A new BiCMOS process based on a high-speed bipolar process with 0.5 µm emitter width has been developed using a bonded SOI substrate. Double polysilicon bipolar transistors with the trench isolation, shallow junctions and the pedestal collector implantation provide a high cut-off frequency of 27 GHz. Stress induced device degradation is carefully examined and a low stress trench isolation process is proposed.

A low-voltage operation and highly-reliable nonvoltatile semiconductor memory with a large capacity has been manufactured using 0.8-µm CMOS technology. This 3-volt, 1-Mbit, full-featured MONOS EEPROM has a chip size of 51.3 mm2 and a memory cell size of 23.1µm2. An asymmetric programming voltage method fully exploits the abilities of the MONOS device and provides 10-year data retention after 106 erase/write cycles. Because of its wide-margin circuit design, this EEPROM can also be operated at 5 volts. High-speed read out is provided by using the polycide word line and the differential sense amplifier with a MONOS dummy memory. New functions such as data protection with software and programming-end indication with a toggle bit are added, and chips are TSOP packaged for use in many kinds of portable equipment.

In this paper, we analyze high-Tc superconducting (HTS) microstrip antenna (MSA) using modified spectral domain moment method. Although it is assumed that the patch and the ground plane of the MSA are perfect electric conductors (PECs) in the conventional spectral domain method, we modify this method to compute the conduction loss of the HTS-MSA. In our analysis, the effect of the HTS film is introduced by the surface impedance which we can estimate by using the three fluid model and experimental results. This paper presents numerical results about the HTS-MSA, for example, the relations between the thickness of the substrate and the radiation efficiency, the temperature and the resonant frequency, and so forth. And we discuss the effective power range where the performance of the HTS-MSA is superior to that of the Cu-MSA.

Go-Back-N automatic repeat request (GBN ARQ) and Stop-and wait (SW) ARQ schemes are one of fundamental and widely used error control procedures for data communication and computer communication systems. The throughput and delay performances of these ARQ schemes have been analyzed for a random error channel, which could not applicable for a radio channel, for example. In this paper, considering the correlated, noisy channel, we derive the exact formula for the delay of a frame in GBN and SW ARQ schemes. First, the delay formula for the discrete time M[x]/G/1 queueing system with starter. Next, the virtual service time of a frame is found in terms of the decay factor of a two-state Markov chain. As a result, it is shown that the performance of the delay is improved with the larger decay factor.

This paper proposes and investigates an intelligent error-controlling scheme according to different importance of segmental information. In particular, the scheme is designed for facial images encoded by model-based coding that is a kind of intelligent compression coding. Intelligent communication systems regard the contents of information to be transmitted with extremely high compression and reliability. After highly efficient information compression by model-beaed coding, errors in the compressed information lead to severe semantic errors. The proposed scheme reduces semantic errors of information for the receiver. In this paper, we consider Action Unit (AU) as a segment of model-based coded facial image of human being and define the importance for each AU. According to the importance, an AU is encoded by an appropriated code among codes with different error-correcting capabilities. For encoding with different error controlling codes, we use three kinds of constructions to obtain unequal error protection (UEP) codes in this paper. One of them is the direct sum construction and the others are the proposed constructions which are based on joint and double coding. These UEP codes can have higher coderate than other UEP codes when minimum Hamming distance is small. By using these UEP codes, the proposed intelligent error-controlling scheme can protect information in segment in order to reduce semantic errors over a conventional error-controlling scheme in which information is uniformly protected by an error-correcting code.

A new recursive method for obtaining the mean waiting time in a polling system with general service order and gated service discipline is proposed. The analytical approach used to obtain the mean waiting time is via an imbedded Markov chain and a new recursive method is used to obtain the moments of pseudocycle time which are parameters in the formula for the mean waiting time. This method is computationally tractable, so the analytical results can cover a wide range of applications. Simulations are also conducted to verify the validity of the analysis.

