Due to the high carrier mobility, graphene is considered a promising material for use in high-speed electronic devices in the post-silicon electronic era. Graphene high resistance to radiation and extreme temperatures makes the development of graphene-based electronics a key-enabling technology for aerospace, defence, and aeronautical applications. Nevertheless, achieving uniform device-to-device performance is still a challenge, and these fields require high reliability components. In particular, many critical issues remain to be solved, such as their reproducibility and guaranty of identical performances against possible variations of different manufacturing and environmental factors. In the present work, a model capable to take into account the physical characteristics linked to the production process of a Graphene Field-Effect Transistor (GFET) is exploited to carry out a tolerance analysis of process-related geometrical parameters on the device performance. The most influential parameters that affect the device behaviour are studied in order to enhance the fabrication yield.

The interest in graphene-based electronics is due to graphene’s great carrier mobility, atomic thickness, resistance to radiation, and tolerance to extreme temperatures. These characteristics enable the development of extremely miniaturized high-performing electronic devices for next-generation radiofrequency (RF) communication systems. The main building block of graphene-based electronics is the graphene-field effect transistor (GFET). An important issue hindering the diffusion of GFET-based circuits on a commercial level is the repeatability of the fabrication process, which affects the uncertainty of both the device geometry and the graphene quality. Concerning the GFET geometrical parameters, it is well known that the channel length is the main factor that determines the high-frequency limitations of a field-effect transistor, and is therefore the parameter that should be better controlled during the fabrication. Nevertheless, other parameters are affected by a fabrication-related tolerance; to understand to which extent an increase of the accuracy of the GFET layout patterning process steps can improve the performance uniformity, their impact on the GFET performance variability should be considered and compared to that of the channel length. In this work, we assess the impact of the fabrication-related tolerances of GFET-base amplifier geometrical parameters on the RF performance, in terms of the amplifier transit frequency and maximum oscillation frequency, by using a design-of-experiments approach.

The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) has enabled the development of measurement systems dedicated to preventing health issues and monitoring conditions in smart homes and workplaces. IoT systems can support monitoring people doing computer-based work and avoid the insurgence of common musculoskeletal disorders related to the persistence of incorrect sitting postures during work hours. This work proposes a low-cost IoT measurement system for monitoring the sitting posture symmetry and generating a visual alert to warn the worker when an asymmetric position is detected. The system employs four force sensing resistors (FSR) embedded in a cushion and a microcontroller-based read-out circuit for monitoring the pressure exerted on the chair seat. Java-based software performs the real-time monitoring of the sensors’ measurements and implements an uncertainty-driven asymmetry detection algorithm. The shifts from a symmetric to an asymmetric posture and vice versa generate and close a pop-up warning message, respectively. In this way, the user is promptly notified when an asymmetric posture is detected and invited to adjust the sitting position. Every position shift is recorded in a web database for further analysis of the sitting behavior.

Front-face acoustic reflectivity of ultrasonic imaging transducers, due to acoustic impedance mismatch with the propagation medium, may cause reverberation phenomena during wideband pulse-echo operation. Front-face reflectivity may be reduced by promoting the transmission of the echoes, received from the medium, to the transducer backing, and by maximizing the mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion and dissipation by tuning the electrical load impedance connected to the transducer. In Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs), the energy transfer from the medium to the backing is very low due to the large impedance mismatch between the medium and the transducer substrate, typically made of silicon. Reverse Fabrication Process (RFP) makes it possible providing CMUTs with custom substrate materials, thus eliminating the original silicon microfabrication support. In this paper, we propose two methods for the front-face reflectivity reduction in RFP-CMUTs: the first one is based on the use of low-impedance, highly attenuating backing materials, and the second one is based on the maximization of the mechanoelectrical energy conversion and dissipation. We analyze the methods by finite element simulations and experimentally validate the obtained results by fabricating and characterizing single-element RFP-CMUTs provided with different backing materials and electrical loads

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