December 2016 edition – Vol.8 no.4

EDITORIAL

5th edition of the ReSMiQ Innovation Day – RID2016
On October 13th the participants in the 5th edition of the ReSMiQ Innovation Day gathered at Polytechnique Montréal to attend the keynote speeches, the panel discussion and several technical demonstrations. This annual event organized by our center aims to give visibility to the research work done by graduate and undergraduate students of the province of Quebec in the field of microsystems. For this edition, ReSMiQ joined forces for the second time with the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society through its Outreach Initiative Event program sponsoring the RID2016 to organize an imposing event during which internationally renowned experts presented their most recent developments in the field of circuits and systems. We wish to thank Professors Luc Frechette, from Université de Sherbrooke, Tsung-Yi Ho from the Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, and Jahangir Hossain from the University of British Columbia. Thanks to all for the participation.

Students at all levels presented their scientific and technical expertise during a competition through experimental demonstrations to a jury constituted of many experts. The three best projects in each category were awarded prizes as well as three special awards from the IEEE CAS society, IEEE Montréal, and the IEEE Montréal SSCS Chapter. This year, 14 projects were presented. We wish to thank all the students who submitted their project as well as congratulate all the winners. We hope to see more new innovations for the next edition to be held on October 12, 2017.

We invite you to watch the presentations of the projects by going to the website of the RID 2016 on the «Competition» page and also the photo gallery.

Undergraduate level winners

1st place – Capteur électrochimique à multicanaux pour le contrôle de la qualité de l’eau
by Jessy Mathault (B.Sc.), U. Laval
2nd place – Implant flexible pour ECG et stimulation optique sans fil
by Léonard L. Gagnon (B.Sc.), U. Laval
3rd place – Système d’alimentation pour drone avec surveillance de batterie Li-Po
by Charles Alexis Carrier (B.Sc.), Serge Lipovan (B.Sc.), Sébastien Pelchat (B.Sc.), U. de Sherbrooke

Gagnants du concours cycles supérieurs

1st place – Interface neuronale CMOS haute résolution pour l’électrophysiologie et l’optogénétique synchronisée
by Gabriel Gagnon-Turcotte (Ph.D.), U. Laval
2nd place – Conception d’un système d’acquisition pour l tomographie optique diffuse à mesure dans le domaine temporel
by Jonathan Bouchard (M.Sc.), U. de Sherbrooke
3rd place – Modélisation et implémentation d’oscillateur MEMS à hautes performances
by Anoir Bouchami (M.Sc.), UQAM

Special awards

IEEE CASS Award
Interface neuronale CMOS haute résolution pour l’électrophysiologie et l’optogénétique synchronisée
by Gabriel Gagnon-Turcotte (Ph.D.), U. Laval
IEEE Montréal Award
Implant flexible pour ECG et stimulation optique sans fil
by Léonard L. Gagnon (B.Sc.), U. Laval
IEEE Montréal SSCS Chapter Award
Wireless power and data transmissions in harsh environment applications
by  Ahmad Hassan (Ph.D.), Polytechnique Montréal

NEWS FROM OUR MEMBERS

Exposure

– Dr. Gagnon G., from ETS, sees some of his latest work being the subject of an article by Québec Science for his contribution in the field of media arts.
More details / Video

Achievement

– Dr. Gosselin from Université Laval is supervising Gabriel Gagnon-Turcotte for a master’s degree who received the Canada’s governor general gold academic medal. More details

– Dr. Beltrame from Polytechnique Montréal received a grant from the Consortium for Aerospace Research and Innovation in Canada (CARIC) for the project “IoT Platform for disaster Response” in collaboration with Humanitas Solution, Dassault Systèmes, Bell Helicopter and Elisen & Associés.

– Dr. Gosselin from Université Laval received an Idea to Innovation grant from NSERC that will support the development of innovating wireless technologies dedicated to brain research.

– Dr. Beltrame from Polytechnique Montréal received a Research Tools and Instruments Grants from NSERC for the project “Swarm Robotics Laboratory”.

