Modified textured surface MOCVD-ZnO:B transparent conductive layers for thinfilm solar cells

Modified textured surface boron-doped ZnO （ZnO：B） transparent conductive layers for thin-film solar cells were fabricated by low-pressure metal organic chemical vapor deposition （LP-MOCVD） on glass substrates. These modified textured surface ZnO：B thin films included two layers. The first ZnO：B layer, which has a pyramid- shaped texture, was deposited under conventional growth conditions, and the second layer, which has a sphere- like structure, at a relatively lower growth temperature. Typical bi-layer ZnO：B thin films exhibit a high electron mobility of 27.6 cm^2/（V.s） due to improved grain boundary states. For bi-layer ZnO：B, the haze value increases and the total transmittance decreases with the increasing film thickness of the second modification layer. When applied in hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon （μc-Si：H） thin-film solar cells, the modified textured surface ZnO：B layers present relatively higher conversion efficiency than conventional ZnO：B films.     

Reduced defect density in microcrystaUine silicon by hydrogen plasma treatment

Abstract： The effect of hydrogen plasma treatment （HPT） during the initial stage ofmicrocrystalline silicon （μc- Si） growth on the defect density of μc-Si has been investigated. Lower absorption coefficient in the 0.8-1.0 eV indicated less defect density compared to its counterpart without HPT. The infrared spectroscopy of μc-Si with HPT shows an increase in 2040 cm-1, which reveals more Si-H in the amorphous/crystalline interfaces. We ascribe the decrease of defect density to hydrogen passivation of the dangling bonds. Improved performance of μc-Si solar cell with HPT is due to the reduced defect density.     

入射角对镜像掺杂光子晶体光学特性的影响

By means of a transfer matrix method,this paper deduces the transmittance calculation equation of light travellinginlocallydoped(includingonedefectlayer)mirrorheterostructure(ABCCBA)PD(ABCCBA)Qphotonic crystals.In the cases of defect layers being either introduced or not introduced,an ORIGIN simulation shows the influence of incident angle change on the number of photon band gap,bandwidth and defect mode numbers.Studies indicate that when such photonic crystals have 8 mirror cycles and the thickness of defect layer D meets nD dD D0=2 or nD dD D40,the photonic crystal defect mode transmission peak changes significantly.Also,with the change of incident angle,the number of defect mode transmission peaks changes.By altering incident angle and defect layer thickness,we can get photon band gaps and defect mode transmission peaks at different frequency domains and different relative angular frequencies.This provides theoretical reference for achieving light wave multi-channel filtering and tunable filtering.     

Ranking Potential Reply-Providers in Community Question Answering System

Community Question Answering （CQA） websites have greatly facilitated users＇ lives, with an increasing number of people seeking help and exchanging ideas on the Internet. This newlymerged community features two characteristics： social relations and an ask-reply mechanism. As users＇ behaviours and social statuses play a more important role in CQA services than traditional answer retrieving websites, researchers＇ concerns have shifted from the need to passively find existing answers to actively seeking potential reply providers that may give answers in the near future. We analyse datasets derived from an online CQA system named ＂Quora＂, and observed that compared with traditional question answering services, users tend to contribute replies rather than questions for help in the CQA system. Inspired by the findings, we seek ways to evaluate the users＇ ability to offer prompt and reliable help, taking into account activity, authority and social reputation char- acteristics. We propose a hybrid method that is based on a Question-User network and social network using optimised PageRank algorithm. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed method for ranking potential answer-providers.     

高效太阳电池硅衬底特性对原子层沉积Al2O3薄膜钝化性能的影响

Atom layer deposition （ALD）-Al2O3 thin films are considered effective passivation layers for p-type silicon surfaces. A lower surface recombination rate was obtained through optimizing the deposition parameters. The effects of some of the basic substrate characteristics including material type, bulk resistivity and surface morphology on the passivation performance of ALD-Al2O3 are evaluated in this paper. Surface recombination velocities of 7.8 cm/s and 6.5 cm/s were obtained for p-type and n-type wafers without emitters, respectively. Substrates with bulk resistivity ranging from 1.5 to 4 Ω · cm were all great for such passivation films, and a higher implied Voc of 660 mV on the 3 Ω · cm substrate was achieved. A minority carrier lifetime （MCL） of nearly 10 μs higher was obtained for cells with a polished back surface compared to those with a textured surface, which indicates the necessity of the polishing process for high-efficiency solar cells. For n-type semi-finished solar cells, a lower effective front surface recombination velocity of 31.8 cm/s was acquired, implying the great potential of （ALD）-Al2O3 thin films for high-efficiency n-type solar cells.     

