Using microfluidic cooling to achieve thermal management of three-dimensional integrated circuits (ICs) is recognized as a promising method of extending Moore law progression in electronic components and systems. Since the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched Intra/Inter Chip Enhanced Cooling thermal packaging program, the method of using microfluidic cooling in 3D ICs has been under continuous development. This paper presents an analysis of all publications available about the microfluidic cooling technologies used in 3D IC thermal management, and summarized these research works into six categories: cooling structure design, co-design issues, through silicon via (TSV) influence, specific chip applications, thermal models, and non-uniform heating and hotspots. The details of these research works are given, future works are suggested.

This paper addresses the design of multiple access protocol for healthcare internet of things (HIoT) networking, where devices are massively deployed to facilitate ubiquitous service provision. While non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been considered a major breakthrough for next generation smart healthcare network and beyond, automated random access enabled massive connectivity remains a challenge. To this end, automated massive connectivity protocol is developed, where multiple devices compete for a power level to gain access whenever needed. The power level is selected randomly from a predetermined set derived using large dimensional analysis presuming user-load K significantly outnumbers the antennas equipped at access point (AP). As a contention-based random access protocol, the contention is resolved using ALOHA protocol. Moreover, simple forward error corrections (FECs) are introduced to enable massive connectivity in finite blocklength regime as well as to mitigate severe interference. In contrast to existing multiple-input multiple-output NOMA (MIMO-NOMA), the proposed scheme avoids spectral efficiency penalty due to preamble and the potentially long latency due to infinite blocklength as a result of density evolution method. The simulated results demonstrate that quality of service (QoS) in terms of enhanced random access, improved spectral efficiency and reduced power consumption, which justify the proposed MIMO-NOMA design evidently.

A simple yet effective approach for programmable gain amplifier (PGA) with a high precision decibel (dB)-linear characteristic and wide bandwidth is presented in this brief. This novel approach is presented by innovatively combining two techniques. Based on the binary-weighted switching technique, the circuit can approach an accurate pseudo-exponential function without using an additional exponential generator for gain control. By adopting the active feedback circuit structure, the bandwidth of PGA can be extended and it also contributes to improve the robustness, both of which cleverly reached a good consistency. The proposed PGA is fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS technology, the core circuit occupies an area of 0.11 mm2. Operated at a supply voltage of 1.8 V, the PGA consumes 8.21 mW. The measurement results show that the voltage gain of the proposed PGA can be controlled from.4.2 dB to 25.9 dB with a gain error less than 0.09 dB, and the minimum.3dB bandwidth is almost 630 MHz. The input 1dB compression point is measured from -28.7 to 0.5 dBm, while the input referred noise is from 22.4 to 70.9 nV/Hz.

In this paper, a rail-to-rail transconductance stable and enhanced ultra-low-voltage operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) is proposed for electrocardiogram (ECG) signal processing. The variation regularity of the bulk transconductance of pMOS and nMOS transistors and the cancellation mechanism of two types of transconductance variations are revealed. On this basis, a transconductance stabilization and enhancement technique is proposed. By using the “current-reused and transconductance-boosted complementary bulk-driven pseudo-differential pairs” structure, the bulk-driven pseudo-differential pair during the input common-mode range (ICMR) is stabilized and enhanced. The proposed OTA based on this technology is simulated using the TSMC 0.18 μm process in a Cadence environment. The proposed OTA consumes a power below 30 nW at a 0.4 V voltage supply with a DC gain of 54.9 dB and a gain-bandwidth product (GBW) of 14.4 kHz under a 15 pF capacitance load. The OTA has a high small signal figure-of-merit (FoM) of 7410 and excellent common-mode voltage (VCM) stability, with a transconductance variation of about 1.35%. Based on a current-scaling version of the proposed OTA, an OTA-C low-pass filter (LPF) for ECG signal processing with VCM stability is built and simulated. With a −3 dB bandwidth of 250 Hz and a power consumption of 20.23 nW, the filter achieves a FoM of 3.41 × 10⁻¹³, demonstrating good performance.