La miniaturisation des circuits intégrés numériques tend à augmenter leur sensibilité aux radiations. Ainsi le rayonnement naturel peut induire des événements singuliers et porter atteinte à la fiabilité des circuits.Cette thèse porte sur la modélisation des mécanismes à l'origine de ces événements singuliers et sur le développement de solutions de durcissement par conception permettant de limiter l'impact des radiations sur le taux d'erreur.Dans une première partie, nous avons notamment développé une approche dénommée RWDD (Random-Walk Drift- Diffusion) modélisant le transport et la collection de charges au sein d'un circuit, sur la base d'équations physiques sans paramètre d'ajustement. Ce modèle particulaire et sa résolution numérique transitoire permettent de coupler le transport des charges avec un simulateur circuit, tenant ainsi compte de l'évolution temporelle des champs électriques dans la structure. Le modèle RWDD a été intégré avec succès dans une plateforme de simulation capable d'estimer la réponse d'un circuit suite à l'impact d'une particule ionisante.Dans une seconde partie, des solutions de durcissement permettant de limiter l'impact des radiations sur la fiabilité des circuits ont été développées. A l'échelle des cellules élémentaires, de nouvelles bascules robustes aux radiations ont été proposées, en limitant leur impact les performances. Au niveau système, une méthodologie de duplication de l'arbre d'horloge a été développée. Enfin, un flot de triplication a été conçu pour les systèmes dont la fiabilité est critique. L'ensemble de ces solutions a été implémenté en technologie 65 nm et UTBB-FDSOI 28 nm et leur efficacité vérifiée expérimentalement. / The extreme technology scaling of digital circuits leads to increase their sensitivity to ionizing radiation, whether in spatial or terrestrial environments. Natural radiation can now induce single event effects in deca-nanometer circuits and impact their reliability.This thesis focuses on the modeling of single event mechanisms and the development of hardening by design solutions that mitigate radiation threat on the circuit error rate.In a first part of this work, we have developed a physical model for both the transport and collection of radiation-induced charges in a biased circuit, derived from pure physics-based equations without any fitting parameter. This model is called Random-Walk Drift-Diffusion (RWDD). This particle-level model and its numerical transient solving allows the coupling of the charge collection process with a circuit simulator, taking into account the time variations of the electrical fields in the structure. The RWDD model is able to simulate the behavior of a circuit following a radiation impact, independently of the implemented function and the considered technology.In a second part of our work, hardening solutions that limit radiation impacts on circuit reliability have been developed. At elementary cell level, new radiation-hardened latch architectures have been proposed, with a limited impact on performances. At system level, a clock tree duplication methodology has been proposed, leaning on specific latches. Finally, a triplication flow has been design for critical applications. All these solutions have been implemented in 65 nm and UTBB-FDSOI 28nm technologies and radiation test have been performed to measure their hardening efficiency.