– Dr. Gagnon G., from ETS, received a Collaborative Research and Development Grant in partnership with Axsera and Media 5 for the project “Low Latency and Highly Secure Protocols for Critical Communications”.

– Dr. Liboiron-Ladouceur from McGill and Dr. Cowan from Concordia University were awarded a 3-year grant from NSERC’s Strategic Partnership program for the project “Software-enabled energy-efficient hardware infrastructure for next-generation data centres” with a contribution from Reflex Photonics, Huawei Technologies Canada, and Intengent.

RESMIQ’S ACTIVITIES

Scholarships and financial support for graduate students
ReSMiQ SCholarship, supplementary scholarship and financial support

APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 16 2017
More details

ReSMiQ scholarship for postdoctoral fellow
APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 16, 2017
More details

Financial support for undergraduate students
APPLICATION DEADLINE: March 15, 2017
More details


SIGNAL is the main monthly information medium of the Microsystems Strategic Alliance of Québec (ReSMiQ). This newsletter aims to be an active link between the members of ReSMiQ and all individuals who have an interest in research and innovation in microsystems. We commit ourselves to promote in it our members’ research and increase ReSMiQ’s visibility.

ReSMiQ is a group of researchers in an interuniversity research center that can count on the support of the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT) and nine (9) Quebec universities involved in microsystems research.

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UPCOMING CONFERENCES

2023 International Conference on Microelectronics (ICM)
from December 17 to 20, 2023, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
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2023 IEEE 11th International Conference on Systems and Control (ICSC)
from December 18 to 20, 2023, Sousse, Tunisia.
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2024 37th International Conference on VLSI Design and 2024 23rd International Conference on Embedded Systems (VLSID)
from January 6 to 10, 2024, Kolkata, India.
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2024 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC)
from February 18 to 22, 2024, San Francisco, California, USA.
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2024 IEEE 15th Latin America Symposium on Circuits and Systems (LASCAS)
from February 27 to March 1, 2024, Punta del Este, Uruguay.
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2024 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC)
from April 21 to 24, 2024, Denver, Colorado, USA.
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2024 IEEE 6th International Conference on AI Circuits and Systems (AICAS)
from April 22 to 25, 2024, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
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2024 9th International Conference on Integrated Circuits, Design, and Verification (ICDV)
from June 6 to 7, 2024, Hanoi, Vietnam.
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2024 61st ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC)
from June 23 to 27, 2024, San Francisco, California, USA.
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2024 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME)
from July 15 to 19, 2024, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
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MEMBER PROFILE

Prof. Ahmed Lakhssassi
Université du Québec en Outaouais
Member of ReSMiQ since 2005

ahmedlakhssassi_sAhmed Lakhssassi received the Ph.D. in Energy Sciences and Materials from the National Institute of Scientific Research (INRS), Quebec, Canada. Currently, he is a professor and head of the Laboratory of Engineering of Advanced Microsystems (LIMA) in the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO). Previously, he was a professor of electro-thermo-mechanical aspects at NSERC-HydroQuebec Industrial Research Chair in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the UQTR, where, for several years, he conducts electro-thermal research projects. His research interests are in the development of IP cores and embedded algorithms for microsystems thermal peak detection, the design of fully automated tools for porting analog and mixed-signal circuits within different technology nodes, and bio-heat thermal analysis. Dr. Lakhssassi is a member of the IEEE, the OIQ (Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec, Canada), and NanoQuébec. He is the author or co-author of more than 170 scientific publications and research reports and has been the research advisor of 60 graduate and undergraduate students. Dr. Lakhssassi received a recognition award for outstanding contributions to the ReSMiQ. More details

Below is a selection of publications in recent years followed by representative work.