We propose, for the first time, highly reliable flash-type EEPROM cell fabrication using in-situ multiple rapid thermal processing (RTP) technology. In this study, rapid thermal oxynitridation tunnel oxide (RTONO) film formations followed by in-situ arsenic (As)-doped floating-gate polysilicon growth by rapid thermal chemical vapor deposition (RTCVD) technologies are fully utilized. The results show that after 5104 program/erase (P/E) endurance cycles, the conventional cell shows 65% narrowing of the threshold voltage (Vt) window, whereas the RTONO cell indicates narrowing of less than 20%. A large number of nitrogen atoms (1020 atoms/cm3) are confirmed by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), pile up at the SiO2/Si interface and distribute into bulk SiO2. It is considered that in the RTONO film stable Si-N bonds are formed which minimize electron trap generation as well as the neutral defect density, resulting in lower Vt shifts in P/E stress. In addition, the RTONO film reduces the number of hydrogen atoms because of final N2O oxynitridation. The SIMS data shows that by the in-situ RTCVD process As atoms (91020 atoms/cm3) are incorporated uniformly into 1000--thick film. Moreover, the RTCVD polysilicon film indicates an extremely flat surface. The time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) characteristics of interpoly oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) film exhibited no defect-related breakdown and 5 times longer breakdown time as compared to phosphorus-doped polysilicon film. Therefore, the flash-EEPROM cell fabricated has good charge storing capability.

The throughput performance of a slotted, non-persistent Idle-Signal Casting Multiple Access (ICMA) protocol under the effects of various combinations of Rayleigh fading, lognormal shadowing, and spatial distribution of mobile users is studied. The opposing effects of propagation impairments on the performance of the protocol through simultaneously increasing the probability of receiver capture and attenuation of the received signal power level are demonstrated.

This paper describes a pipelining universal system of discrete time cellular neural networks (DTCNNs). The new relaxation-based algorithm which is called a Pipelining Gauss Seidel (PGS) method is used to solve the CNN state equations in pipelining. In the systolic system of N processor elements {PEi}, each PEi performs the convolusional computation (CC) of all cells and the preceding PEi-1 performs the CC of all cells taking precedence over it by the precedence interval number p. The expected maximum number of PE's for the speeding up is given by n/p where n means the number of cells. For its application, the encoding and decoding process of moving images is simulated.

Recently there has been considerable interest in coded modulation schemes that offer multiple levels of error protection. That is, constructions of (block or convolutional) modulation codes in which signal sequences associated with some message symbols are separated by a squared Euclidean distance that is larger than the minimum squared Euclidean distance (MSED) of the code. In this paper, the trellis structure of linear unequal-error-protection (LUEP) codes is analyzed. First, it is shown that LUEP codes have trellises that can be expressed as a direct product of trellises of subcodes or clouds. This particular trellis structure is a result of the cloud structure of LUEP codes in general. A direct consequence of this property of LUEP codes is that searching for trellises with parallel structure for a block modulation code may be useful not only in analyzing its structure and in simplifying its decoding, but also in determining its UEP capabilities. A basic 3-level 8-PSK block modulation code is analyzed under this new perspective, and shown to offer two levels of error protection. To illustrate the trellis structure of an LUEP code, we analyze a trellis diagram for an extended (64,24) BCH code, which is a two-level LUEP code. Furthermore, we introduce a family of LUEP codes based on the |||-construction, using Reed-Muller (RM) codes as component codes. LUEP codes in this family have the advantage of having a well known trellis structure. Their application in constructing LUEP-QPSK modulation codes is presented, and their error performance over an AWGN channel examined.

We propose a method which can construct LOTOS specifications of communication systems from temporal properties described in Extended branching time temporal logic (EBTL) in this paper. Description of LOTOS, one of Formal Description Techniques, is based on behaviors of systems so that LOTOS permits strict expression. However, it is difficult to express temporal properties explicitly. On the other hand, Temporal logic is based on properties of systems. Thus temporal logic permits direct expression of temporal properties which can be understood intuitively. Accordingly, temporal logic is more useful than FDTs on the first step of systems specification. This method is effective in this point of view. Specifications obtained using this method can have a structured style. When temporal properties are regarded as constraints about temporal order among actions of systems, those specification can have a constraint oriented style. This method is based on sequential composition of Labelled Transition Systems (LTSs) which are semantics of LOTOS. EBTL is also defined on LTSs. In general, many LTSs satisfy the same temporal property. To obtain such the minimal LTS, the standard form of LTSs corresponding to EBTL operators are defined. Those standard LTSs are mainly tailored to the field of communication protocol. We also show conditions that original temporal properties are preserved in case of sequential composition of standard LTSs. In addition, applying this method to the Abracadabra Protocol, we show that this method can construct specifications of concrete protocols effectively.

