Abstract: An integrated circuit includes a number of metallization levels separated by an insulating region disposed over a substrate. A housing includes walls formed from metal portions produced in various metallization levels. A metal device is housed in the housing. An aperture is produced in at least one wall of the housing. An external mechanism outside of the housing is configured so as to form an obstacle to diffusion of a fluid out of the housing through the at least one aperture. At least one through-metallization passes through the external mechanism and penetrates into the housing through the aperture in order to make contact with at least one element of the metal device.

Abstract: A proximity sensor may include an array of Geiger mode avalanche photodiodes, each including an anode contact and a cathode contact. A common cathode contact may be coupled to the cathode contacts of the array to define a first connection lead at a back side of the array. A common anode collecting grid contact may be coupled to the anode contacts of the array to define a second connection lead of the array. Circuitry may be coupled with the first and second connection leads and configured to sense at least one of a dark current and a rate of current spikes generated in dark conditions, and generate an output signal representing, an estimated distance of an object from the array upon the sensing.

Abstract: The current signature of an electronic function is masked by controlling a current source that supplies power for the electronic function is controlled in a dynamically-varying manner. Excess current is detected and compared to a threshold. If the detected excess current meets the threshold, the operation of the electronic function is modified, for example by controlling a clock.

Abstract: Embodiments include a method and an apparatus for the localization of at least one source of an acoustic signal including: temporally sampling the acoustic signal with a plurality of microphones to obtain a (D+1)-dimensional space-time matrix representation of the acoustic signal, wherein D is the number of spatial dimensions, applying a (D+1)-dimensional Fourier transform to the matrix representation, determining a first peak in a spectrum obtained based on the application of the Fourier transform, and calculating the direction of arrival of the acoustic signal at at least one of the plurality of microphones based on the determined first peak.

Abstract: The disclosure relates to a method of fabricating a vertical MOS transistor, comprising the steps of: forming, above a semiconductor surface, a conductive layer in at least one dielectric layer; etching a hole through at least the conductive layer, the hole exposing an inner lateral edge of the conductive layer and a portion of the semiconductor surface; forming a gate oxide on the inner lateral edge of the conductive layer and a bottom oxide on the portion of the semiconductor surface; forming an etch-protection sidewall on the lateral edge of the hole, the sidewall covering the gate oxide and an outer region of the bottom oxide, leaving an inner region of the bottom oxide exposed; etching the exposed inner region of the bottom oxide until the semiconductor surface is reached; and depositing a semiconductor material in the hole.

Abstract: Provided is an acoustic transducer including: a semiconductor substrate; a vibrating membrane, provided above the semiconductor substrate, including a vibrating electrode; and a fixed membrane, provided above the semiconductor substrate, including a fixed electrode, the acoustic transducer detecting a sound wave according to changes in capacitances between the vibrating electrode and the fixed electrode, converting the sound wave into electrical signals, and outputting the electrical signals. At least one of the vibrating electrode and the fixed electrode is divided into a plurality of divided electrodes, and the plurality of divided electrodes outputting the electrical signals.

Abstract: A fan-out wafer level package is provided with a semiconductor die embedded in a reconstituted wafer. A redistribution layer is positioned over the semiconductor die, and includes a land grid array on a face of the package. A copper heat spreader is formed in the redistribution layer over the die in a same layer as a plurality of electrical traces configured to couple circuit pads of the semiconductor die to respective contact lands of the land grid array. In operation, the heat spreader improves efficiency of heat transfer from the die to the circuit board.

Abstract: A borderless touchscreen panel includes a first conductive layer having rows of capacitive sensors and receiving traces, and a second conductive layer having columns of sensor bars and transmitting traces. The capacitive sensors are coupled to control circuitry via the receiving traces, and the sensor bars are coupled to the control circuitry via the transmitting traces. Peripheral sensor bars are disposed over the receiving traces such that the receiving traces can be routed within an active portion of the borderless touchscreen panel without obstructing its touch-detection capabilities. Furthermore, the receiving traces are comprised of a transparent material such as indium tin oxide, and therefore do not obstruct the display capabilities of the active portion. Thus, there is no need for an inactive border region since the receiving traces are disposed within the active portion without obstructing either the touch-detection or display capabilities of the borderless touchscreen panel.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a method for controlling a touch pad, comprising an object locate mode for locating an object on the touch pad comprising steps of: determining a measurement of capacitance of each of the pairs of electrodes of the touch pad, each pair comprising a row electrode and a column electrode transverse to the row electrode, comparing each measurement with a first detection threshold, and if the comparison of at least one measurement with the first threshold reveals the presence of an object on the touch pad, locating the object on the touch pad according to the capacitance measurements, the method comprising a proximity detection mode comprising steps of: determining a measurement representative of the capacitance between one or two electrodes and one or two other electrodes of the touch pad, and comparing a measurement obtained with a second detection threshold different from the first threshold.

Abstract: An integrated circuit integrated on a semiconductor material die and adapted to be at least partly tested wirelessly, wherein circuitry for setting a selected radio communication frequencies to be used for the wireless test of the integrated circuit are integrated on the semiconductor material die.

