PHY581C - Microelectronics Experimental ASIC Design (2022-2023)

PHY581C – Microelectronics Experimental ASIC Design

This experimental project proposes to address education, with a close approach to the profession of engineer in R & D project, current and future technologies used in electronics and microelectronics. The projects will be carried out in pairs and offer great freedom in the issues addressed. Two themes will potentially be offered to the students' choice: one on the design of ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) and another on the creation of electronic systems around NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance).


Design of a « front-end » micro-electronics ASIC
The goal of this experimental module is to design an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) for single-photon photodetector readout. The circuit will perform high speed, low noise amplification and discrimination to allow pico-second timing measurement. Such circuits can be used commercially for LIDAR operation or PET medical imaging. The project will use the CADENCE industrial simulation software and will cover from architectural choice to the drawing of fabrication masks. The circuit will also be simulated to evaluate its performance.


Instrumental Design: NMR Developments and 1D, 2D and 3D Imaging

During this experimental teaching, the students will start from the physical principle of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and build, by a block diagrams approach, a small but functional NMR spectrometer. Students will thus approach the multiple concepts of electronics (matching, reflections, low noise preamplifier, Radio Frequency, demodulation ...). They(she) will also see the physical measurements around this spectrometer for characterization of molecules (water) by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. The student can customize his(her) project by developing one of the many themes around NMR instrumentation : production of analog or digital electronic boards; developments based on microprocessor ARM and/or FPGA devices (works are done on Mbed, Arduino, Redpitaya,  Altera…  development boards); perform physical measurements (chemical shift, relaxation time, diffusion ...); compute numerical simulations or signal processing. The students start the work with simple and pedagogical achievements/experiments allowing them to discover the basic principles of NMR physics and all the necessary aspects specific to NMR.  An approach of 1D, 2D, 3D imaging is also proposed.

Numerus clausus: 20

Assessment methods: Oral presentation and written report

Course language: French or English
no prerequisites

Credits ECTS: 5