Milestone-Proposal:Bipolar, CMOS and DMOS super integrated technology: Difference between revisions

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|supporting materials=1st patent was INTEGRATED N-CHANNEL POWER MOS BRIDGE CIRCUIT Number 4,949,142 Foreign Application Priority Data
|supporting materials=1st patent was INTEGRATED N-CHANNEL POWER MOS BRIDGE CIRCUIT Number 4,949,142 Foreign Application Priority Data
Dec. 18, 1984 (IT) Italy. 24.126 A/84
Dec. 18, 1984 (IT) Italy. 24.126 A/84
|submitted=No
|submitted=Yes
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}}

Revision as of 19:49, 16 February 2020


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Docket #:2019-10

This Proposal has been approved, and is now a Milestone


To the proposer’s knowledge, is this achievement subject to litigation? No

Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old? Yes

Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s designated fields as defined by IEEE Bylaw I-104.11, namely: Engineering, Computer Sciences and Information Technology, Physical Sciences, Biological and Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Technical Communications, Education, Management, and Law and Policy. Yes

Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity? Yes

Was it of at least regional importance? Yes

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)? Yes

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony? Yes

Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated? Yes

Has the owner of the site agreed to have it designated as an IEEE Milestone? Yes


Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred:

1984

Title of the proposed milestone:

Bipolar, CMOS and DMOS super integrated technology

Plaque citation summarizing the achievement and its significance:

STMicroelectronics demonstrated the super integrated BCD technology by harmonizing different technology processes and discrete component in a cost effective, robust technology platform enabling mass production. The technology has created a deep impact on the market by providing lost cost devices, therefore generating aggregated revenues of several 10s B$ since 80’ till these days. This technology, based on visionary intuitions of SGS R&D group, is still inspiring new advancements in term of technology and products for the market of next decades. The quality, robustness, reliability, yields and strong manufacturing convinced other electronic companies to join the rising BCD industry opening a wide range of applications , including sensing and actuation nodes in Cyber-physical System and IoT. This technology enables a broad variety of applications with a significant impact on social and economic developments as well as on people’s lives.

200-250 word abstract describing the significance of the technical achievement being proposed, the person(s) involved, historical context, humanitarian and social impact, as well as any possible controversies the advocate might need to review.


IEEE technical societies and technical councils within whose fields of interest the Milestone proposal resides.


In what IEEE section(s) does it reside?

IEEE Italy Section

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone:

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) paying for milestone plaque(s):

Unit: IEEE Italy Section
Senior Officer Name: Bernardo Tellini

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) arranging the dedication ceremony:

Unit: IEEE Italy Section
Senior Officer Name: Bernardo Tellini

IEEE section(s) monitoring the plaque(s):

IEEE Section: IEEE Italy Section
IEEE Section Chair name: Bernardo Tellini

Milestone proposer(s):

Proposer name: Danilo Pietro Pau
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public

Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.

Street address(es) and GPS coordinates in decimal form of the intended milestone plaque site(s):

45.571066, 9.363077

Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.

Please give the address(es) of the plaque site(s) (GPS coordinates if you have them). Also please give the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc. If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give the contact information visitors will need. It's the main site for STMicroelectronics Italy where CEO has got the office

Are the original buildings extant?

yes

Details of the plaque mounting:

ground floor entrance hall F6 building, showcase robust enough to support weight of plaque

How is the site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public?

Public visitors must go through security, have to wear ID cards in ST. Appointment must be made to visit the site

Who is the present owner of the site(s)?