一个全差分可编程的多通道神经信号记录芯片

A multi-channel,fully differential programmable chip for neural recording application is presented.The integrated circuit incorporates eight neural recording amplifiers with tunable bandwidth and gain,eight 4thorder Bessel switch capacitor filters,an 8-to-1 analog time-division multiplexer,a fully differential successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter(SAR ADC),and a serial peripheral interface for communication.The neural recording amplifier presents a programmable gain from 53 dB to 68 dB,a tunable low cut-off frequency from 0.1 Hz to 300 Hz,and 3.77 μVrms input-referred noise over a 5 kHz bandwidth.The SAR ADC digitizes signals at maximum sampling rate of 20 kS/s per channel and achieves an ENOB of 7.4.The integrated circuit is designed and fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS mix-signal process.We successfully performed a multi-channel in-vivo recording experiment from a rat cortex using the neural recording chip.     

A power-efficient 12-bit analog-to-digital converter with a novel constant-resistance CMOS input sampling switch

Apower-efficient 12-bit40-MS/spipelineanalog-to-digitalconverter（ADC）implementedina0.13 μm CMOS technology is presented. A novel CMOS bootstrapping switch, which offers a constant on-resistance over the entire input signal range, is used at the sample-and-hold front-end to enhance the dynamic performance of the pipelined ADC. By implementing with 2.5-bit-per-stage and a simplified amplifier sharing architecture between two successive pipeline stages, a very competitive power consumption and small die area can be achieved. Meanwhile, the substrate-biasing-effect attenuated T-type switches are introduced to reduce the crosstalk between the two op- amp sharing successive stages. Moreover, a two-stage gain boosted recycling folded cascode （RFC） amplifier with hybrid frequency compensation is developed to further reduce the power consumption and maintain the ADC＇s performance simultaneously. The measured results imply that the ADC achieves a spurious-free dynamic range （SFDR） of 75.7 dB and a signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio （SNDR） of 62.74 dB with a 4.3 MHz input signal; the SNDR maintains over 58.25 dB for input signals up to 19.3MHz. The measured differential nonlinearity （DNL） and integral nonlinearity （INL） are -0.43 to ＋0.48 LSB and -1.62 to ＋ 1.89 LSB respectively. The prototype ADC consumes 28.4 mW under a 1.2-V nominal power supply and 40 MHz sampling rate, transferring to a figure- of-merit （FOM） of 0.63 pJ per conversion-step.     

硅片CMP表面微形貌的修正作用研究

The oxidation induced stacking faults （OISFs） exposed on the surface of polished silicon substrate are harmful to the electrical performance and reliability of the device region located on the wafer surface. This work investigates the characteristics of the novel nano colloidal silica alkaline slurry, including polyamine and complex non-ions surface surfactant. The experimental results show that when the pH value is higher than 10.1, the removal rate can be higher than 750 nm/min and the surface roughness can be lower than 0.3 nm （10 × 10 μ2）. The surface OISFs existing on the wafer are efficiently controlled with the slurry, and the defect density on the polished wafer surface decreases greatly as well.     

Low power high gain gain-controlled LNA and mixer for GNSS receivers Wei Binbin(魏斌斌)1, Jiang Jinguang(江金光)1,2,3*

A low power high gain gain-controlled LNA ＋ mixer for GNSS receivers is reported. The high gain LNA is realized with a current source load. Its gain-controlled ability is achieved using a programmable bias circuit. Taking advantage of the high gain LNA, a high noise figure passive mixer is adopted. With the passive mixer, low power consumption and high voltage gain of the LNA ＋ mixer are achieved. To fully investigate the performance of this circuit, comparisons between a conventional LNA ＋ mixer, a previous low power LNA ＋ mixer, and the proposed LNA ＋ mixer are presented. The circuit is implemented in 0.18 #m mixed-signal CMOS technology. A 3.8 dB noise figure, an overall 45 dB converge gain and a 10 dB controlled gain range of the two stages are measured. The chip occupies 0.24 mm2 and consumes 2 mA current under 1.8 V supply.     

一种应用于GPS接收机的高线性度SiGe HBT低噪声放大器

A high linearity 1.575 GHz SiGe：HBT low noise amplifier （LNA） for global positioning system applications is described. The bipolar cascoded with an MOSFET LNA was fabricated in a commercial 0.18 μm SiGe BiCMOS process, A resistor bias feed circuit with a feedback resistor was designed for the LNA input transistor to improve its intermodulation and compression performance. The packaged chip tested on board has displayed a noise figure of 1. I 1 dB, a power gain of 18 dB, an output 1 dB compression point of ＋7.8 dBm and an input third-order intercept point of ＋1.8 dBm. The chip occupies a 500 × 560μm^2 area and consumes 3.6 mA from a 2.85 V power supply.     