A arquitetura contemporânea vive hoje uma arriscada fusão com a publicidade e a indústria do entretenimento. Tal convergência exige uma expansão da forma arquitetônica até o limite de sua materialidade. Em busca da renda informacional máxima, característica do universo das marcas mundiais, constatamos uma inversão de seus antigos fundamentos construtivos e produtivos, subvertidos por um jogo de volumes e efeitos para além de qualquer regra ou limitação. Aliado às técnicas digitais de projeto e à reorganização dos canteiros de obra, esse novo fetichismo da forma, análogo à autonomização do poder e da riqueza abstrata no capitalismo contemporâneo, define a nova condição da arquitetura. Estudaremos essa condição tomando como fio condutor projetos dos arquitetos mais consagrados pelo atual sistema de distinção e premiação. No propósito de melhor identificar esta arquitetura da exceção, investigamos nas obras emblemáticas dos últimos vinte anos um conjunto de particularidades e recorrências, que a nosso ver define a economia política da exceção e da regra no mundo atual. Principiamos pela análise do emaranhado de significados que sustentam hoje a forma construída, passando em seguida à esfera da produção das novas modalidades de projeto digital às transformações no canteiro de obras para, ao fim, examinar como ocorrem a circulação (com a proliferação de imagens midiáticas), o consumo (especialmente por meio da indústria do turismo) e a distribuição de riquezas que essa arquitetura favorece. O que se verifica é uma produção sobredeterminada pela busca da renda monopolista derivada das propriedades intrínsecas da forma, em seu novo estágio de concepção e realização. Esperamos, assim, mostrar como a arquitetura de ponta tornou-se uma das manifestações mais expressivas da acumulação flexível e da renda das marcas sob a dominância da lógica das finanças. / Contemporary architecture is dangerously enmeshed with the entertainment industry and the field of advertising. This meshing has pushed architectural form to the limits of materiality. Architecture today searches for maximum informational rent, a process typical of global product branding; through this process, established building and production principles are subverted by a play of volumes and effects beyond any rule or limitation. Relying on digital design technologies and the reorganization of the building site, this new fetishism of form, analogous to the autonomization of power and abstract wealth in contemporary capitalism, defines the new condition of architecture. We study this condition by focusing on the work of those architects who are most successful in the current system of professional recognition and rewards. So as to identify this architecture of exception more precisely, we analyze emblematic works from the last twenty years; in these works we identify a set of particularities and recurrent issues that define the political economy of exception and rule today. We begin by analyzing the tangle of meanings associated with contemporary built form. We then move on to the sphere of production from the new technologies of digital design to transformations in the building site. Finally, we examine three processes as they relate to contemporary architecture: circulation (through the proliferation of images in the media), consumption (in particular through the tourist industry), and distribution of wealth. Our investigation reveals that architectural production, in its new stage of conception and realization, is overdetermined by the search for monopoly rent through intrinsic properties of form. We argue that cutting-edge architecture has become one of the most expressive manifestations of flexible accumulation and brand revenue under the prevailing logic of financial capitalism.

A arquitetura contemporânea vive hoje uma arriscada fusão com a publicidade e a indústria do entretenimento. Tal convergência exige uma expansão da forma arquitetônica até o limite de sua materialidade. Em busca da renda informacional máxima, característica do universo das marcas mundiais, constatamos uma inversão de seus antigos fundamentos construtivos e produtivos, subvertidos por um jogo de volumes e efeitos para além de qualquer regra ou limitação. Aliado às técnicas digitais de projeto e à reorganização dos canteiros de obra, esse novo fetichismo da forma, análogo à autonomização do poder e da riqueza abstrata no capitalismo contemporâneo, define a nova condição da arquitetura. Estudaremos essa condição tomando como fio condutor projetos dos arquitetos mais consagrados pelo atual sistema de distinção e premiação. No propósito de melhor identificar esta arquitetura da exceção, investigamos nas obras emblemáticas dos últimos vinte anos um conjunto de particularidades e recorrências, que a nosso ver define a economia política da exceção e da regra no mundo atual. Principiamos pela análise do emaranhado de significados que sustentam hoje a forma construída, passando em seguida à esfera da produção das novas modalidades de projeto digital às transformações no canteiro de obras para, ao fim, examinar como ocorrem a circulação (com a proliferação de imagens midiáticas), o consumo (especialmente por meio da indústria do turismo) e a distribuição de riquezas que essa arquitetura favorece. O que se verifica é uma produção sobredeterminada pela busca da renda monopolista derivada das propriedades intrínsecas da forma, em seu novo estágio de concepção e realização. Esperamos, assim, mostrar como a arquitetura de ponta tornou-se uma das manifestações mais expressivas da acumulação flexível e da renda das marcas sob a dominância da lógica das finanças. / Contemporary architecture is dangerously enmeshed with the entertainment industry and the field of advertising. This meshing has pushed architectural form to the limits of materiality. Architecture today searches for maximum informational rent, a process typical of global product branding; through this process, established building and production principles are subverted by a play of volumes and effects beyond any rule or limitation. Relying on digital design technologies and the reorganization of the building site, this new fetishism of form, analogous to the autonomization of power and abstract wealth in contemporary capitalism, defines the new condition of architecture. We study this condition by focusing on the work of those architects who are most successful in the current system of professional recognition and rewards. So as to identify this architecture of exception more precisely, we analyze emblematic works from the last twenty years; in these works we identify a set of particularities and recurrent issues that define the political economy of exception and rule today. We begin by analyzing the tangle of meanings associated with contemporary built form. We then move on to the sphere of production from the new technologies of digital design to transformations in the building site. Finally, we examine three processes as they relate to contemporary architecture: circulation (through the proliferation of images in the media), consumption (in particular through the tourist industry), and distribution of wealth. Our investigation reveals that architectural production, in its new stage of conception and realization, is overdetermined by the search for monopoly rent through intrinsic properties of form. We argue that cutting-edge architecture has become one of the most expressive manifestations of flexible accumulation and brand revenue under the prevailing logic of financial capitalism.

