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Smarties Team: Smart Integrated Electronic Systems

Philippe MAURINE
Philippe MAURINE
Head

 Vincent KERZERHO
Vincent KERZERHO
Deputy

SMARTIES Team

Smart Integrated Electronic Systems

The SmartIES (Smart Integrated Electronic Systems) team focuses on design methods and modeling devices, systems, and integrated circuits. These activities comprise the development of methods, tools, and principles based on physical or electrical simulation approaches. Our main contributions include work on the continuity and extension of, or break with, Moore’s law, the impact of emerging technologies (FDSOI and FINFET) on design methods or functional block architectures, integration approaches (3D stacking and 3D monolithic integration), and heterogeneous integration with novel devices (MRAM, Carbon Nanotubes) on inte-grated circuits. This research is usually paralleled by technological demonstrations (specific circuits, bench experiments, model integration in simulators, etc.), which allow us to illustrate our work with practical examples relating to the transversal research lines of the Department.

Staff
Nadine Azémard-Crestani, Chargé de recherche, CNRS
Jean-Marc Galliere, Maître de conférences, UM
Frédérick Mailly, Maître de conférences, UM
Vincent Kerzerho, Chargé de recherche, CNRS
Serge Bernard, Directeur de recherche, CNRS
Guy Cathebras, Professeur des universités, UM
Fabien Soulier, Maître de conférences, UM
Philippe Maurine, Maître de conférences, UM
Pascal Nouet, Professeur des universités, UM
Loic Masure, Chargé de recherche, CNRS
Laurent Latorre, Professeur des universités, UM

Associates & Students
Louis Dubois, DGA
Idris Rais Ali, SECURE-IC
Anselme Mouette, UM
Sarah Belgaid, UM
Stephane Pitou, CNRS
Pierre Groc, UM
Thomas Chevrier, SAS COOOL
Quentin Ponzo, UM
Thomas Falanga, UM
Ziling Liao, CNRS
Koji Andriamahery, Stella SURGICAL
Gauthier Cler, SERMA Group

Regular Co-workers
Ana Tacuri, CDD Ingénieur-Technicien, CNRS
Antoine Landreau, CDD Ingénieur-Technicien, CNRS
Geoffrey Chancel, CDD Chercheur, CNRS
Jacques Benoit, CDD Ingénieur-Technicien, UM
Alexandre Boyer, CDD Ingénieur-Technicien, CNRS
Amaury Boguais, CDD Ingénieur-Technicien, CNRS
Alexia Bailleul, CDD Chercheur, CNRS
Jonathan Miquel, CDD Enseignant-Chercheur, UM

Keywords: 3D integration, carbon nanotubes, quantum computing, adiabatic logic, MRAM, MEMS/NEMS, sensors, biosensors, advanced analog design, adaptive circuits and systems, statistical design methods, low power design.

SmartIES is evaluating the potential of new materials that can advantageously replace silicon in the design of tomorrow’s ICs. Carbon nanotubes, which are one-dimensional (1D) materials, are among the promising solutions that could enable the design of very low power ICs. Other alternatives include two-dimensional materials (graphene, MoS2, etc.) as well as vertical stacks of different 2D materials constituting Van Der Waals heterostructures. Similarly, spintronic memories are seen as very serious low-power alternatives to standard CMOS memories.
In this quest for energy efficiency, SmartIES is also exploring different 3D integration routes (stacking & monolithic (M3D)) that should allow for a very high density heterogeneous design. In addition, other computing paradigms are being explored (adiabatic, neuromorphic and quantum logic), which require a rethinking of system architectures to obtain reliable, low-power and high-performance systems.
However, designing ICs with these emerging technologies requires a foundation of realistic behavioural models of these components, interconnections and memories. Our activities therefore focus on the development of both deterministic and statistical (taking into account process variations) physics-based electrical and thermal models.

  • Physically driven modelling and simulation methods of interconnects designed with 1D and 2D materials;
  • Use of 1D/2D field effect components for biosensor design;
  • Modeling and simulation methods of MRAM memories in a heterogeneous IC design flow and analysis of their performance and reliability;
  • Modelling and design of micro and nano electromechanical systems (NEMS);
  • Design methodologies for high performance, low power systems in the presence of large variations in manufacturing process;
  • Exploration of the integration potential of 3D technologies for the design of very large integrated heterogeneous systems;
  • Projection on heterogeneous technologies (CMOS and emerging) of new computing paradigms (adiabatic, neuromorphic and quantum logic).

Keywords: data fusion, biosensors, life and environmental monitoring, bio impedance, signal processing.

SmartIES develops sensors or the integrated electronics necessary for their conditioning for specific or generic applications. Specific systems have been developed for the conditioning of microsystems, the measurement of bioelectric signals (peripheral nervous system), the measurement of intraocular pressure (glaucoma diagnosis or prevention), broadband bioimpedance spectroscopy (fat content, vitallogenesis in fish) and CNT-FET-based biosensors (enzymatic activity related to cancer).
Generic interfaces for resistive or capacitive sensors are also being developed for signal conditioning and analogue-to-digital conversion. Based in particular on architectures or oscillators, they are compact, robust, adaptive, low-power and close to the sensor.
SmartIES also designs communicating multi-sensor systems. The applications targeted mainly concern inertial navigation and the monitoring of aquatic species (tuna, marlin, turtles) both in terms of geolocation and the measurement of physiological parameters.
Finally, as the constant decrease in the cost of sensors makes it possible to design systems with massive redundancy, SmartIES is developing data fusion algorithms based on neural networks, complementary filtering or dynamic weighting in order to improve the resolution and robustness of these measurement systems.

Keywords: covert channel attacks, fault injection attacks, physical/functional reverse engineering using electromagnetic and thermal channels, circuit integrity and authenticity, signal processing, signal statistics

  • The design and characterisation of secure circuits and systems capable of withstanding attacks (covert channel and fault injection attacks) conducted for denial of service or secret extraction purposes are activities of the SmartIES team. More specifically, we focus our efforts on the identification of security flaws;
  • modelling electromagnetic emissions and leakage from ICs and the impact of electromagnetic pulses on them;
  • The development of tools (software and experimental platforms) to characterise the robustness of components against this type of threat;
  • The improvement of CAD flows for the design of secure ICs;
  • The definition of hardware countermeasures;
  • The detection of hardware Trojans and counterfeits.

This work has been carried out through collaborative projects or direct collaborations with industrial, governmental and academic partners. Technology transfers have been carried out with some of these partners who have notably wished to use our electromagnetic fault injection platforms, a subject in which SmartIES is a pioneer.