一种电流复用共栅低噪声放大器的低功耗433/915-MHz射频前端的设计

This paper presents a wideband RF front-end with novel current-reuse wide band low noise amplifier(LNA),current-reuse V –I converter,active double balanced mixer and transimpedance amplifier for short range device(SRD) applications.With the proposed current-reuse LNA,the DC consumption of the front-end reduces considerably while maintaining sufficient performance needed by SRD devices.The RF front-end was fabricated in 0.18 μm RFCMOS process and occupies a silicon area of just 0.11 mm2.Operating in 433 MHz band,the measurement results show the RF front-end achieves a conversion gain of 29.7 dB,a double side band noise figure of 9.7 dB,an input referenced third intercept point of –24.9 dBm with only 1.44 mA power consumption from 1.8 V supply.Compared to other reported front-ends,it has an advantage in power consumption.     

用于U波段移动数字电视的宽带大动态范围高线性度射频前端

A wideband large dynamic range and high linearity U-band RF front-end for mobile DTV is introduced,and includes a noise-cancelling low-noise amplifier(LNA),an RF programmable gain amplifier(RFPGA) and a current communicating passive mixer.The noise/distortion cancelling structure and RC post-distortion compensation are employed to improve the linearity of the LNA.An RFPGA with five stages provides large dynamic range and fine gain resolution.A simple resistor voltage network in the passive mixer decreases the gate bias voltage of the mixing transistor,and optimum linearity and symmetrical mixing is obtained at the same time.The RF front-end is implemented in a 0.25 μm CMOS process.Tests show that it achieves an ⅡP3(third-order intercept point) of –17 dBm,a conversion gain of 39 dB,and a noise figure of 5.8 dB.The RFPGA achieves a dynamic range of –36.2 to 23.5 dB with a resolution of 0.32 dB.     

一种应用于GNSS接收机的低噪声和低杂散频率综合器

A low phase noise and low spur phase locked loop （PLL） frequency synthesizer for use in global navigation satellite system （GNSS） receivers is proposed. To get a low spur, the symmetrical structure of the phase frequency detector （PFD） produces four control signals, which can reach the charge pump （CP） simultaneously, and an improved CP is realized to minimize the charge sharing and the charge injection and make the current matched. Additionally, the delay is controllable owing to the programmable PFD, so the dead zone of the CP can be eliminated. The output frequency of the VCO can be adjusted continuously and precisely by using a programmable LC-TANK. The phase noise of the VCO is lowered by using appropriate MOS sizes. The proposed PLL frequency synthesizer is fabricated in a 0.18 μm mixed-signal CMOS process. The measured phase noise at 1 MHz offset from the center frequency is -127.65 dBc/Hz and the reference spur is -73.58 dBc.     

用于流水线ADC的频率自适应可编程MDAC电路

A programmable high precision multiplying DAC （MDAC） is proposed. The MDAC incorporates a frequency-current converter （FCC） to adjust the power versus sampling rate and a programmable operational am- plifier （POTA） to achieve the tradeoff between resolution and power of the MDAC, which makes the MDAC suitable for a 12 bit SHA-less pipelined ADC. The prototype of the proposed pipelined ADC is implemented in an SMIC CMOS 0.18 μm 1P6M process. Experimental results demonstrate that power of the proposed ADC varies from 15.4 mW （10 MHz） to 63 mW （100 MHz） while maintaining an SNDR of 60.5 to 63 dB at all sampling rates. The differential nonlinearity and integral nonlinearity without any calibration are no more than 2.2/-1 LSB and 1.6/-1.9 LSB, respectively.     

多层铜布线CMP后表面残留CuO颗粒的去除研究

This article introduces the removal technology of CuO particles on the post CMP wafer surface of multi-layered copper. According to the Cu film corrosion curve with different concentrations of HEO2 and the effect curve of time on the growth rate of CuO film, CuO film with the thickness of 220 nm grown on Cu a surface was successfully prepared without the interference of CuC12.2H20. Using the static corrosion experiment the type of chelating agent （FA/O II type chelating agent） and the concentration range （10-100 ppm） for CuO removal was determined, and the Cu removal rate was close to zero. The effect of surfactant on the cleaning solution properties was studied, and results indicated that the surfactant has the effect of reducing the surface tension and viscosity of the cleaning solution, and making the cleaning agent more stable. The influence of different concentrations of FA/O I type surfactant and the mixing of FA/O II type chelating agent and FA/O I type surfactant on the CuO removal effect and the film surface state was analyzed. The experimental results indicated that when the concentration of FA/O I type surfactant was 50 ppm, CuO particles were quickly removed, and the surface state was obviously improved. The best removal effect of CuO on the copper wiring film surface was achieved with the cleaning agent ratio of FA/O II type chelating agent 75 ppm and FA/O I type surfactant 50 ppm. Finally, the organic residue on the copper pattern film after cleaning with that cleaning agent was detected, and the results showed that the cleaning used agent did not generate organic residues on the film surface, and effectively removes the organic residue on the water.     

