R&D projects

Selection of our current and past projects

We are an innovative company constantly trying to improve and acquire cutting-edge knowledge in anticipation or in support of our customers’ projects. This results in regular investment in research activities and exchange with other companies or laboratories doing research.

Here you will find a selection of our current and past projects, some of which are publicly funded.

Case studies

We support multiple projects in the demanding medical, industrial, automotive, IoT, and aeronautics space & defence sectors

Unlock the potential of ASICs

XT4SENS

Sensor Interfacing : Bio-sensors & MEMS

(11/2022 – 11/2025)

Objectives

  • Strengthen the partnership with X-FAB (IC’Alps has been an X-Chain member since 2019) by developing cells or functions in their CMOS technology nodes
  • Maintain a level of skills and expertise in ASIC design as close as possible to manufacturing capacity in Europe, in order to be competitive on a global scale
  • Expand on technology nodes to meet application requirements: management of high voltage up to 100 V to drive ultrasound transducers or to integrate several functions on the same circuit (memory + digital control or processors + analog front-end)
XT4SENS

Our contribution

  • Developing technological components in XT018 technology
  • Accelerating design migration to XT018, and potentially XT011 technologies developing an in-house tool

Our partners

Thesis support

Ultra-low-power ADC Hybrid Architecture for medical applications

(10/2021 – 10/2024)

- Objectives

The collaboration with the Milan-Bicocca university allows an efficient work up to :

  • Perform a study of possible specification for Ultra-low-power ADC for medical application and develop a fine analysis and modelling of the different ADC architectures and parameters in the acquisition chain that influence the power consumption like noise constraints, input signal dynamic, bandwidth, timing convergence, operating frequency and voltage supply
  • Identify the most appropriate architecture or combination of ADC (SAR, delta-sigma, hybrid…), to select the technology node and to design a prototype, implementing different technics for reducing the power consumption while maintaining the noise sensitivity level and performance

- Résult

Key performances

  • Effective resolution: 18 bits
  • Dynamic range: 110 dB, 1kHz bandwidth
  • Nominal Power Consumption: 250 µW under 1.2V power supply

 

The demo was presented at Electronica 24. Presentation video coming soon for more information on this subject

- Our partners

Designing secured circuits with very low power consumption: an alternative based on asynchronous technology

(08/2018 – Q4’2020)

Objectives

Advanced research around asynchronous serving true random number generation, as well as ultra-low power unclonable function as unique identifier for integrated circuit.

The close collaboration with the TIMA lab allows an efficient work up to the design of:

  • Self-timed ring based true number random generator with increased power efficiency < 10pJ/bit), high bit rate (> 400 Mbit/s in 55 nm CMOS technology), and stochastic model in line with AIS 31 (BSI standard).
  • Self-timed ring based physical unclonable function with guaranteed randomness and uniqueness, easy migration (based on standard cells), a real integrated circuit fingerprint x1000 faster than classical ROPUF.

Our contribution

A patent registered in 01/2020, demonstration on FPGA (Xilinx Zynq7000, Altera CycloneV) and on silicon (in ST 65 nm, in coming months on 22/28 nm advanced nodes)

Our partners

Belicim

A platform based on specific integrated circuits (ASIC) optimized (consumption, size, security, ISO13485:2016) for Active Implantable Medical Devices (AIMD)

(01/2020 – 03/2022)

BELICIM project

Objectives

The BELICIM project takes place in the context of the worldwide development of active implantable medical devices (AIMD) in order to treat the problems linked to the aging of the population: chronic diseases, acute pathologies, improvement of the quality of life. It is a major societal issue, leveraging on the miniaturization and digitization of medical devices and associated services.

Our contribution

The heart of the BELICIM project consists in developing a platform based on integrated circuits (sensor interface, calculation, RF communication, power supply) increasing the performance of the implants, reducing costs and development time and meeting the requirements of ISO 13485:2016 medical certification.

Project type

PSPC-Régions

Our partners

Chair Deep Care

Patient Empowerment via a Participatory Health Project

Since 07/2019

Objectives

To contribute to the future of medicine via the 4P vision (Predictive, Personalized, Preemptive, Participative).
This program is part of the MIAI-Grenoble-Alpes‘s health axis (Multipdisciplinary Institute In Artificial Intelligence).

Our partners

MyHeartSentinel

A digital stethoscope implanted in the upper border of the stomach. (07/2018 – 07/2019)
Turnkey ASIC Design & Supply

Objectives

To demonstrate the interest of a tele-cardiology solution to reduce re-hospitalizations for relapsing heart failure. This solution is based on multimodal data acquired by a digital stethoscope implanted in the stomach, and it enables to prevent acute cardiac decompensations by simply early therapeutic adaptation.

Our contribution

Our role has been to specify and provide an architecture of the custom integrated circuit (ASIC) matching with challenges of miniaturization, low consumption and high reliability.

Project type

FEDER project

Our partners

Axus

Development of Intellectual Property (IP) blocks for ASIC in Ultra-Sound imagery.

(07/2018 – 07/2020)

Objectives

To support System Houses in the design of ultrasounds solutions by using a silicon proven and ISO 13845:2016 certified libraries of analog and digital functions dedicated to reception/transmission of ultrasound signals.

Our contribution

We have designed a complete library of mixed-signal functions ready to be integrated in ASIC (with silicon results on reference design). The achieved performances are compliant with ultrasound application requirements and in particular with medical applications.

Project type

Internal R&D project with the support of the BPI

Our partners

Turnkey ASIC Design & Supply

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