A new test structure to specify accurately the position of gate oxide breakdown is proposed, which simply consists of a conventional polycrystalline Si gate MOS capacitor and Al dots array diagonally lined-up on the capacitor. Optical beam induced current microscope was used to discriminate the breakdown spot. Layout of the discriminated spot among the Al dot array accurately determined the breakdown position. A 5-nm-thick gate oxide breakdown spot determined by this method has been successfully investigated by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM). A series of site-specified XTEM studies reveal local melting of anode Si during the intrinsic dielectric breakdown. This test structure is practically useful for site-specified XTEM studies on process-induced degradation phenomena of thin gate oxides.

We address the issue of out-of-grammar (OOG) utterances in spoken dialogue systems by generating help messages. Help message generation for OOG utterances is a challenge because language understanding based on automatic speech recognition (ASR) of OOG utterances is usually erroneous; important words are often misrecognized or missing from such utterances. Our grammar verification method uses a weighted finite-state transducer, to accurately identify the grammar rule that the user intended to use for the utterance, even if important words are missing from the ASR results. We then use a ranking algorithm, RankBoost, to rank help message candidates in order of likely usefulness. Its features include the grammar verification results and the utterance history representing the user's experience.

A long-reach coexisting PON system (1G/10G-EPON, video, and TWDM-PON) that uses the Wavelength Selective-Asymmetrical optical SPlitter (WS-ASP) without any active devices like optical amplifiers is proposed. The proposal can take into account the subscriber distribution in an access network and provide specific services in specific areas by varying the splitting ratios and the branch structure in the optical splitter. Simulations confirm the key features of WS-ASP, its novel process for deriving the splitting-ratios and greater transmission distance than possible with symmetrical splitters. Experiments on a prototype system demonstrate how wavelengths can be assigned to specific areas and optical link budget enhancement. For 1G-EPON systems, the prototype system with splitting-ratio of 60% attains the optical link budget enhancement of 4.2dB compared with conventional symmetrical optical splitters. The same prototype offers the optical link budget enhancement of 4.0dB at the bit rate of 10G-EPON systems. The values measured in the experiment agree well with the simulation results with respect to the transmission distance.

This paper starts by describing the advantages of cascaded modulation, i.e., using multiple concatenated external modulators to modulate CW (Continuous Wave) light. Next, the paper examines computer simulations of the resulting modulated light waveform shapes and intermodulation distortion values to elucidate the basic modulation characteristics of a cascaded modulation scheme. Examples of applying cascaded modulation to a multi-channel optical signal transmission system are shown, and the characteristics are clarified by optical transmission experiments. For example, the dependency of the signal quality on the modulation depth values of each external modulator is clarified. Moreover, experiments show that cascaded modulation permits the remote insertion of local broadcast programs into wide area broadcast programs. Last, the paper shows that cascaded modulation offers better modulation properties than the conventional single modulation approach.

We propose a scheme by which Broadcast Satellite/Communication Satellite- radio frequency (BS/CS-RF) converted TV signals are transmitted over optical fiber, and also propose a simultaneous Frequency Modulation (FM) converted CATV and BS/CS-RF converted TV optical transmission system as one of its applications. To confirm the proposals, we demonstrate the simultaneous transport of FM converted CATV signals and BS/CS-RF converted TV signals over a single optical fiber. In the experiments, 40 carriers of AM-VSB CATV channels, 30 carriers of 64-QAM digital TV channels, 8 carriers of FM/TC8PSK BS-TV channels, and 12 carriers of QPSK CS-TV channels are simultaneously transmitted. For optical access network application, the practical transmission length of 15 km over 1.3 µm-zero-dispersion optical fiber can be achieved by using dispersion compensation fiber (DCF).