Academic Projects
Master’s Thesis:
Modeling and Simulation of Copper Surface Morphology during Electropolishing.
Thesis Committee: Dr. Stanko R. Brankovic (Advisor & Chair), Dr. Dmitri Litvinov, Dr. Francisco Robles-Hernandez. ‘Electrochemical Nanofabrication and Nanomaterials Synthesis Lab’ at University of Houston which partners with ‘University of Houston Nanofabrication Facility’.
Electropolishing has been continuously studied and used for various purposes in research and industry for many years and has found new interest in Semiconductor Processing. Electropolishing combined with CMP is predicted to be the most widely used planarization technique in the coming years. This research helps our understanding on how the copper surface morphology evolves during electropolishing.
The fundamental concept and mathematical description of an ideal electropolishing process have been described by Carl Wagner’s Theory of Electropolishing. However, the kinetic surface smoothening during electropolishing is still not well understood. The concept of scaling analysis for describing the kinetic roughening of the surface during the non-equilibrium deposition or erosion processes is already established. Most of the systems where the surface can be represented as self-affined fractal geometry can be described by normal scaling law.
The electropolishing can be simulated in the same way as that of erosion process through normal scaling laws. Brankovic et al. has shown a unique concept of combining scaling laws with Wagner’s Electropolishing theory to predict the surface morphology evolution of Cu during electropolishing.
Academic Projects:
– Modeling of Electron Beam Lithography system for multi-pass and gray scale imaging using MATLAB.
– Modeling of Optical Lithography system using MATLAB to study the relation between pitch, exposure, and feature size.
– Modeling and simulation of one of the legs of silicon microrobot on COMSOL Multiphysics for MEMS.
– Design and simulation of “4 bit NAND Full Adder” using CALP and PSPICE.
– Design, simulation and demonstration of “Numerical Score Prediction Game System” with DE2 board, Keypad, 7-segment display and triggers using SILOS and QUARTUS.
Undergraduate Project:
Development of a model with Micro-controller for “GPS Based Collision Mitigation and Vehicle Guidance”.
One of the major challenges in designing intelligent vehicles capable of being tracked and monitored is reliable global positioning system (GPS) navigation. This is available now with the help of satellites we have around the globe. This remote monitoring and guidance is available at any part of the earth making it the most reliable source of guidance and tracking system. RS232 interface connects the GPS system to the main control computer through which various parameters can monitored and signals can be sent across.
This project is to demonstrate the various parameters that can be monitored in a vehicle using GPS, which can be implemented in the real time for higher efficiency. This project is done with the help of PIC microcontroller (PIC16F877) as the controlling unit and the vehicle is driven using stepper motors. The signals are transmitted to the computer to monitor and it is interfaced with the computer using MAX232 and it is represented using visual basic.