Accomplished:
This week, I helped complete and submit our final Design Review (DR) report while also continuing work on the characterization and test infrastructure side of the project. A major milestone this week was that we were able to move beyond only having fabricated template NMOS devices and instead begin organizing and analyzing real measurement results from the first iteration, including NMOS I–V behavior, resistor/TLM measurements, and MOSCAP C–V trends. Through analyzing and exploring the data for the DR , I was able to develop better expectations and intuition on how future iteration data exploration and analysis will look like.
In addition, on my end, this was especially useful because it gave me a much clearer picture of the practical electrical constraints that the final oscillator bring-up flow and PCB interface will need to support.
Progress/Schedule:
We are on schedule overall and have successfully transitioned from the initial fabrication milestone into the first real characterization-to-design loop. Compared to last week, we now have stronger quantitative footing for the project since the measured first-pass device data has started to establish baseline expectations for threshold variation, drive current, leakage, resistor behavior, and MOSCAP behavior. This puts us in a better position to refine oscillator assumptions and make the next iteration more grounded in measured silicon rather than prior estimates alone. We can now progress, as indicated by schedule, on finalizing a potential oscillator design.
Upcoming Deliverables:
Next week, my priorities are to continue supporting device characterization where needed given fabrication-resulting data, help narrow the practical oscillator bring-up requirements based on the measured data, and resume more direct progress on the PCB/test interface with these updated constraints in mind. By the end of next week, we should be in a position to more confidently lock the initial oscillator implementation direction and translate the current characterization results into concrete testbench and integration decisions for the next phase of the project.