IEEE SOCC 2025: Student Paper Award and Presentation
Our paper on cryogenic forward body biasing was selected as one of 12 Student Paper Contest finalists and received first place at IEEE SOCC 2025.
In September 2025, I presented our paper, Cryogenic Characterization and Compact Modeling of Forward Body-Bias Effects in 180 nm Bulk CMOS Transistors, at the 38th IEEE International System-on-Chip Conference (SOCC 2025) in Dubai, UAE. The paper was selected as one of 12 finalists in the Student Paper Contest and received first place.
Research overview
At cryogenic temperatures, the threshold voltage of bulk CMOS transistors increases, which reduces circuit speed at a given supply voltage. We investigated forward body biasing as a way to compensate for this change.
The work included:
- measurements of 180 nm bulk CMOS transistors at 7 K;
- calibration of a BSIM4-based compact model for cryogenic body-bias behavior; and
- ring-oscillator simulations using the calibrated model.
The simulations showed that forward body biasing recovered more than 40% of the oscillation-frequency loss at 7 K. When combined with supply-voltage scaling, the power-delay product was reduced by 34%.