Abstract: The disclosure relates to an integrated circuit comprising a transistor comprising first and second conduction terminals and a control terminal. The integrated circuit further comprises a stack of a first dielectric layer, a conductive layer, and a second dielectric layer, the first conduction terminal comprising a first semiconductor region formed in the first dielectric layer, the control terminal comprising a second semiconductor region formed in the conductive layer, and the second conduction terminal comprising a third semiconductor region formed in the second dielectric layer.

Abstract: An integrated circuit includes a MOS transistor having a gate region and source and drain regions separated from the gate region by insulating spacers. At least two metal contact pads respectively contact with two metal silicide regions (for example, a cobalt silicide) which lie within the source and drain regions. The silicide regions are located at the level of lower parts of the two metal contact pads and are separate by a distance from the insulating spacers.

Abstract: A deep SPAD structure uses the substrate as the anode terminal of its multiplication p-n junction. A bias voltage for the SPAD (in excess of the SPAD's breakdown voltage) is coupled to the SPAD's cathode terminal. The bias voltage is generated by a charge pump circuit which is also integrated on the substrate. The charge pump circuit is configured to isolate the bias voltage on the cathode terminal. A triple well CMOS process is used to isolate the transistors of the charge pump circuit from the substrate.

Abstract: A gyroscope includes: a mass, which is movable with respect to a supporting body; a driving loop for keeping the mass in oscillation according to a driving axis; a reading device, which supplying an output signal indicating an angular speed of the body; and a compensation device, for attenuating spurious signal components in quadrature with respect to a velocity of oscillation of the mass. The reading device includes an amplifier, which supplies a transduction signal indicating a position of the mass according to a sensing axis. The compensation device forms a control loop with the amplifier, extracts from the transduction signal an error signal representing quadrature components in the transduction signal, and supplies to the amplifier a compensation signal such as to attenuate the error signal.

Abstract: QCA assemblies, in which basic cells are formed on the basis of graphene in order to provide a coupling field distribution in the form of an electrostatic field, a magnetic field, and the like which allows a unique association between field distribution and logic state. Moreover, the corresponding energy structure may be selected so as to allow operation of the QCA assemblies at ambient temperature. Hence, the signal processing capabilities of QCA assemblies may be obtained at significantly reduced complexity compared to conventional quantum-based QCA assemblies, which typically operate at very low temperatures.

Abstract: Each column of pixels in an image sensor array has at least two column bitlines connected to an output of each pixel. A readout input circuit includes first inputs and a second input. Each first input is connected, via a capacitance, to a comparator input node. The second input is connected via a capacitance to the same comparator input node. The first inputs receive, in parallel, an analog signal acquired from the pixels via the column bitlines. The analog signals vary during a pixel readout period and have a first level during a first calibration period and a second level during a second read period with the analog signals being constantly read onto the capacitances during both the first calibration period and the second read period. The comparator compares an average of the signals on the plurality of first inputs to the reference signal.

Abstract: An electronic component including a number of insulated-gate field effect transistors, said transistors belonging to at least two distinct subsets by virtue of their threshold voltage, wherein each transistor includes a gate that has two electrodes, namely a first electrode embedded inside the substrate where the channel of the transistor is defined and a second upper electrode located above the substrate facing buried electrode relative to channel and separated from said channel by a layer of dielectric material and wherein the embedded electrodes of all the transistors are formed by an identical material, the upper electrodes having a layer that is in contact with the dielectric material which is formed by materials that differ from one subset of transistors to another.

Abstract: A method and a circuit for checking data transferred between a circuit and a processing unit, in which: the data originating from the circuit transit through a first buffer element having a size which is a multiple of the size of data to be subsequently delivered over a bus of the processing unit; an address provided by the processing unit for the circuit is temporarily stored in a second element; and the content of the first element is compared with current data originating from the circuit, at least when they correspond to an address of data already present in this first element.

Abstract: A Yule-Walker based, low-complexity voice activity detector (VAD) is disclosed. An input signal is typically noisy speech (i.e., corrupted with, for example, babble noise). In one embodiment, a first initialization stage of the VAD computes an occurrence of a silent period within the input signal and the AR parameters. The VAD could accordingly compute a tentative adaptive threshold and output hypothesis H1 (which means speech is present) during this stage. During the second initialization stage, the VAD generally builds a database of associated values and computes the adaptive threshold accordingly. The second initialization stage could also output tentative VAD decisions based on the tentative threshold computed in the first initialization stage. Finally, the VAD periodically retrains or updates AR parameters, threshold values and/or the database and outputs VAD decisions accordingly.

Abstract: A method for manufacturing semiconductor chips from a semiconductor wafer, including the steps of: fastening, on a first support frame, a second support frame having outer dimensions smaller than the outer dimensions of the first frame and greater than the inner dimensions of the first frame; arranging the wafer on a surface of a film stretched on the second frame; carrying out wafer processing operations by using equipment capable of receiving the first frame; separating the second frame from the first frame and removing the first frame; and carrying out wafer processing operations by using equipment capable of receiving the second frame.