STMicroelectronics Srl

What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)? If personal names are included in citation, include justification here. (see section 6 of Milestone Guidelines)

BCD technology Developments As integrated circuits developed, they mostly fell into one of two classes: Digital or Analog ICs. By the mid 1970’s, microprocessors were common, and these were mostly manufactured using Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) technologies. Most of the analog functions, on the other hand, were manufactured in bipolar technologies. While MOS technologies became the brain and the bipolar technologies provided analog control, both depended on discrete power transistors for the brawn. SGS and its technology leader Bruno Murari recognized the value of combining power transistors on the same device with the analog control. In 1974 Murari’s paper on power integrated circuits, “A High-Power HI-FI Monolithic Amplifier,” was published in the IEEE Transactions on Broadcast and Television Receivers. Three years later, this paper was followed by “Power Integrated Circuits, Problems, Trade-offs and Solutions,” a paper presented at the ESSCIRC ’77 and later published in the IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits in 1978. Some of the first power integrated circuits were output amplifiers in car radios, like the ones designed by Murari and his team. These devices used bipolar power transistors integrated on an IC with the small-signal transistors for the amplifier. These devices were immensely popular and chips like the TDA2005 and its derivatives were the most widely used audio amplifier in car stereos for most of the 1980’s. Murari also recognized the potential to use the technology for applications beyond basic amplifiers, to integrate smart control into the IC along with the power actuators. With simple bipolar logic and analog for feedback and control, Murari and his team developed Smart Power ICs for solenoid drivers, stepper motor drivers, and fully integrated switching regulators. Although these devices became widely used in printers and industrial applications, the bipolar transistors had significant limitations: bipolar devices had a saturation voltage drop across the output of between 1 and 2.5V. This high voltage drop meant that the devices had high dissipation and modest efficiency and, especially in automotive applications where the power supply is 12V (or less), a 2V loss across the output was far too significant. Replacing the bipolar transistors, power MOS transistors became common and the DMOS (Double Diffused Metal Oxide Semiconductor) structure was well established in the industry for discrete power transistors. The DMOS devices with a low on resistance could therefore achieve very low voltage drops, in the range of a few tenths of a volt. These low voltage drops substantially lowered losses and dissipation and therefore generated less heat. Although MOS transistors had been used in CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) logic devices and computer chips for many years, these transistors had limited voltage capability (5V or less) and high on resistances that made them inappropriate for power circuits. SGS research (precursor firm of STMicroelectronics) intuited that new businesses were rising in the “hybrid” field between CMOS and Bipolar also because of its capability to capture advanced customers’ needs well before actual product was required by the market. SGS imagined integrating bipolar devices and CMOS controllers on same chip. Some customers (e.g. Olivetti) where urgently looking for cost effective power solutions together with analog and logic features. Indeed, typing machines were severely challenged on the market by first personal computers. In the consumer market, customers such as Grundig for TV and car radio, pushed for equivalent product needs. The traditional solution was a combo of power devices in Bipolar technology controlled by analogic control stages. The integration of a digital control system definitely provided into a single chip solution the advantages of digital systems combined with better power and robustness characteristics of DMOS devices. Previously the applications were realized by discrete components, Bipolar or DMOS, supported for analog and digital processes by chip implemented with bipolar and/or CMOS. The breakthrough innovation was the integration in a single technology platform of Bipolar CMOS DMOS (BCD) components, allowing more complex system integration with added technical performances at lower cost Technologically, BCD showed to be capable to achieve: 1. A dramatic opportunity to increase the complexity of control circuits that could be integrated so leading to new ways of system integration enabling: a. Higher energy efficiency solutions b. Improved system reliability. DMOS component was intrinsically more robust than NPN and PNP power transistors because of the lack of 2nd breakdown c. Reduced electro-magnetic interference d. Smaller foot print of the final application Therefore, widening the range of new applications which could be addressed 2. Robust product manufactured in silicon with bipolar mature technology mixed with DMOS were able to bring BCD rapidly to mass production. 3. Typical BCD products showed to provide efficient power control, sensing, data processing and actuation capabilities that are required by todays electronic system in any application fields such as IoT, Automotive, Mechatronics, Industrial, Computers and portable consumer devices 4. BCD technology guarantees long manufacturing life of products and so high level and long term social employment.

What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?

