (M. Torlak, University of Texas at Dallas). (Bottom center) Hardware test vehicle for ML-assisted scalable DFT and BIST of AMS Systems (A. Chatterjee, Georgia Tech). (Bottom right) Pulse I-V ESD response of a 65-nm NMOS transistor (E. Rosenbaum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).
Safety, Security and Health Care Thrust
| Category | Accomplishment |
|---|---|
| Safety, Security and Health Care (Systems) | A holographic point display using a TI Phase Light Modulator (PLM) was developed and methods for producing Computer Generated Holograms for applications such as Head Up Display were benchmarked. Compared to point source multiplexing (PSM) for generating images, the Gerchburg-Saxton (GS) algorithm is 6.7x faster (1.47s vs. 9.86s) in generating 2D images while PSM is 46x faster (9.57s vs. 446s) for 3D images. Furthermore, tiling of Digital Micromirror Devices with PLMs was shown to be an effective way for increasing Field of View and improving resolution of lidar images. (3160.029, Y. Takashima, U of Arizona) |
| Safety, Security and Health Care (Systems) | A swift and lower-cost active discharge electronic circuit system for efficient capacitor discharge in electric vehicles during emergency for safety is demonstrated. It significantly reduces DC link capacitor discharge time from over 10 sec. to just 1 sec. by employing the main inverter switches, which removes the need for separate discharge components and lowers cost. This system integrates an adjustable gate driver to modulate the switch’s gate-source voltage, enabling constant power operation during discharge. Through frequency modulation, thermal runaway is effectively prevented. (3160.030, B. Akin, UT Dallas) |
| Safety, Security and Health Care (Circuits) | A 19-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) implemented in a 22-nm FDSOI CMOS process, which uses an addressable array of cross-coupled near minimum size NMOS transistor pairs and post fabrication selection, demonstrates phase noise (PN) of -117 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset frequency while dissipating 8 mW of DC power. The PN is more than 5 dB lower than that of CMOS VCOs operating at 15-20 GHz in the literature. The VCO configured using the combination (24 pairs switched on) with the lowest PN was stressed for 5 hours at VDDOSC=1.9 V and bias current of 27 mA. The stress degrades PN by ~2-3 dB. The PN performance even after three stress and post-stress selection cycles, is almost fully recovered. (2810.077, K. K. O, UT Dallas) |