Design tools of ever increasing power are required to keep pace with technological improvements in chip production. Chip capacities continually increase meaning that designs previously unfeasible become feasible. These designs are typically more complex and larger than their predecessors. Usually, the time available to a designer does not increase at the same rate. A designer is therefore tasked with a greater work load and a very limited amount of time. Design tools and automation are therefore necessary to compensate for this situation. The limiting characteristics of a design tool are its ease of use, the range of systems it can be applied to, and the quality of results obtained. Should a design tool lack in any of these three areas it will be of limited benefit. This work addresses only the quality of results obtained. While the other two are essential, they are unlikely to be relevant to a design tool if that tool is not adopted because the results were of insufficient quality. A design framework is proposed for the digital design of systems on FPGAs. This framework sets out the processes for producing a system specification of the design problem encountered, and then gives a procedure for processing that specification to produce a set of pareto-optimal designs in VHDL to implement the specification. The actual mapping of a specification to a VHDL design, is held in a mapping string that allows optimisation to be separated from other stages in the design framework. A new genetic algorithm, the Adaptive Speciation Genetic Algorithm (ASGA), is proposed featuring a customised selection, crossover, and mutation operator. This algorithm is assessed against other genetic algorithms from the literature on a knapsack problem and three digital design case studies. These case studies were the design of a parameter estimation circuit for a Self-Tuning Regulator (STR), the design of a Sum-of-Absolute- Difference (SAD) function for video motion detection problems, and the design of a five state Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Results indicated that ASGA had good performance in all these problems. Through tests against other genetic algorithms, it was found the ASGA’s selection operator was inferior in some cases to that of the Pareto Envelope Selection Algorithm (PESA) by 3 Corne et al. By incorporating the selection operator of PESA performance improvements could be gained in the EKF problem.

Design tools of ever increasing power are required to keep pace with technological improvements in chip production. Chip capacities continually increase meaning that designs previously unfeasible become feasible. These designs are typically more complex and larger than their predecessors. Usually, the time available to a designer does not increase at the same rate. A designer is therefore tasked with a greater work load and a very limited amount of time. Design tools and automation are therefore necessary to compensate for this situation. The limiting characteristics of a design tool are its ease of use, the range of systems it can be applied to, and the quality of results obtained. Should a design tool lack in any of these three areas it will be of limited benefit. This work addresses only the quality of results obtained. While the other two are essential, they are unlikely to be relevant to a design tool if that tool is not adopted because the results were of insufficient quality. A design framework is proposed for the digital design of systems on FPGAs. This framework sets out the processes for producing a system specification of the design problem encountered, and then gives a procedure for processing that specification to produce a set of pareto-optimal designs in VHDL to implement the specification. The actual mapping of a specification to a VHDL design, is held in a mapping string that allows optimisation to be separated from other stages in the design framework. A new genetic algorithm, the Adaptive Speciation Genetic Algorithm (ASGA), is proposed featuring a customised selection, crossover, and mutation operator. This algorithm is assessed against other genetic algorithms from the literature on a knapsack problem and three digital design case studies. These case studies were the design of a parameter estimation circuit for a Self-Tuning Regulator (STR), the design of a Sum-of-Absolute- Difference (SAD) function for video motion detection problems, and the design of a five state Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Results indicated that ASGA had good performance in all these problems. Through tests against other genetic algorithms, it was found the ASGA’s selection operator was inferior in some cases to that of the Pareto Envelope Selection Algorithm (PESA) by 3 Corne et al. By incorporating the selection operator of PESA performance improvements could be gained in the EKF problem.

