Adam Borkowski
supervisor: Witold Pleskacz
One of the major obstacles to the design of integrated circuits operating at cryogenic temperatures is the lack of simulation models provided by the manufacturer. Typically models provided in Process Design Kit (PDK) are valid down to -55°C. Therefore, the aim of this experiment is to investigate the effect of very low temperature (4K) on the performance of an integrated circuit. For this purpose, a dedicated printed circuit board has been designed to be placed in the cryogenic chamber. Using the USB interface and the python library it will be possible to integrate the whole into the measurement system.
The integrated circuit (IC) that will be measured is a fully integrated Global Navigation Satellite System receiver containing: multi-core microcontroller, radio frequency and baseband signal processing chain, analog to digital converter, power management circuits and clock generators including phase locked loop. Although the IC is a complex system measurements that are planned, include basic parameters, such as: reference current, reference voltage, clock frequency, phase locked loop frequency, and LNA scattering matrix.
The characterization assumes that the microcontroller that is in the system is working (additionally the PLL, which is supplied by the clock). At such low temperatures, this assumption may be wrong. In case the system will fail other solutions will have to be considered. One possible approach is preconfiguring the system at room temperature and placing i