Ⅰ. Technology wise: By integrating power and logic components technological compromises were needed. Initially technology manufacturing steps were incompatible to combine BCD together. Moreover R&D pre production products were manufactures with 6 inc wafers while mass production demanded 8 inc ones. Therefore the manufacturing pipelines were different and porting and harmonizing from one to another was challenging. SGS headed by Bruno Murari wanted a technology that had the high-drive advantages of DMOS for power and analog for control. SGS team of engineers focused their effort on combining the best of the bipolar circuitry for analog, CMOS for logic, and DMOS power transistors. The team, first demonstrated the resulting process, called BCD for Bipolar, CMOS, and DMOS, in 1984 as a single monolithic device that integrated four 50V power DMOS transistors. Murari and his team had given birth to the modern Smart Power Integrated Circuit. The first commercial product developed with this technology, the L6202, was a full-bridge motor driver for DC or stepper motors. From this first BCD chip, the technology’s advantages were obvious – and quickly recognized. The power DMOS produced much lower losses and less heat than previous-generation power integrated circuits had been able to achieve. At the same time and on the same piece of silicon, CMOS circuits could implement logic control that had not been practical with bipolar circuitry while continuing to make the bipolar technology and its advantages for analog control available. Integrating the DMOS device onto a Smart Power IC, where engineers could also design the control, was the key to enabling Smart Power actuators for industrial and automotive applications. The lower voltage drop across the DMOS device dramatically reduced power dissipation and produced a higher available output voltage that is critical when operating from 12V batteries, especially in cold cranking applications where the battery voltage can drop to about 6V. Ⅱ. Organization management wise: Main focus of company was on memories and advanced CMOS, BCD was a niche in term of company focus and power components were considered as discrete components. Moreover company investments were on existing production means therefore making difficult to steer them into BCD ones. The company was able to agree and transfer to a major customer (Bosch) BCD manufacturing process gaining customer market share and associated applications Several product success stories in the automotive and hard disk drive market let barriers to BCD adoption to be overcome.

What features set this work apart from similar achievements?

Following development of the first-generation of BCD technology, Murari’s team continued to improve the BCD process. These efforts built on refinements to the semiconductor processes and shrinking CMOS device geometries that allowed ever more complex logic circuits to be implemented in the chips. The team introduced additional process variations to meet specific needs, including higher and lower voltage DMOS devices for specific applications. In 1990, Murari and his team at ST introduced the first automotive specific BCD devices. By the mid 1990’s Smart Power ICs were ubiquitous in automotive control units. By 1993, ST had implemented an 8-bit microcontroller on the same chip as a 5A 60V power bridge. The cover story in the October 1993 issue of Electronic Design featured the device as a true Smart Power device. Demonstrating its longstanding contributions, thirty years after the introduction of the BCD process, it is still a key technology for the automotive industry. Automotive control board using Smart Power IC 9 Fuel-injection drivers were one of the first applications where BCD technology was used in automotive applications. The first injection drivers included the control and drive stage for a single injection port. As the BCD process has evolved, the Smart Power devices have become more complex, integrating more of the control logic and controlling multiple injection ports. Today Smart Power ICs are in virtually every car and light truck built in the world. The Smart Power IC enables engineers to economically design complex control and driver devices in small packages. The low dissipation of the DMOS device means there is little or no additional material required for heat dissipation and integrating both the control and power in a single device greatly reduces the size of the control modules. Simply put, without the Smart Power IC, complex electronics could not be economically manufactured.

Supporting texts and citations to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or chapters in scholarly books. 'Scholarly' is defined as peer-reviewed, with references, and published. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article. All supporting materials must be in English, or accompanied by an English translation.

Publications: Articles, Journals 1. Microcontroller Switches %A, 60V Current Pulses Electronic Design October 1993

2. A new Bipolar CMOS, DMOS Mixed Technology for Intelligent Power Applicatiions - C.Cini, C.Contiero, C.Diazzi, D.Rossi ESSDERC 85

3. A High Efficiency, mixed Technology Motor Driver IC, PCI. C.Cini, C.Diazzi, D.Rossi PCI October 1985

4. A High Efficiency, mixed Technology Motor Driver IC, PCI. C.Cini, C.Diazzi, D.Rossi Esscirc 86

5. High Frequency, high current monolithic switching regulator in Bipolar, CMOS, DMOS Mixed Technology C.Cini, C.Diazzi, D.Rossi PCI 86

