Short Course 1

Cryogenic Circuit Design in CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS Technologies

Sorin Voinigescu
University of Toronto

Abstract: The analog, digital and high frequency performance of all transistor technologies improves by ~30% in the cold down to 70 Kelvin and remains excellent at 2 Kelvin. This will open niche markets for ICs in space and quantum computing which are likely to grow rapidly. Classical computing, data centers, and AI will also greatly benefit from 77 Kelvin operation, improving speed and reducing the power consumption of the classical computation function. I will discuss the behaviour of FDSOI, FinFET and SiGe HBT transistors over temperature down to 2 K and illustrate how to take advantage of it to design circuits that operate with significantly improved performance at 2 to 77 K compared to 300 K. Design examples of mm-wave, analog mixed signal, and digital circuits will be provided at 2 K.

Biography: Sorin P. Voinigescu is a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Toronto where he holds the Stanley Ho Chair in Microelectronics and is the Director of the VLSI Research Group. He is an IEEE Fellow and an expert on millimetre-wave, 100+Gbaud integrated circuits and atomic-scale semiconductor device technologies and has an established research and development track record in industry (Nortel, Quake Technologies, Peraso Technologies). He obtained his PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1994 and his M.Sc. Degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from the Polytechnical Institute of Bucharest in 1984.