Center for Integrated Systems (CIS)

cis.stanford.edu/

Richard Dasher
Executive Director CIS 106, (650)725-3621
rdasher at cis.stanford.edu

Yoshio Nishi
Director of Research, CIS-X 333, (650)723-4138
nishiy at stanford.edu

Maureen Rochford
CIS Manager CIS 104, (650)725-3617
maureen at cis.stanford.edu
Administrative Associate
CIS 002, (650) 725-3627

The Center for Integrated Systems (CIS) is a cooperative venture between Stanford University and member industrial firms for the purpose of providing world-class graduates and research results in integrated systems. "Integrated systems" refers to research projects in hardware and software resulting from complex interactions across engineering, science and management disciplines. The research environment of the Center is designed to foster development and growth in both doctoral candidates and industrial participants. Concurrently, the generated research base will enhance industrial productivity and competitiveness. Emphasis is on the conceptual design and feasibility of various systems, including the software, CAD, design tools, device technologies and manufacturing innovations necessary to strengthen CIS partner companies' position at the cutting edge of technological advancement.

The mission of CIS is to develop the fundamental knowledge base and design structures necessary to achieve global excellence in computer and other electronic systems by:

1. teaming graduate students, faculty and industrial liaisons through research thrusts
2. conducting research on conceptual design and feasibility of various systems, including the development of new design concepts and the ensuing methods for implementation and manufacturing;
3. exploring long-range technology and device options for VLSI systems;
4. addressing high-level specification issues, including their implementation, refinement and testing (a major challenge is to accelerate technology transfer between CIS and industry)
5. promoting best practice interchange (technical and management) among member industrial firms and between the firms and the university
6. providing the long-range vision and innovation which will aid our Industrial Partners in successfully achieving their goal of providing products with high quality, reasonable cost and prompt market availability which consistently exceed customer expectations.

CIS seeks to identify, promote and build research with a broad base and strong industrial interaction. These research thrusts have the following identifying characteristics:

1. a focus on research in integrated systems;
2. a compelling research vision;
3. involvement of at least two faculty principal investigators;
4. strong appeal to a number of industrial partners;
5. participation in the Fellow/Mentor/Advisor (FMA) program;
6. a leveraging plan to attract additional support.

Major Research Areas:

Systems - Our systems activities have two main themes:

1. collaborations with the Center for Telecommunications at Stanford (CTS) that focus on two projects-
   1. adaptive video (Gupta) and
   2. management in a wireless network environment (Widom and Cox);
      
      
2. system-level activities that link strongly with the Computer Systems Lab (CSL) and the Computer Science Department (CSD). It is clear that the design of communications for a heterogeneous transmission media will be an ongoing challenge well into the next century. The collaboration between CIS and CTS cuts across these various boundaries in a very strategic way. These projects have helped to define critical parameters such as scalability of data compression and simulations of mobile activity traces (SUMATRA) that can help to model communication scenarios with varying complexity. The links with CSL and CSD are being strengthened based on further definition of programs in Internet testbed activities and circuit technology to support the graphics laboratory, to be reported on later this year.

Circuits and Design Technologies -

1. High-performance circuits and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMs) continue to be highlight areas of research within this thrust. Professor Mark Horowitz has made excellent progress in designing and prototyping circuits targeted to realize greater than 2.5 Gbps with 0.6 micron CMOS technology. Professor Tom Lee is aggressively looking at circuits and architectures for low-power wireless telecommunications. Driven by an effort to create a single-chip CMOS GPS receiver, the project is actively designing prototype blocks such as LNAs, mixers (including LO) and generally low noise RF circuits using MOS technology.
2. The distributed sensor systems project, headed by Professors Meng and Kovacs, is using off-the-shelf sensor components while aggressively pushing the system design of radio modems that can efficiently be synchronized, route and transmit information with a minimum of power.
3. A longer range goal involves the design and testing of a new micromachined spectrometer. Professor El Gamal continues to make good progress investigating the issues of area image sensors with emphasis on comparing limiting factors between passive and active pixel architectures.
4. Test structures using both 0.5 and 0.35 micron CMOS technologies are now in progress. Professors Kunle Olukotun and Mark Horowitz are investigating the challenges of concurrent design of ICs in the context of multiple microprocessors with emphasis on accurate estimation and validation of timing across the levels of design. Through this process, they are identifying bottlenecks both in design approach and in the supporting tools.
5. The joint modeling and simulation project involving Professors Bob Dutton, Bruce Wooley and Tom Lee has demonstrated interesting results on behavior level simulations for several wireless (RF) technologies using technology computer-aided design (TCAD) tools that support creation of virtual wafers and exploit virtual instruments such as a spectrum analyzer for characterization.

Device Technologies and Prototyping -

1. The National Nanofabrication User's Network (NNUN) continues to draw growing utilization, including a range of CIS-seeded projects listed in this report-further details are provided through the NNUN World Wide Web site as indicated. The strategic support of CIS industrial partner funds provides "seeding" of user grants and has opened the way to leverage a broad set of researchers across the academic community. Moreover, by having a quick turn-around review process that involves the industrial partners, there is an opportunity to both expedite the research process and networking of the community most interested in accelerating technical progress. In addition, the use of the NNUN facility is not limited to academic researchers. A number of large and small industrial companies are regular users of the facility, providing a very versatile and low-cost means to explore new technologies.
2. One unique aspect of the NNUN facility is the use of simulation to prototype technologies, prior to experimental development. There is a broader context of this simulation work where Stanford has launched a ground-breaking research program to explore deep sub-micron technologies-titled "Computational Prototyping for 21st Century Semiconductor Structures" (and funded by ARPA). The overall goals of this program are very briefly outlined in this report and more extensive on-line status reports are available over the World-Wide Web. This project has very broad implications in manufacturing sciences as well as in creating a new paradigm for research infrastructure. With the completion of the extension to CIS, a growing set of atomic scale phenomena and device technologies are now being pursued. This is partially reflected in seed projects both at Stanford and elsewhere in nano-technologies. Additional projects will be reported in this area over the coming year and beyond. Also, the work of Professor Spicer presents a summary status report of experimentation in extracting atomic level behavior of high concentration arsenic doping information in silicon.
3. Depending on the membership level, CIS industrial partners and associate members have facilitated access to these research projects through the CIS programs tailored to increase and enhance industrial contact with Stanford's top-notch faculty and graduate students.

Programs and Activities:

1. Membership
2. Partner Visiting Researcher Program
3. Student-Partner Information Exchange Program (SPIE)
4. Fellow/Mentor/Advisor Program (FMA)
5. CAReer Enhancement Services (CARES)
6. Research Program

Overall, the facilities, people, and programs of CIS constitute a uniquely powerful resource. The confluence of both government and industry at Stanford has resulted in an institution that works to build a clear vision of the future. That vision is to accelerate the invention and application of new technology.

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