6. Multipower BCD: a versatile technology from 60 to 250V that integrats Bipolar, CMOS and DMOS devices - C.Contiero, A.Andreini, P.Galbiati Colloquium on Itegrated Power Devices London 1987

7. Mutipower BCD: a new frontier in power integrated ciruit - C.Diazzi, D.Rossi, S.Storti Colloquium on Itegrated Power Devices London 1987

8. Multipower BCD: une nouvelle frontier en circuits integres de puissanse C.Diazzi, D.Rossi, S.Storti Electroniques de puissance Avril 1987

9. Three Phases Brushless Driver in Mutlipower BCD Technology – E.Balboni, G.Pietrobon, D.Rossi, C.Vertemara -Motorcon 1988

10. Trends in Motion Control for Computer Peripherals A.Cuomo, P.Menniti, D.Rossi PCIM 88, Tokio.

11. A recomfigurable DMOS Control Chip for an Electronic TypeWriter G.Pietrobon, D.Rossi ISSCC 1989

12. Monolithic Battery Charger IC integrates Control and Power T.Hopkins, D.Rossi, G.Pedrazzini, G.Ricotti PCIM 95

13. Super Smart Power: Process, Design and Applications B.Murari, D.Rossi, 1st workshop on Microcontroller Developments and Applications 16/17 Dec. 1995

14. Single Chip Smart Power Camera Controller with Photodiode Measurement down to 3nA D.Rossi, G.Pedrazzini, G.Ricotti, E.Ravanelli, E.Strizhak, M Kackprowicz – ISSCC 96

15. Salable High Volage IC for XDSL Type of Applications Workshop: Advances in Analog Circuit Design Deltf April 97

16. New Emerging Applications for Smart Power ICs: technology implications and Design Techniques D.Rossi ICECS 98

17. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=it&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=claudio+contiero+bcd&btnG=

18. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=it&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=paola+galbiati+bcd&btnG=

19. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=it&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=bruno+murari+bcd&btnG=

20. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=it&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Antonio+Andreini++bcd&btnG=

Patents : 1. Drive Circuit for N-Channel Power MOS Transistors of Push-Pull Stage US 4,727,465

2. Dual Threshold Current Mode Digital PWM Controller US 5,629,610

3. Below Ground and oversupply protection of Junction Isolated INCs US 6,271,567 B1

4. Electrically Controlled Bidirectional AC Swith and an IC and Electronic Card Incorporating the switch US 5,811,994

5. Boost Converter for Driving a Capacitive Load US 6.668,703

6. Multipurpose inernally configurable circuit for driving a switching mode inductive loads according to a selectable connection scheme US 35,806

7. Inductance and capacitance charge pump circuit for driving power mos transistor bridges US 35,401

8. Input/output interface circuit for digital and analog signals US5,565,806

9. Input output to noerate with low and high volteg US 5,483,189

10. Capacitive charge punp for Power MOS Driving US, 5,581,455

Supporting materials (supported formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DOC): All supporting materials must be in English, or if not in English, accompanied by an English translation. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. For documents that are copyright-encumbered, or which you do not have rights to post, email the documents themselves to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please see the Milestone Program Guidelines for more information.

1st patent was INTEGRATED N-CHANNEL POWER MOS BRIDGE CIRCUIT Number 4,949,142 Foreign Application Priority Data Dec. 18, 1984 (IT) Italy. 24.126 A/84

Please email a jpeg or PDF a letter in English, or with English translation, from the site owner(s) giving permission to place IEEE milestone plaque on the property, and a letter (or forwarded email) from the appropriate Section Chair supporting the Milestone application to ieee-history@ieee.org with the subject line "Attention: Milestone Administrator." Note that there are multiple texts of the letter depending on whether an IEEE organizational unit other than the section will be paying for the plaque(s).

Please recommend reviewers by emailing their names and email addresses to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please include the docket number and brief title of your proposal in the subject line of all emails.