Smallest Ever On-Chip Low-Pass Filter Invented

The world’s smallest on-chip low pass filter is 1,000 times smaller than current off-chip filters. It has been designed effectively by a research team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.

The circuit that allows low-frequency signals to take across along with lowering unnecessary high-frequency signals from taking across is called a low-pass filter. In comparison to the current off-chip filters, which are separated and quite big, on-chip filters grab a little space on integrated circuit chips, which may be available in mobile devices such as cell phones, notebook computers, speed guns used to monitor traffic, as well as radars placed in vehicles.

Nanyang Technological University and Economic Development Board launched VIRTUS, a latest Integrated Circuit Design Centre of Excellence. The effectual accomplishment of this experiment project was declared just 10 months ago at the official opening of this new IC design centre of excellence.

Yeo Kiat Seng, head of circuits and systems at NTU's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering is the main person behind this innovation. It is expected that the advancement in design for this filter will revolutionize wireless communication.

"This new low-pass filter can lead to a significant improvement in signal quality as it removes nearly all unwanted interferences and noise in the environment," said Professor Yeo.

"This results in clearer reception and enhanced clarity for mobile phone users and users of wireless applications such as Bluetooth and other mobile devices. For example, if you are speaking to your friend on your mobile phone in a noisy food centre or in a train, you would still be able to hear him clearly."

"The filter also consumes less power and can be easily incorporated into existing integrated circuit chips at almost no cost. This means that in addition to better signal quality, consumers enjoy lower power consumption without any additional cost," he included.

A new horizon has been uncovered because of the invention of the new filter which leads more research and development of high-performance integrated circuits and wireless communication products. With this filter, integrated circuit chips can come to latest applications for transmitting digital audio/video data (uncompressed) and fast wireless local area networks for instant wireless file transfer.

Story of Integrated Circuits

Integrated circuits (ICs) are considered as a foundation of present-day electronics. They are the cornerstones of most circuits. These are the omnipresent tiny black “chips” which come into view on just about every circuit board. If you are not some kind of insane, analog electronics wizard, perhaps you will have at least one IC in each electronics project you set up, so it is vital to understand them, inside and out.

A collection of electronic components like capacitors, resistors, transistors- all crammed into a small chip, and linked with each other to attain a common goal is called an IC. These come in various sorts and varieties: single-circuit logic gates, voltage regulators, microcontrollers, op amps, microprocessors, 555 timers, motor controllers, FPGAs… the list does not end.

We can visualize the tiny black chips by thinking about integrated circuits. But what does the black box contain? The actual “substance” to an integrated circuit is a complicated layer of semiconductor wafers, copper, and other materials, which interlinks to create resistors, transistors and various components in a circuit. The trimmed and well-formed amalgamation of these wafers is known as die.

The integrated chip itself is small and because of this the wafers of semiconductor and layers of copper it consists of are extremely thin. The interconnections between the layers are immensely complex. A die of an integrated chip is the circuit in its tiniest allowable form, too tiny to solder or connect to. The die is packaged, which makes our job of connecting to the IC effortless. The IC package turns the delicate, tiny die, into the black chip we’re all familiar with. The small and delicate die is turned into the black chip (which is familiar to all) by the IC package.

The integrated circuit die is encapsulated by the package and this package splays the die out into a device we can more conveniently connect to. Every outward connection on the die is linked via a small piece of gold wire to a pad or pin on the package. Pins are the silver, releasing terminals on an IC, which go on to attach to other parts of a circuit. Pins are what will go on to connect to the rest of the components and wires in a circuit. For this reason, these are most important to us.

There are numerous varieties of packages. Each of them has distinctive dimensions, mounting-types, and/or pin-counts. Majority of them are DIP, QDIP, SQP, PDIP, SOP, QFP, PLCC, SW, SQL, DPAK, SIP, SOS, TSOP, FDIP, TO3, TO2205, SOT23, SOT223, PENTAWATT and many more.

Each pin of an IC is unique in the cases of both location and function and all ICS are polarized. This means the package has to have some way to convey which pin is which. Maximum ICs use either a dot or a notch to specify which pin is the first pin. (Sometimes both, sometimes one or the other).

Once you know where the first pin is, the remaining pin numbers increase sequentially as you move counter-clockwise around the chip.