TFT and ULSI technologies: The parallel evolution of the research and the higher education in France

This paper deals with the evolution since the early eighties of the microelectronics applied to integrated circuits and to large area electronics. The evolution in France was linked to a very strong effort of the French government (Microelectronics national plan) to improve the Higher Education in this field and to form with the knowledge and the know-how the future engineers, masters and doctors to the research and development and to the production. A way to help the growth of microelectronics companies mainly in France, but also for the world in the frame of multinational companies. More recently, a new national plan was engaged in the frame of the French Large Investment Commissariat with the goal to improve the large area technology and the integrated technologies and to be adapted to the digital society coming. Connecting objects and Internet of Things are mainly mixing the different components of the electronics and microelectronics domains [1]. After a synthetic presentation of the evolution of the two main technologies developed in research and development centers and in academic laboratories, the paper highlights the strategy developed by the French community based on the innovation [2]. The interesting point is that, if at the beginning the two domains appear independent, the evolution of the process and the fabulous evolution of the CAD tools is making closer and closer the design and fabrication approaches by combining the two technologies. For example the FDSOI (Fully Depleted Silicon on Insulator) concept was in practice existing since many years in thin film transistor technology deposited at a relatively low temperature

ULSI and TFT technologies in industry, research and higher education in France: An evolution towards innovation resulting from close and sustainable interaction

The semiconductor industry and associated microelectronic production began in France in the early 1980s as part of the national microelectronics plan launched by the French government to meet the needs of new economic sectors that are heavy users of microelectronic products. Indeed, microelectronic circuits, devices and systems are the key elements of the information technology field, which includes computer and communications capabilities, and application fields such as aerospace, transport, and energy, mainly. Several new technologies had to be developed, corresponding to the first advent of communication tools such as Minitel (ancestor of the web) or credit cards, which then underwent huge development. This implied a major effort on both integrated silicon technologies and large area electronics technologies oriented flat panel displays on glass substrates (low temperature process). The latter were to replace the cathode ray tube. Let us notice that due to the drastic reduction of dimensions in ULSI technologies, the thermal budget significantly decreased and both technological approaches progressively converged; today, many deposition techniques are common, for example. In parallel with the major effort towards the microelectronics industry, the French government has decided to improve higher education in this field and to train future engineers, masters and doctors in research and development and manufacturing with the corresponding knowledge and know-how. More recently, a new national plan has been launched by the French “Commissariat aux Grands Investissements” (Future Invest Plan or PIA1) to improve large area and integrated technologies and adapt to the digital society of the future. This focuses on connected objects and the Internet of Things, products that mainly combine the different components of the fields of microelectronics [1] and more particularly integrated technologies, embedded electronics and large area technologies suitable for flat panel displays, sensors and actuators, but also components of other domains linked to their applications. This supposed also multidisciplinarity [2]. As a consequence, the training of graduate students must follow this evolution in order to well meet the needs of companies and research laboratories with a clear orientation towards innovation. A specific French national program was launched in 2011 and entitled IDEFI for Excellence Initiative for Innovative education in order to set-up innovative formations that may correspond to new pedagogical approach and new content of curricula adapted to the new technologies. The French national network in microelectronics, CNFM [4], applied and succeeded with the project entitled FINMINA [5] for Innovative training in microelectronics and nanotechnologies. With the advent of new educational technologies based mainly on online training such as MOOCs, the strategy has focused on the know-how part of learning. The 12 common centers of the French microelectronics network (CNFM), which include numerous design platforms, cleanrooms, and characterization and testing platforms, have engaged in innovative training projects covering all microelectronics sectors, targeting future applications of connected objects and the industry 4.0. After a presentation of the context of microelectronics and the evolution of ULSI and TFT technologies, both in academic research and industrial environments, the paper highlights the strategy developed by the French academic and microelectronics community around innovation. Examples of the development by students of future integrated components up to the nanoscale, system-on-chip combining integrated and large area technologies will be presented. The ultimate objective is to best meet the societal needs of the 21st century. References 1.O. Bonnaud, Int. J. Plasma Environmental Science & Technology, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 115-120, (2016). 2.O. Bonnaud and L. Fesquet, Proc. of MSE’2015, Publisher IEEE, 4 pages, Pittsburg (MS), USA, (2015). 3.O. Bonnaud, ECS Transaction, 67(1), 147-158 (2015). 4.GIP-CNFM; Public Interest Group - National Coordination for Education in Microelectronics and nanotechnologies, http://www.cnfm.fr 5.FINMINA: IDEFI project: ANR-11-IDFI-0017 See website of CNF