  1. Kengne, Emmanuel; Mellal, Idir , Ben-Hamouda, Mariem; Lakhssassi, Ahmed, "A Mathematical Model to Solve Bio-Heat Transfer Problems through a Bio-Heat Transfer Equation with Quadratic Temperature-Dependent Blood Perfusion under a Constant Spatial Heating on Skin Surface", Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 9(7), 721-730, 2014
  2. Tahar Haddad ; Naim Ben-Hamida ; Larbi Talbi ; Ahmed Lakhssassi ; Sadok Aouini, "Temporal epilepsy seizures monitoring and prediction using crosscorrelation and chaos theory", Healthcare Technology Letters, Volume 1, issue 1, p.45-50, 6(1), 2014.
  3. Saydé, Michel, Lakhssassi, Ahmed. Kengne, Emmanuel, Palenichka, Roman, "A Spatiotemporal Signal Processing Technique for Wafer-Scale IC Thermomechanical Stress Monitoring by an Infrared Camera", Journal of Bioscience and Medicines, 1(2), 1-5, 2013
  4. Emmanuel, Kengne; Fathi, Ben Hamouda and Ahmed Lakhssassi, "Extended generalized Riccati equation mapping for thermal traveling-wave distribution in biological tissues through a bio-heat transfer model with linear/quadratic temperature-dependent blood perfusion", Journal of Applied Mathematics, 4(10), 1471-1484, 2013
  5. E. Kengne, A. Lakhssassi, R. Vaillancourt, and W.-M. Liu, "Phase engineering, modulational instability, and solitons of Gross--Pitaevskii-type equations in 1+1 dimensions", Physical Review E, 87(022914), 1-15, 2013
  6. Kengne, Emmanuel, Saydé, Michel and Lakhssassi, Ahmed, "Effect of convective term on temperature distribution in biological tissue", THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL PLUS, 128(98), 1-10,2013
  7. E. Kengne, A. Lakhssassi, R. Vaillancourt, and W.-M. Liu, "On the propagation of nonlinear signals in nonlinear transmission lines", The European Physical Journal Plus., 128(63), 1-17, 2013

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS

A spatiotemporal signal processing technique for wafer-scale
IC thermomechanical stress monitoring by an infrared camera

In the innovative reconfigurable Wafer-Scale Integrated Circuit (WaferIC, Fig.1) for rapid electronic systems prototyping, the electronic components can be placed anywhere at the smart active surface of the WaferIC. Then those components can be detected, powered and interconnected through a complex but regular reconfigurable network laid over the surface of the WaferIC. As power consumption depends on user chips location and power pins distribution, it is not evenly distributed throughout the surface of the silicon wafer. In many cases, it is unpredictable and variable as power consumption of programmable or dynamic components (e.g. microcontrollers) depends on their activities. Therefore, managing thermomechanical stress is a real challenge and it may need to be monitored at all time in high performance applications. Thermal monitoring is essential in high performance integrated circuits.

In this paper, we describe a new silicon-die thermal monitoring approach using a spatiotemporal signal processing technique for Wafer-Scale IC thermomechanical stress monitoring. It is proposed in the context of a wafer-scale-based WaferIC rapid prototyping platform for electronic systems. This technique will be embedded into the structure of the WaferIC, and will be used as a preventive measure to protect the wafer from possible damages that can be caused by excessive thermomechanical stress. The paper also presents spatial and spatiotemporal algorithms and the experimental results (Fig. 2) from an IR images collection campaign conducted using an IR camera (Fig.1).

vol-8-n4_1
Fig. 1.
The experiment layout; the IR camera is placed vertically over the WaferIC, which is heated from beneath by 2 separately controllable heat elements.

vol-8-n4_2_s
Fig. 2.
Processed IR Images of the WaferIC heated from beneath by two heat sources. (a), (b), and (c) show the evolution of temperature in time over the surface interleaved at 60 s. The IR imaged was thresholded with 16 gray-levels, a 7×7 box median filter is applied to generate homogenous regions, then a Laplacien is used to generate a temperature isotherm map. The variation of temperature from 30˚C to 60˚C has been quantified into 16 levels (or isotherms). So each level up represents a 1.875˚C temperature increase.