Tower Semiconductor (Israel)

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, projected to exceed 50 billion by 2030, has ushered in a hyper-connected digital ecosystem where cloud platforms serve as the central backbone for data storage, processing, and management.While this integration enables unprecedented levels of scalability, efficiency, and real-time insights, it simultaneously amplifies the cyber threat landscape.Vulnerabilities such as weak authentication, insecure firmware, misconfigured cloud services, and supply chain compromises expose IoT infrastructures to large-scale attacks, as demonstrated by high-profile incidents like the Mirai botnet and Verkada camera breach.Addressing these risks requires not only reactive defenses but also proactive, adaptive, and intelligent security frameworks.This paper provides a technical deep dive into the cybersecurity challenges inherent in cloud-connected IoT systems and evaluates emerging innovations such as zero-trust architectures, blockchain-based identity management, edge AI for anomaly detection, homomorphic encryption, and postquantum cryptography.Through an analysis of real-world case studies, comparative models, and security performance evaluations, the study highlights both current gaps and future directions in IoT security.By synthesizing technological advancements with Securing the Cloud-Connected Future: A Technical Deep Dive into IoT Cybersecurity Challenges and Innovations https://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJCCRD 2 editor@iaeme.comregulatory and architectural considerations, this research contributes a comprehensive roadmap for securing the cloud-connected future of IoT.

Abstract The sensing of small molecules is important to a variety of fields and particularly to clinical diagnostics. Estriol is an important small chemical molecule, as it is one of three markers measured during mid‐gestation for the Down syndrome. Point‐of‐care testing of estriol will increase maternal compliance for aneuploidy mid‐gestation screening. A bioFET technology is a promising point‐of‐care platform. The meta‐nano‐channel (MNC) bioFET is employed with its tunable channel configuration to optimize the coupling between the electrostatics of the estriol‐receptor interactions and the electrodynamics of the conducting readout current. Also, the MNC bioFET receptor layer is composed of anti‐estriol antibodies to address the high structural similarity of estriol to other estrogens. Despite the small size and the electrical neutrality of estriol, real‐time is demonstrated, specific, and label‐free sensing of estriol in 0.5 µL of 1:100 diluted plasma with excellent linearity, sensitivity, dynamic range extending to ten orders of magnitude in estriol concentration and limit‐of‐detection of 1 fg mL−1. Extensive control and non‐specific measurements are reported including the response to other neutral members of the estrogen family.

The planarization process by chemical mechanical polishing supports both the front-end-of-line and back-end-of-line. Dedicated rules are set to support and enhance the process window. During design, dummies are inserted manually and by dedicated utilities for the same purpose. The third type of planarization is for the replaced metal gate integration first introduced by foundries at 28 nm technology with HK/MG. Dummies are inserted to support the planarization and increase the local density. Different dummy fill methods were used along the technology nodes. The insertion should take into consideration the tight alignment requirements of the tile to the fins, DP integration, voltage-aware design. In a CMP process, the wafer is pressed on a polymer-based pad and is polished by a slurry, that contains both active chemicals and abrasive particles. In general, the process of removing material from the wafer surface is based on a combination of mechanical energy induced from the polish head and abrasives and chemical reactions from the slurry.

This article reports on the high-temperature (HT) operation (25 °C–400 °C) and temperature sensing mechanism of a depletion-mode AlGaN/GaN metal–insulator–semiconductor (MIS) high-electron-mobility transistor (depletion mode (D-mode) AlGaN/GaN MIS-HEMT) in GaN on Si technology. Our measurements and simulations show that the high sensitivity of the device is governed by traps at the GaN-cap/Si <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">4</sub> interface and in the GaN buffer layer. At subthreshold operation, the device temperature sensitivity reaches 8.73%/K at a drain-to-source current ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${I}_{\mathrm{DS}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) of 10 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> /mm. This is similar to the values reported for silicon devices, but in a much wider temperature range and at much higher current densities.

Building energy, water and solid waste benchmarking and developing meaningful performance indicators can help government and building owners to make effective decisions on improving their buildings' efficiency. For this study, information on 120 Multi-Unit Residential Buildings (MURBs) has been provided. The study entails the following steps: performing energy (weather normalized using the Princeton Scorekeeping Method (PRISM)), water, and solid waste benchmarking for the 120 MURBs, developing meaningful performance indicators; determining performance ranking; and estimating different levels of savings (energy, water, solid waste, cost, and GHG emissions). The most appropriate performance indicator and the benchmarking range for energy, water, and solid waste are as follows, energy consumption normalized by square metre, 141-580 kWh/m

Conductive metal nitrides are widely used in the microelectronics industry as interconnects, thin film resistors, electrodes, and diffusion barriers. These films are commonly prepared by sputtering and chemical vapor deposition, which are suitable for planar geometries. However, conformal deposition onto 3D and complex structures requires the use of atomic layer deposition (ALD). In this work, we compare the electrical and structural properties of various metallic nitrides (namely, TiNx, ZrNx, HfNx, and TaNx) prepared by ALD from metalorganic precursor and H2/Ar plasma. Despite similar bulk resistivity values of these films, we find significant differences in their measured resistivity for the thin film (by ALD). TiNx and ZrNx show metallic behavior with a positive temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), whereas HfNx and TaNx show semiconducting behavior with negative TCR values. Microstructure and film chemistry of deposited films are investigated by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy, and the correlation between the electrical and structural parameters of the deposited films is discussed. It is shown that a high concentration of carbon contamination is related to smaller grain size and higher electrical resistivity. TiNx exhibits the lowest carbon contamination, largest degree of crystallinity and lowest resistivity (∼60 μΩ cm) highlighting its potential as ALD-grown metal. Other nitrides and their combinations can be used to tailor specific resistivity and TCR values for thin film resistor applications in 3D and complex geometries such as deep trenches. Overall, this study provides useful guidelines toward the development of ALD nitrides for use in the microelectronics industry.

Thin film resistors with near-zero temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) are key passive elements in analog integrated circuits (ICs). State-of-the-art near-zero TCR technology is based on sputtered compounds of Si, Cr, B, and C, which require annealing at temperatures higher than 500 °C, making it incompatible with back-end-of-the-line (BEOL) processes. We report here that near-zero TCR resistors can be obtained by atomic layer deposition (ALD) of TiN-AlN nano-laminates at BEOL-compatible deposition temperature. The resistivity and the TCR can be tuned by varying the ratio between AlN (insulating) and TiN (metallic) in the TiXAl1−XN thin film. The TCR changes from positive to negative as the AlN content is increased, allowing for optimization to zero TCR. The ALD method provides ultimate control of the thickness, composition ratio, coverage, and uniformity. Microstructure analysis shows that the film consists of metallic TiN crystallites embedded in the semiconducting TiyAl1−yN amorphous matrix, suggesting that the electrical behavior is similar to that of SiCr-based compounds. These results pave the way toward BEOL-compatible near-zero TCR thin film resistors, which can significantly reduce capacitance and minimize design complexity of passive analog IC components.

We study experimentally the effect of oxide removal on the sub-bandgap photodetection in silicon waveguides at the telecom wavelength regime. Depassivating the device allows for the enhancement of the quantum efficiency by about 2-3 times. Furthermore, the propagation loss within the device is significantly reduced by the oxide removal. Measuring the device 60 days after the depassivation shows slight differences. We provide a possible explanation for these observations. Clearly, passivation and depassivation play an essential role in the design and the implementation of such sub-bandgap photodetector devices for applications such as on-chip light monitoring.