integrated circuit and system design expertise: the heart of future electronic products

The Industrial Performance Center Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Integrated Circuit and System Design Expertise:

The Heart of FutureElectronic Products

Charles G. SodiniMIT

Cambridge, MA

January 14, 2003


Electronics Products Value Chain

Components

DesignWafer

Fab

Assembly

Test

Marketing

Dist.

General Characteristics

• IDM’s perform all functions

• Value-added processes in wafer fab

• Huge Capital Costs

• Foundries perform only one function


Electronics Products Value Chain (con’t)

Product

DefinitionDesign Manufact.

Test

Marketing

Dist.Service

Products

General Characteristics

• Multinational Companies

• Strong in Product Defn, Marketing Distribution and Service

• Detailed Design and Manufacturing - often sub-contracted


Changing Face of Electronics Products

• Traditional consumer electronics examples– Audio, Video, Telephones

• Traditional PC electronics examples– PCs, Laptops, Peripherals

• Examples of PC/Consumer electronics products – DSCs, MP3 players, Cell phones, PDAs, DVDs

Rapid convergence of consumer and PC electronics offers interesting opportunities


Electronics Products Business Models

• Dominated by Multinational Corporations• Functions performed

– Product definition• Use both “off the shelf” and special purpose chips

– Marketing/Distribution – Service

• Growing importance in providing revenue streams

• Functions outsourced– Detailed product design– Manufacturing & Test


Opportunity for New Business Model

• Combine innovative product definition with special purpose chip design

• Unique products with higher value become possible• Higher barrier to entry

– Special purpose chips are difficult to duplicate rapidly


Example - SMaL Camera Technologies

• Technology developed at university– Brightness Adaptive Imaging

– Low power image sensor design

• At Company– Innovative product definition

– Complete re-design of image sensor for product application


Innovative Product Design

Form factor possible

• High level of integration

• Low power dissipation


Partner with Multinational Companies for Marketing and Distribution

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Innovation Business Model

• Perform IC design and innovative product design– High value-added functions

• Outsource wafer fab, assembly & test• Partner with Multinationals for manufacturing

marketing/distribution and service


IC Design Research and Development

• Define research driver system that pushes current design capabilities.

• System driver should push architectural as well as circuit design knowledge

• In the components model this research feeds directly into the design function.

DesignWafer

Fab

Assembly

Test

Marketing

Dist.


Wireless Gigabit Local Area Network (WiGLAN)An IC Design Research Driver at MIT

• PC Peripherals

• Consumer Electronics

• Interactive Video

controller(NGI)

HDTV

novelties

videophone

stereo


Research Goals

• Demonstrate key circuit and system concepts to advance wireless LAN to Gb/sec data rates

• Adaptive system architecture to support wide range of data rates and quality of service

• Develop low power design techniques at the circuit, chip architecture and system level to support portable appliances


WiGLAN Architecture

• Network Controller

•Allocates channels

•Measures SNR

•Space-Time Diversity

WiGLAN ADAPTER

Appliance

WiGLAN ADAPTER

High Data RateAppliance

WiGLAN ADAPTER

Appliance

WiGLAN ADAPTER

Appliance

Wi

GLAN

ADAPTER

NetworkController

Processor

NGI


Receiver Chain

Receiver Chain

Receiver Chain

Receiver Chain

Transmitter Chain

Transmitter Chain

Transmitter Chain

NetworkServer

DSP

Multi-CarrierAdaptive Rate

QAM

DSPSpace-TimeProcessing

• Digital Modulation

• Digital Space-Time Diversity Processing– Improves channel capacity

• Replicated Transmit/Receive Chain

Network Controller with Space-Time Diversity

Transmitter Chain


OFDM

• Conversion between time and frequency via (I)FFT

• Narrow bins provide more granularity for changing data demands

• Narrow bins increase total complexity, but allow greater potential for parallelism

• Cyclic prefix similar to frequency guard bands

150 MHz bandwidth available in 5.8 GHz band, with bins ~1 MHz wide.


Adaptive Modulation

• Can adaptively change modulation for each bin based on measured channel response. Either optimal (gray) or coarse (dark gray) water pouring can be used.

• Most of the benefit comes from avoiding very bad frequency bins.

• Threshold may differ for each block

• Coarse requires less overhead to identify bin modulation

• Coarse: All equal

• Optimal: 54 b/s/Hz

40 b/s/Hz

48 b/s/Hz (best)


Network Adapter Block Diagram

• Physically Small - Requires High Integration

• 3 Major IC’s - RF, Baseband Mixed Signal, DSP

• Quality of Service - Scaleable with Power Dissipation

Network adapter

ApplianceBaseband

Mixed-SignalProcessor

DigitalSignal

Processor

RFTrans.


Baseband Mixed-Signal Processor

Wideband A/D Conversion• DC-150MHz, oversampled at 600MSPS

• ~12 bit linearity/resolution

• Low power (~1W, core)

Programmable Gain Amplifier• 0-20dB, 72 dB Linearity

Channel Equalization• Channel fading characteristic requires only modest

amplitude equalization


Network Adapter Block Diagram

• Physically Small - Requires High Integration

• 3 Major IC’s - RF, Baseband Mixed Signal, DSP

• Quality of Service - Scaleable with Power Dissipation

Network adapter

ApplianceBaseband

Mixed-SignalProcessor

DigitalSignal

Processor

RFTrans.


WiGLAN Receiver: Architectural Approach

5.8 GHzRF Input

AnalogBasebandProcessing

1st LO 2nd LO

•Multiple receivers in parallel•Fully integrated analog front end

•Design & implementation of wide-bandwidth high frequency filters•Isolation between receivers

Primary Goals

Major Challenges


WiGLAN Receiver: Integrated Filters

• Q-enhancement techniques to compensate low Q on-chip inductors• Simple & novel filter building blocks • Traditional passive & active integrated circuit techniques reuse, where appropriate, to implement higher order filters

Approaches:

Challenges:

Motivations:

• Filter stability with component tolerances • Receiver linearity and noise degradation

Isolation & matching complexities with use of multiple external discrete filters


WiGLAN Receiver: Image Reject Filter (Prototype Building Block)

Tunable rejection response Tunable center frequency


The Main Messages

• Opportunity: Combine innovative product definition with special purpose chip design

• Research to develop new technology is essential to feed component design capabilities.

• Circuit and system techniques developed in the research environment should have wide applicability in future products given a well defined system driver.

• IT TAKES TIME: Research does not output results directly for products

integrated circuit and system design expertise: the heart of future electronic products

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