Continuous Clustering Trajectory Stream of Moving Objects

The clustering of trajectories over huge volumes of streaming data has been rec- ognized as critical for many modem applica- tions. In this work, we propose a continuous clustering of trajectories of moving objects over high speed data streams, which updates online trajectory clusters on basis of incremental line- segment clustering. The proposed clustering algorithm obtains trajectory clusters efficiently and stores all closed trajectory clusters in a bi- tree index with efficient search capability. Next, we present two query processing methods by utilising three proposed pruning strategies to fast handle two continuous spatio-temporal queries, threshold-based trajectory clustering queries and threshold-based trajectory outlier detections. Finally, the comprehensive experi- mental studies demonstrate that our algorithm achieves excellent effectiveness and high effi- ciency for continuous clustering on both syn- thetic and real streaming data, and the propo- sed query processing methods utilise average 90% less time than the naive query methods.     

Electrochemical investigation of copper chemical mechanical planarization in alkaline slurry without an inhibitor

This work investigates the static corrosion and removal rates of copper as functions of H202 and FA/OIIconcentration, and uses DC electrochemical measurements such as open circuit potential （OCP）, Tafel ana- lysis, as well as cyclic voltammetry （CV） to study HaOa and FA/OIIdependent surface reactions of Cu coupon electrode in alkaline slurry without an inhibitor. An atomic force microscopy （AFM） technique is also used to measure the surface roughness and surface morphology of copper in static corrosion and polishing conditions. It is shown that 0.5 vol.% H202 should be the primary choice to achieve high material removal rate. The electro- chemical results reveal that the addition of FA/O II can dissolve partial oxide film to accelerate the electrochemical anodic reactions and make the oxide layer porous, so that the structurally weak oxide film can be easily removed by mechanical abrasion. The variation of surface roughness and morphology of copper under static conditions is consistent with and provides further support for the reaction mechanisms proposed in the context of DC electro- chemical measurements. In addition, in the presence of H202, 3 vol.% FA/O II may be significantly effective from a surface roughness perspective to obtain a relatively flat copper surface in chemical mechanical planarization （CMP） process.     

超薄SiO2/HfO2双层栅介质的时变击穿特性和击穿机制的研究

The characteristics of TDDB （time-dependent dielectric breakdown） and SILC （stress-induced leakage current） for an ultra-thin SiO2/HfO2 gate dielectric stack are studied. The EOT （equivalent-oxide-thickness） of the gate stack （Si/SiO2/HfOz/TiN/TiA1/TiN/W） is 0.91 am. The field acceleration factor extracted in TDDB experi- ments is 1.59 s.cm/MV, and the maximum voltage is 1.06 V when the devices operate at 125 ℃ for ten years. A detailed study on the defect generation mechanism induced by SILC is presented to deeply understand the break- down behavior. The trap energy levels can be calculated by the SILC peaks： one S1LC peak is most likely to be caused by the neutral oxygen vacancy in the HfO2 bulk layer at 0.51 eV below the Si conduction band minimum; another SILC peak is induced by the interface traps, which are aligned with the silicon conduction band edge. Fur- thermore, the great difference between the two SILC peaks demonstrates that the degeneration of the high-k layer dominates the breakdown behavior of the extremely thin gate dielectric.     

用于无采保流水线ADC的高速低功耗低失调动态比较器

A novel fully differential high speed high resolution low offset CMOS dynamic comparator has been implemented in the SMIC 0.18 μm process used for a sample-and-hold amplifier （SHA）-less pipelined analog-to-digital converters （ADC）. Based on the analysis and optimization between delay time and offset, an enhanced reset architecture with transmission gate was introduced to speed up the comparison and reset procedure. Four inputs with two cross coupled differential pairs, reconstituted bias circuit for tail current transistor and common centroid layouts make the comparator more robust against mismatch and process variations. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed design achieves 1 mV sensitivity at 2.2 GHz sampling rate with a power consumption of 510 μW, while the mean offset voltage is equal to 10.244 mV.