Design tools of ever increasing power are required to keep pace with technological improvements in chip production. Chip capacities continually increase meaning that designs previously unfeasible become feasible. These designs are typically more complex and larger than their predecessors. Usually, the time available to a designer does not increase at the same rate. A designer is therefore tasked with a greater work load and a very limited amount of time. Design tools and automation are therefore necessary to compensate for this situation. The limiting characteristics of a design tool are its ease of use, the range of systems it can be applied to, and the quality of results obtained. Should a design tool lack in any of these three areas it will be of limited benefit. This work addresses only the quality of results obtained. While the other two are essential, they are unlikely to be relevant to a design tool if that tool is not adopted because the results were of insufficient quality. A design framework is proposed for the digital design of systems on FPGAs. This framework sets out the processes for producing a system specification of the design problem encountered, and then gives a procedure for processing that specification to produce a set of pareto-optimal designs in VHDL to implement the specification. The actual mapping of a specification to a VHDL design, is held in a mapping string that allows optimisation to be separated from other stages in the design framework. A new genetic algorithm, the Adaptive Speciation Genetic Algorithm (ASGA), is proposed featuring a customised selection, crossover, and mutation operator. This algorithm is assessed against other genetic algorithms from the literature on a knapsack problem and three digital design case studies. These case studies were the design of a parameter estimation circuit for a Self-Tuning Regulator (STR), the design of a Sum-of-Absolute- Difference (SAD) function for video motion detection problems, and the design of a five state Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Results indicated that ASGA had good performance in all these problems. Through tests against other genetic algorithms, it was found the ASGA’s selection operator was inferior in some cases to that of the Pareto Envelope Selection Algorithm (PESA) by 3 Corne et al. By incorporating the selection operator of PESA performance improvements could be gained in the EKF problem.

Design tools of ever increasing power are required to keep pace with technological improvements in chip production. Chip capacities continually increase meaning that designs previously unfeasible become feasible. These designs are typically more complex and larger than their predecessors. Usually, the time available to a designer does not increase at the same rate. A designer is therefore tasked with a greater work load and a very limited amount of time. Design tools and automation are therefore necessary to compensate for this situation. The limiting characteristics of a design tool are its ease of use, the range of systems it can be applied to, and the quality of results obtained. Should a design tool lack in any of these three areas it will be of limited benefit. This work addresses only the quality of results obtained. While the other two are essential, they are unlikely to be relevant to a design tool if that tool is not adopted because the results were of insufficient quality. A design framework is proposed for the digital design of systems on FPGAs. This framework sets out the processes for producing a system specification of the design problem encountered, and then gives a procedure for processing that specification to produce a set of pareto-optimal designs in VHDL to implement the specification. The actual mapping of a specification to a VHDL design, is held in a mapping string that allows optimisation to be separated from other stages in the design framework. A new genetic algorithm, the Adaptive Speciation Genetic Algorithm (ASGA), is proposed featuring a customised selection, crossover, and mutation operator. This algorithm is assessed against other genetic algorithms from the literature on a knapsack problem and three digital design case studies. These case studies were the design of a parameter estimation circuit for a Self-Tuning Regulator (STR), the design of a Sum-of-Absolute- Difference (SAD) function for video motion detection problems, and the design of a five state Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Results indicated that ASGA had good performance in all these problems. Through tests against other genetic algorithms, it was found the ASGA’s selection operator was inferior in some cases to that of the Pareto Envelope Selection Algorithm (PESA) by 3 Corne et al. By incorporating the selection operator of PESA performance improvements could be gained in the EKF problem.

While FPGAs provide flexibility for performing high performance DSP functions, they consume a significant amount of power. Often, a large portion of the dynamic power is wasted on unproductive signal glitches. Reducing glitching reduces dynamic energy consumption. In this study, retiming is used to reduce the unproductive energy wasted in signal glitches. Retiming can reduce energy by up to 92%. Evaluating energy consumption is an important part of energy reduction. In this work, an activity rate-based power estimation tool is introduced to provide FPGA architecture independent energy estimations at the gate level. This tool can accurately estimate power consumption to within 13% on average. This activation rate-based tool and retiming are combined in a single algorithm to reduce energy consumption of FPGA designs at the gate level. In this work, an energy evaluation metric called energy area delay is used to weigh the energy reduction and clock rate improvements gained from retiming against the area and latency costs. For a set of benchmark designs, the algorithm that combines retiming and the activation rate-based power estimator reduces power on average by 40% and improves clock rate by 54% for an average 1.1x area cost and a 1.5x latency increase.