Ultrafast MR imaging (e.g., echo-planar imaging) acquires all the data within only several tens of milliseconds. This method, however, is affected by static magnetic field inhomogeneities and chemical shift; therefore, a high degree of field homogeneity and water and fat signal separation are required. However, it is practically impossible to obtain an homogeneous field within a subject even if in vivo shimming has been performed. In this paper, we describe a new ultrafast MR imaging method called Ultrafast Single-shot water and fat Separated Imaging (USSI) and a correction method for field inhomogeneities and chemical shift. The magnetic field distribution whthin the subject is measured before thd scan and used to obtain images without field inhomogeneity distortions. Computer simulation results have shown that USSI and the correction method can obtain water and fat separated images as real and imaginary parts, respectively, of a complex Fourier transform with a single-shot scan. Image quality is maintained in the presence of field inhomogeneities of several ppm similar to those occurring under practical imaging conditions. Limitations of the correction method are also discussed.

The byte error locating codes specify the byte location in which errors are occurred without indicating the precise location of erroneous bit positions. This type of codes is considered to be useful for fault isolation and reconfiguration in the fault-tolerant computer systems. In this paper, difference between the code function of error-location and that of error-correction/error-detection is clarified. With using the concepts of unidirectional byte distance, unordered byte number and ordered byte number, the necessary and sufficient conditions of the unidirectional byte error locating codes are demonstrated.

An annoying problem encountered in automatic seal imprint verification is that for seal imprints may have a lot of variations, even if they are all produced from a single seal. This paper proposes a new automatic seal imprint verification system which adds an imprint quality assessment function to our previous system in order to solve this problem, and also examines the verification performance of this system experimentally. This system consists of an imprint quality assessment process and a verification process. In the imprint quality assessment process, an examined imprint is first divided into partial regions. Each partial region is classified into one of three quality classes (good quality region, poor quality region, and background) on the basis of characteristics of its gray level histogram. In the verification process, only good quality partial regions of an examined imprint are verified with registered one. Finally, the examined imprint is classified as one of two types: a genuine and a forgery. However, as a result of quality assessment, if the partial regions classified as poor quality are too many, the examined imprint is classified as ambiguous" without verification processing. A major advantage of this verification system is that this system can verify seal imprints of various qualities efficiently and accurately. Computer experiments with real seal imprints were performed by using this system, previous system (without image quality assessment function) and document examiners of a bank. The results of these experiments show that this system is superior in the verification performance to our previous system, and has a similar verification performance to that of document examiners (i.e., the experimental results show the effectiveness of adding the image quality assessment function to a seal imprint verification system).

Recently, a lot of research works have been carried out regarding intelligent communication. If the final information sink is assumed as a human being, a communication channel can be used more effectively when encoders/decoders work "intelligently" or take into account of the semantics of information to be sent. We have been studying error-controlling systems based on different importance of segmental information. The system divides the information input into segments to which individual importance can be assigned. The segments are individually encoded by appropriate error-correcting codes (ECCs) which correspond to their importance among codes with different error-correcting capabilities. For the information that difference of the importance is systematically aligned, conventional UEP (unequal error protection) codes can be applied, but we treat the case that alignment of the importance of the information source is not systematically aligned. Since the system uses multiple ECCs with different (n,k,d) parameters, information regarding what length of the next codeword is required for decoding. We propose error controlling schemes using mulriple ECCs; the first scheme and the second scheme use the obvious codelength identifying information. In the second scheme, information bits are sorted so that segments with the same importance can be encoded by an ECC with the same error-correcting capability. The third scheme is a main proposal in this paper and uses Variable Capability Coding scheme (VCC) which uses some ECCs having different error-correcting capabilities and codelengths. A sequence encoded by the VCC is separable into appropriate segments without obvious codelength identifying information when the channel error probability is low. Subsequently, we evaluate these schemes by coderate when (1) error correcting capability (2) codelength identifying capability are the same. One of the feature of VCC is the capability of resuming from propagative errors because errors beyond the codelength identifying capability occur and the proper beginning of the codeword is lost in the decoder. We also evaluate this capability as (3) resynchronizing capability.

This papter proposes a new type of unidirectional error control codes which indicates the location of unidirectional errors clustered in b-bit length, i.e., unidirectional byte error in b (b2) bits. Single unidirectional b-bit byte error locating codes, called SUbEL codes, are first clarified using necessary and sufficient conditions, and then code construction algorithm is demonstrated. The lower bound on check bit length of the SUbEL codes is derived. Based on this, the proposed codes are shown to be very efficient. Using the code design concept presented for the SUbEL codes, it is demonstrated that generalized unidirectional byte error locating codes are easily constructed.