Innovative Strategy to Meet the Challenges of the Future Digital Society

Today, we are experiencing a societal revolution with the development of digital technologies, and it brings new challenges. Indeed, the number of connected objects, intelligent sensors and IoTs are increasing exponentially. The same goes for the resulting energy consumption. Beyond 2030, without a radical transformation of communication technologies and protocols, the digital world will be at an energy dead end. All these objects are physically realized with microelectronic devices and systems. This analysis of the microelectronics community has led the French government to recognize an electronics sector that is becoming a priority area of industrial policy. The Strategic Committee of this sector has proposed innovations applied to the entire digital chain including all facets of the microelectronics field and human skills and know-how. The technological and energy issues are thus presented, and the proposed solutions were addressed. They concern both technological and human aspects. This paper ends by giving examples of the implementation of innovative approaches which essentially include the electronic functions involved in connected objects and which are intended to bring the know-how of future actors in the field

Invited; ULSI and TFT technologies joint forces to meet the future challenges of a pervasive digital society

The worldwide development of communication and data exchange systems, as well as research on environmental protection, have strongly encouraged the development of digital technology. This technology has been growing exponentially since 2005 and its evolution would rather go towards an acceleration of this growth due to the emergence of cryptocurrencies, such as blockchains (Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Ethereum), the 5G or artificial intelligence. The transparency of the operation of these tools on the user\u27s side makes us forget that the associated energy consumption is also growing exponentially and that we could reach a global dead end in less than 10 years, with the electrical consumption of digital technology exceeding the current world electrical production. Please click Download on the upper right corner to see the full abstract

A framework for the comparison of different EEG acquisition solutions

The purpose of this work is to propose a framework for the benchmarking of EEG amplifiers, headsets, and electrodes providing objective recommendation for a given application. The framework covers: data collection paradigm, data analysis, and statistical framework. To illustrate, data was collected from 12 different devices totaling up to 6 subjects per device. Two data acquisition protocols were implemented: a resting-state protocol eyes-open (EO) and eyes-closed (EC), and an Auditory Evoked Potential (AEP) protocol. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on alpha band (EO/EC) and Event Related Potential (ERP) were extracted as objective quantification of physiologically meaningful information. Then, visual representation, univariate statistical analysis, and multivariate model were performed to increase results interpretability. Objective criteria show that the spectral SNR in alpha does not provide much discrimination between systems, suggesting that the acquisition quality might not be of primary importance for spectral and specifically alpha-based applications. On the contrary, AEP SNR proved much more variable stressing the importance of the acquisition setting for ERP experiments. The multivariate analysis identified some individuals and some systems as independent statistically significant contributors to the SNR. It highlights the importance of inter-individual differences in neurophysiological experiments (sample size) and suggests some device might objectively be superior to others when it comes to ERP recordings. However, the illustration of the proposed benchmarking framework suffers from severe limitations including small sample size and sound card jitter in the auditory stimulations. While these limitations hinders a definite ranking of the evaluated hardware, we believe the proposed benchmarking framework to be a modest yet valuable contribution to the field

Adaptation of the Higher Education in Engineering to the Advanced Manufacturing Technologies

The 21st century will be the era of the fourth industrial revolution with the progressive introduction of the digital society, with smart/connected objects, smart factories driven by robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence. Manufacturing should be performed by the industry entitled 4.0. These are advanced technologies resulting from steady development of information technology associated with new objects and systems that can fulfil manufacturing tasks. The industry 4.0 concept relies largely on the ability to design and manufacture smart and connected devices that are based on microelectronics technology. This evolution requires highly-skilled technicians, engineers and PhDs well prepared for research, development and manufacturing. Their training, which combines knowledge and the associated compulsory know-how, is becoming the main challenge for the academic world. The curricula must therefore contain the basic knowledge and associated know-how training in all the specialties in the field. The software and hardware used in microelectronics and its applications are becoming so complex and expensive that the most realistic solution for practical training is to share facilities and human resources. This approach has been adopted by the French microelectronics education network, which includes twelve joint university centres and 2 industrial unions. It makes it possible to minimize training costs and to train future graduates on up-to-date tools similar to those used in companies. Thus, this paper deals with the strategy adopted by the French network in order to meet the needs of the future industry 4.0