The processors and digital circuits designed today contain billions of transistors on a small piece of silicon. As devices are becoming smaller, slimmer, faster, and more efficient, the transistors also have to keep up with the demands and needs of the daily user. Unfortunately, the CMOS technology has reached its limit and cannot be used to scale down due to the transistor's breakdown caused by short channel effects. An alternative solution to this is the FinFET transistor technology, where the gate of the transistor is a three dimensional fin that surrounds the transistor and prevents the breakdown caused by scaling and short channel effects. FinFET devices are reported to have excellent control over short channel effects, high On/Off Ratio, extremely low gate leakage current and relative immunization over gate edge line roughness. Sub 20 nm node size is perceived to be the limit of scaling the CMOS transistors, but FinFETs can be scaled down further because of its unique design. Due to these advantages, the VLSI industry has now shifted to FinFET in implementation of their designs. However, these transistors have not been completely opened to academia. Analyzing and observing the effects of these devices can be pivotal in gaining an in-depth understanding of them. This thesis explores the implementation of FinFETs using a standard cell library designed using these transistors. The FinFET package file used to design these cells is a 15nm FinFET technology file developed by NCSU in collaboration with Cadence and Mentor Graphics. Post design, the cells were characterized, the results were analyzed and compared with cells designed using CMOS transistors at different node sizes to understand and extrapolate conclusions on FinFET devices.

Ces dix dernières années, plusieurs centaines de web-documentaires ont été publiés sur Internet. Si ce format émergent connaît un succès d’estime important auprès des professionnels des médias, son design ne va pas de soi. Dès lors, comment les théories du cinéma documentaire et des médias informatisés éclairent-elles les métamorphoses médiatiques caractéristiques de ces « nouvelles écritures » ? Quels sont les enjeux ontologico-esthétiques et communicationnels d’un documentaire interactif ? Quel rôle et quel pouvoir l’instance d’énonciation doit-elle octroyer à un « spectateur-actant » ? Afin de répondre à ces questions, un état des lieux de la production francophone permet tout d’abord d’établir une typologie des différents modes d’interaction. Ensuite, une approche ethnographique, fondée sur une observation participante du design de B4, fenêtres sur tour, au sein de France Télévisions, interroge l’ensemble des controverses socio-techniques et sémio-pragmatiques qui jalonnent les six mois de conception. Une analyse par théorisation ancrée met en exergue les différentes dimensions d’un Utilisateur Modèle négociées, de manière plus ou moins implicite, par l’ensemble des acteurs. Enfin, les usages supposés du web-documentaire sont confrontés à une évaluation de l’expérience utilisateur. Les jonctions et disjonctions entre les figures d’un Utilisateur Modèle, Statistique et Empirique contribuent in fine à mieux appréhender le design de ce format hybride et non stabilisé. / In the last few years, several hundred interactive documentaries (i-docs) have been published on the Internet. If many media professionals prize the i-doc format, its design remains a challenging feat. Given this, what light do film documentary theories and digital media shed on the mediated metamorphoses that typify the “New Writings” movement? What are the communicational and ontologico-aesthetic issues of i-docs? What role and what power should an instance of enunciation accord to the “actant-spectator”?In response to these questions, our study of the current state of the French-speaking production scene brought to the fore a typology of interaction modes. Following this observation, an ethnographic approach, based on a participant observation method, questioned the overall sociotechnical and semio-graphic issues that marked the six-month design process of an i-doc called B4, fenêtres sur tour for the State-run France Télévisions. A Grounded Theory analysis of the data highlighted the different dimensions of a more or less implicit negotiated Model User used by the actors. Finally, the purported uses of i-docs were questioned in evaluating users’ experience. The junctions and disjunctions involving the interaction of the User, Statistical and Empirical Models contributed to a better grasp of the designing of the hybrid and non-stabilised i-doc format.