A WDM-Compatible 4 × 32-Gb/s CMOS-driven electro-absorption modulator array

A four-channel electro-absorption-modulator array, driven by 32-nm CMOS drivers providing 2-V peak-to-peak output swing, operates with BER < 10-12 at a data rate of 4 × 32 Gb/s and dissipates 170 mW of power.IEEE Communications Society,IEEE Photonics Society,The Optical Socie

An affordable post-silicon testing framework applied to a RISC-V based microcontroller

The RISC-V architecture is a very attractive option for developing application specific systems needing an affordable yet efficient central processing unit. Post-silicon validation on RISC-V applications has been done in industry for a while, however documentation is scarce. This paper proposes a practical low-cost post-silicon testing framework applied to a RISC-V RV32I based microcontroller. The framework uses FPGA-based emulation as a cornerstone to test the microcontroller before and after its fabrication. The platform only requires a handful of elements like the FPGA, a PC, the fabricated chip and some discrete components, without losing the capacity to functionally validate the design under test and save development testing time by using a re-utilize philosophy.Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovació

A compact functional verification flow for a RISC-V 321 based core

The structure of a functional verification flow used for the design of a RISC-V core is presented. The paper offers a guide on the test-planning used and details of the flow architecture, showing how to integrate the Universal Verification Methodology with the required, reference models, while implementing key futures in standard verification environments, such as testing regressions and code and structural coverage. The designed flow is compact yet efficient, making it affordable for small design teams, without requiring extra investment other than the already necessary licenses for RTL synthesis and the eventual fabrication of the chip.Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovació

Flexible silicon photonic transmitter with segmented modulator and 32 nm CMOS driver IC

ConferenciaWe present a novel silicon photonic transmitter including 90nm CMOS segmented modulator co-packaged with low power 32nm CMOS driver IC. Optical equalization is demonstrated for the first time with the multi-segment Mach-Zehnder modulator at 22Gb/s. OCIS codes: (130.4110) Modulator; (250.3140) Integrated optoelectronic circuits

Flexible transmitter employing Silicon-segmented Mach–zehnder modulator with 32-nm CMOS distributed driver

Artículo científicoWe propose a flexible optical transmitter for shortreach optical interconnects that includes a silicon photonic segmented Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) driven by a distributed six-channel 32nm SOI CMOS driver integrated circuit. Optical equalization is demonstrated to extend the bandwidth limitation of the transmitter with NRZ signaling at 25Gb/s. We also generate four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) signaling using the same transmitter architecture. Transmission of 46Gb/s PAM-4 signal with bit error rate (BER) well below hard-decision forward error correction limit (BER=3.8×10-3) is experimentally demonstrated. Low driver power consumption of 130 mW at 46Gb/s PAM-4, corresponding to 2.8 pJ/bit power efficiency, is also achieved

A RISC-V based medical implantable SOC for high voltage a current tissue stimulus

A RISC-V based System on Chip (SoC) for high voltage and current tissue stimulus, targeting implantable medical devices, is presented. The circuit is designed in a 0.18μm HV-CMOS process, including the RISC-V 32RVI based microcontroller core, called Siwa —which includes SPI, UART and GPIO interfaces, a packet-based bus and memory controller, and 8kB SRAM—, combined with several biological tissue stimulus and sensing circuits. The complete test chip (analog+RISC-V) occupies a 5mm2 area but only 0.82mm2 correspond to the RISCV micro-controller, which operates up to 20MHz, with average energy needs of less than 48 pJ/cycle (3pJ STD), and for which several reliability and safety issues were considered.Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovació

Four-channel WDM transmitter with heterogeneously integrated III-V/Si photonics and low power 32 nm CMOS drivers

Artículo científicoWe experimentally demonstrate a novel four-channel wavelength division multiplexing transmitter operating at 1.3 μm wavelength employing heterogeneously integrated III-V/Si photonic circuit copackaged with low-power 32-nm SOI CMOS driver integrated circuits (ICs). Error-free operation (BER < 10−12 ) has been achieved across all four channels for back-to-back, 2 and 10 km single-mode fiber transmission at 25 Gb/s per each channel, targeting intra- and inter-datacenter interconnect applications. Power consumption as low as 19.2 mW for four CMOS driver ICs has been recorded, which yields 0.19 pJ/bit energy efficiency

Siwa: a RISC-V RV32I based micro-controller for implantable medical applications

The design of Siwa1, a compact low power custom system on chip (SoC), targeted for implantable/wearable applications, is reported in this paper. Siwa is based on a RISC-V RV32I architecture. It has a centrally controlled non-pipelined structure, and it includes a control interface for an integrated sensing and stimulation device for biological tissues as well as standard communication interfaces. Siwa was developed from scratch using System Verilog, and implemented in a 180nm CMOS technology; Siwa includes a latch based register file c apable to read and write in one clock cycle with an area 30% smaller and a power consumption 25% lower with respect to an equivalent flip flop implementation; also, it has an estimated average power consumption of 70μW (48pJ/cycle) which is comparable to other micro-controllers commonly used in IMD applications.Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovació

Siwa: A custom RISC-V based system on chip (SOC) for low power medical applications

This work introduces the development of Siwa, a RISC-V RV32I 32-bit based core, intended as a flexible control platform for highly integrated implantable biomedical applications, and implemented on a commercial 0.18 m high voltage (HV) CMOS technology. Simulations show that Siwa can outperform commercial micro-controllers commonly used in the medical industry as control units for implantable devices, with energy requirements below the 50 pJ per clock cycle.Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovació

A WDM 4x28Gbps integrated silicon photonic transmitter driven by 32nm CMOS driver ICs

A four-channel WDM silicon photonic transmitter with integrated lasers and modulators driven by low-power 32nm CMOS drivers, is demonstrated to operate at a data rate of 4×28Gb/s with BER<10-12 and power consumption of 10.0pJ/bit.IEEE Communications Society,IEEE Photonics Society,The Optical Societ