The development of microelectronic miniaturization has taken an almost revolutionary course. For more than 20 years, important performance features have doubled every one to one and a half years on a per-chip level and, despite some recent economic worries, most people believe that we will see equally rapid progress for at least another 10 years. CMOS technology is making the fastest advances among the different microelectronic technologies and is pushing forward most powerfully. The acronym CMOS stands for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (chapter 8 in Reference 1) and means that two complementary types of transistor devices carry a current for complementary bias conditions. A device of this kind often used for switching purposes is drawn schematically in Figure 1. It uses a control electrode, called the gate, to switch a current flow from the terminal source to the terminal drain. The channel can be made conducting depending on the potential applied to the gate which is separated from the semiconductor by an insulating dielectric layer, namely amorphous SiO2. Control is via a field effect; for example, in one of the two complementary types of devices, a positive gate voltage can draw negatively charged electrons toward the interface, which causes conduction from the source to the drain through the otherwise blocked source and drain contacts.

Temperature compensation is becoming more and more a high demand for RF filters in order to successfully meet the tightening specifications over a wide range of temperatures. We show our results on temperature compensation by adding thin SiO2 layers at high stress regions inside the resonator. We examine the effect of adding the SiO2 layer on the resonators properties and we extract an accurate value to the temperature coefficient of stiffness of thin film SiO2.

Two types of room-temperature detectors of terahertz laser radiation have been developed which allow, in an all-electric manner, the determination of the plane of polarization of linearly polarized radiation and the Stokes parameters of elliptically polarized radiation, respectively. The operation of the detectors is based on photogalvanic effects in semiconductor quantum well structures of low symmetry. The photogalvanic effects have nanosecond time constants at room temperature, making a high time resolution of the polarization detectors possible.

Photogalvanic effects are observed and investigated in wurtzite (0001)-oriented GaN/AlGaN low-dimensional structures excited by terahertz radiation. The structures are shown to represent linear quantum ratchets. Experimental and theoretical analysis exhibits that the observed photocurrents are related to the lack of an inversion center in the GaN-based heterojunctions.

The detection of the polarization state, in particular the ellipticity, of transmitted, reflected or scattered light represents a powerful technique for analyzing the optical anisotropy of various media such as plasmas, gases, solids and solid surfaces as well as biological tissues. Illustrative examples are tokamak polarimetry to measure electric and magnetic fields in ionized gases as well as the plasma density, monitoring and control of material preparation and processing, circular dichroism spectroscopy and optical rotary dispersion of proteins and molecules, contactless and nondestructive measurements of surfaces and very thin films, and analysis of gas and aerosol constituents in the Earth’s atmosphere by polarization sensitive optical remote sensing. The established way to gain information about the polarization state is the use of optical elements, which allow the determination of the optical path difference. Some tasks need measurement of dynamic ellipticity of polarized light. This time resolved measurement of ellipticity is so far realized by transmitting elliptical light through a rapidly rotating analyzing prism in front of a photodetector or by using of a pumpprobe method.

A room temperature detector of terahertz laser radiation ellipticity has been developed based on the simultaneous measurements of three different photoelectric phenomena: circular photogalvanic effect, linear photogalvanic effect, and photon drag effect. Each of these effects, which have subnanosecond time constants, is monitored by different detector units stacked together in one detector.

The circular photogalvanic effect, induced by infrared radiation, has been observed in (0001)-oriented n-GaN low dimensional structures. The photocurrent changes sign upon reversing the radiation helicity demonstrating the existence of spin splitting of the conduction band in k space in this type of materials. The observation suggests the presence of a sizeable Rashba type of spin splitting, caused by the built-in asymmetry at the AlGaN∕GaN interface.

The magneto-gyrotropic photogalvanic and spin-galvanic effects are observed in (0001)-oriented GaN/AlGaN heterojunctions excited by terahertz radiation. We show that free-carrier absorption of linearly or circularly polarized terahertz radiation in low-dimensional structures causes an electric photocurrent in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field. Microscopic mechanisms of these photocurrents based on spin-related phenomena are discussed. Properties of the magneto-gyrotropic and spin-galvanic effects specific for hexagonal heterostructures are analyzed.

Infrared radiation spin photocurrents have been observed in GaN quantum well structures. Observed currents change sign upon reversing of radiation helicity demonstrating an existence of Rashba/Dresselhaus spin splitting of the conduction band in this new type of materials. Approvement of spin degeneracy removal in GaN structures allows to consider this material as a candidate for semiconductor spintronic.

Textiles are omnipresent in everyday life. Their combination with microelectronics will lead to completely new applications, thus achieving elements of ambient intelligence. The integration of sensor or actuator networks, using fabrics with conductive fibres as a textile motherboard enable the fabrication of large active areas. In this paper we propose a “smart textile” based on a wired peer-to-peer network of simple information processing elements with integrated sensors or actuators. A self-organizing and fault-tolerant architecture is accomplished which detects the physical shape of the network. Routing paths are formed for data transmission, automatically circumventing defective or missing areas. The network architecture allows the smart textiles to be produced by reel-to-reel processes, cut into arbitrary shapes subsequently and implemented in systems at low installation costs. The possible applications are manifold, ranging from alarm systems to intelligent guidance systems, passenger recognition in car seats, air conditioning control in interior lining and smart wallpaper with software-defined light switches.

The combination of textile fabrics with microelectronics will lead to completely new applications, thus achieving elements of ambient intelligence. The integration of sensor or actuator networks, using fabrics with conductive fibres as a textile motherboard enable the fabrication of large active areas. In this paper we describe an integration technology for the fabrication of a "smart textile" based on a wired peer-to-peer network of microcontrollers with integrated sensors or actuators. A self-organizing and fault-tolerant architecture is accomplished which detects the physical shape of the network. Routing paths are formed for data transmission, automatically circumventing defective or missing areas. The network architecture allows the smart textiles to be produced by reel-to-reel processes, cut into arbitrary shapes subsequently and implemented in systems at low installation costs. The possible applications are manifold, ranging from alarm systems to intelligent guidance systems, passenger recognition in car seats, air conditioning control in interior lining and smart wallpaper with software-defined light switches.

Textiles are omnipresent in our daily life. Their combination with microelectronics will lead to completely new applications realizing elements of ambient intelligence. In this paper, a textile-based large-area sensor network integrated into a carpet is presented: Based on a network of simple information processing elements with integrated sensors or actuators, a self-organizing and fault-tolerant architecture is realized which detects the physical shape of the smart carpet. Routing paths are formed for data transmission, automatically circumventing defective or missing regions. Our concept allows the smart textiles to be produced in reel-to-reel processes, cut in arbitrary shapes, and implemented in systems at low installation costs. The possible applications are manifold, from alarm plants to intelligent guidance systems, occupant recognition in car seats, airconditioning control in interior lining or smart wallpaper with software-defined light switches.

A new type of infrared induced photocurrents is reported occurring in gyrotropic quantum wells in the presence of a magnetic field. The effect is caused by spin-orbit interaction and may be observed even for unpolarized radiation. The current occurs for particular relative orientation between magnetic field, current and crystallographic orientation.

An RF ID concept using ac-powered circuits without DC conversion is demonstrated for barcode replacement. A 32b codeword ID tag including an RF front-end, voltage limiter, frequency divider, ROM and power modulator has a 0.02mm2 area in a 0.13μm CMOS process. A packaging technology uses a sidewall contact to facilitate the assembly process.