This paper describes highly parallel analog image coding and decoding by cellular neural networks (CNNs). The communication system in which the coder (C-) and decoder (D-) CNNs are embedded consists of a differential transmitter with an internal receiver model in the feedback loop. The C-CNN encodes the image through two cascaded techniques: structural compression and halftoning. The D-CNN decodes the received data through a reconstruction process, which includes a dynamic current distribution, so that the original input to the C-CNN can be recognized. The halftoning serves as a dynamic quantization to convert each pixel to a binary value depending on the neighboring values. We approach halftoning by the minimization of error energy between the original gray image and reconstructed halftone image, and the structural compression from the viewpoints of topological and regularization theories. All dynamics are described by CNN state equations. Both the proposed coding and decoding algorithms use only local image information in a space inveriant manner, therefore errors are distributed evenly and will not introduce the blocking effects found in DCT-based coding methods. In the future, the use of parallel inputs from on-chip photodetectors would allow direct dynamic quantization and compression of image sequences without the use of multiple bit analog-to-digital converters. To validate our theory, a simulation has been performed by using the relaxation method on an 150 frame image sequence. Each input image was 256256 pixels whth 8 bits per pixel. The simulated fixed compression rate, not including the Huffman coding, was about 1/16 with a PSNR of 31[dB]35[dB].

Linear lightwave networks (LLNs) are optical networks in which network nodes perform only linear operations on optical signals: power splitting, combining, and non-regenerative amplification. While previous efforts on LLNs assume only one fiber per link, we consider a multi-fiber linear lightwave network (M-LLN) architecture for telecommunications where switching exchanges are normally connected by multi-fiber cables. We propose a class of linear path (LP) allocation schemes for establishing optical paths in M-LLNs, and show that they have a better performance than those proposed for single-fiber LLNs. We show that M-LLNs can be implemented with commercially available components, and discuss the implementation issues in detail.

The techniques for imaging optically opaque region using an electromagnetic wave radar are being developed. One important application of these techniques is the detection of buried pipes and cables. The image quality of subsurface radar often becomes low because the electromagnetic waves are affected by the attenuation and inhomogeneity of soil. Hence, a method which improves the quality of the radar images has been required. The migration method is utilized in reflective seismic processing and is derived based on the solution of the wave equation represented in spatial frequency domain. It is classified into the F-K and the phase-shift (P-S) migration method. The former is derived on the assumption that propagation velocity of the wave is uniform in the soil while the latter is assumed that the propagation velocity is varying depending on the depth from the ground surface. The P-S method gives relatively good quality images but it requires very long computation time. In this paper, we propose the block migration method in which the F-K method is applied to the divided image blocks with local propagation velocity. In order to solve a problem concerning the connection between the contiguous blocks we present two approaches which are the processings using the overlapped regions and the Lapped Orthogonal Transform (LOT). Some experimental results point out that the block migration method has a good capability of improving the image quality and the processing time using LOT becomes one tenth in comparison with the P-S method.

The performance of multi-pulse pulse position modulation (MPPM) consisting of m slots and 2 pulses, denoted as (m, 2) MPPM, with imperfect slot synchronization is analyzed. The word error probability of (m, 2) MPPM in the presence of timing offset is analyzed, and the optimum symbol sets of (m, 2) MPPM minimizing the symbol error probability are assigned. When an unassigned symbol is detected, the receiver decodes the unassigned symbol as one of the assigned symbols having the highest probability of transition from the assigned symbol to the unassigned symbol. The bit error probability of (m, 2) MPPM in the presence of the timing offset is analyzed, and the bit error probability of (m, 2) MPPM is compared with that of PPM for the same transmission bandwidth and the same transmission rate. Moreover, the bit error probability of (m, 2) MPPM synchronized by a phase-locked loop (PLL) is also analyzed. It is shown that a word with two continuous pulses has better performance than a word with two separate pulses. It is also shown that when the timing offset occurs, and when the slot clock is synchronized by a PLL, (m, 2) MPPM performs better than PPM because (m, 2) MPPM has the optimum assigned symbols, and can decode detected words more correctly than PPM.