This paper presents an error diagnosis technique for incremental synthesis, called EXLLS (Extended X-algorithm for LUT-based circuit model based on Location sets to rectify Subcircuits), which rectifies five or more functional errors in the whole circuit based on location sets to rectify subcircuits. Conventional error diagnosis technique, called EXLIT, tries to rectify five or more functional errors based on incremental rectification for subcircuits. However, the solution depends on the selection and the order of modifications on subcircuits, which increases the number of locations to be changed. To overcome this problem, we propose EXLLS based on location sets to rectify subcircuits, which obtains two or more solutions by separating i) extraction of location sets to be rectified, and ii) rectification for the whole circuit based on the location sets. Thereby EXLLS can rectify five or more errors with fewer locations to change. Experimental results have shown that EXLLS reduces increase in the number of locations to be rectified with conventional technique by 90.1%.

In recent VLSI systems, signal propagation delays are requested to achieve the specifications with very high accuracy. In order to meet the specifications, the routing of a net often needs to be detoured in order to increase the routing delay. A routing method should utilize a routing area with obstacles as much as possible in order to realize the specifications of nets simultaneously. In this paper, a fast longer path algorithm that generates a path of a net in routing grid so that the length is increased as much as possible is proposed. In the proposed algorithm, an upper bound for the length in which the structure of a routing area is taken into account is used. Experiments show that our algorithm utilizes a routing area with obstacles efficiently.

Objective assessment of image and video quality should be based on a correct understanding of subjective assessment by human observers. Previous models have incorporated the mechanisms of early visual processing in image quality metrics, enabling us to evaluate the visibility of errors from the original images. However, to understand how human observers perceive image quality, one should also consider higher stages of visual processing where perception is established. In higher stages, the visual system presumably represents a visual scene as a collection of meaningful components such as objects and events. Our recent psychophysical studies suggest two principles related to this level of processing. First, the human visual system integrates shape and color signals along perceived motion trajectories in order to improve visibility of the shape and color of moving objects. Second, the human visual system estimates surface reflectance properties like glossiness using simple image statistics rather than by inverse computation of image formation optics. Although the underlying neural mechanisms are still under investigation, these computational principles are potentially useful for the development of effective image processing technologies and for quality assessment. Ideally, if a model can specify how a given image is transformed into high-level scene representations in the human brain, it would predict many aspects of subjective image quality, including fidelity and naturalness.

Image quality of halftone print is significantly influenced by optical characteristics of paper. Light scattering in paper produces optical dot gain, which has a significant influence on the tone and color reproductions of halftone print. The light scattering can be quantified by the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) of paper. Several methods have been proposed to measure the MTF of paper. However, these methods have problems in efficiency or accuracy in the measurement. In this article, a new method is proposed to measure the MTF of paper efficiently and accurately, and the dot gain effect on halftone print is analyzed. The MTF is calculated from the ratio in spatial frequency domain between the responses of incident pencil light to paper and the perfect specular reflector. Since the spatial frequency characteristic of input pencil light can be obtained from the response of perfect specular reflector, it does not need to produce the input illuminant having "ideal" impulse characteristic. Our method is experimentally efficient since only two images need to be measured. Besides it can measure accurately since the data can be approximated by the conventional MTF model. Next, we predict the reflectance distribution of halftone print using the measured MTF in microscopy in order to analyze the dot gain effect since it can clearly be observed in halftone micro-structure. Finally, a simulation is carried out to remove the light scattering effect from the predicted image. Since the simulated image is not affected by the optical dot gain, it can be applied to analyze the real dot coverage.

In this paper, a new heuristic algorithm is proposed to optimize the power domain clustering in controlling-value-based (CV-based) power gating technology. In this algorithm, both the switching activity of sleep signals (p) and the overall numbers of sleep gates (gate count, N) are considered, and the sum of the product of p and N is optimized. The algorithm effectively exerts the total power reduction obtained from the CV-based power gating. Even when the maximum depth is kept to be the same, the proposed algorithm can still achieve power reduction approximately 10% more than that of the prior algorithms. Furthermore, detailed comparison between the proposed heuristic algorithm and other possible heuristic algorithms are also presented. HSPICE simulation results show that over 26% of total power reduction can be obtained by using the new heuristic algorithm. In addition, the effect of dynamic power reduction through the CV-based power gating method and the delay overhead caused by the switching of sleep transistors are also shown in this paper.

Developing a non-intrusive packet-layer model is required to passively monitor the quality of experience (QoE) during service. We propose a packet-layer model that can be used to estimate the video quality of IPTV using quality parameters derived from transmitted packet headers. The computational load of the model is lighter than that of the model that takes video signals and/or video-related bitstream information such as motion vectors as input. This model is applicable even if the transmitted bitstream information is encrypted because it uses transmitted packet headers rather than bitstream information. For developing the model, we conducted three extensive subjective quality assessments for different encoders and decoders (codecs), and video content. Then, we modeled the subjective video quality assessment characteristics based on objective features affected by coding and packet loss. Finally, we verified the model's validity by applying our model to unknown data sets different from training data sets used above.

In this paper, we propose a Modified nested sparse grid based Adaptive Stochastic Collocation Method (MASCM) for block-based Statistical Static Timing Analysis (SSTA). The proposed MASCM employs an improved adaptive strategy derived from the existing Adaptive Stochastic Collocation Method (ASCM) to approximate the key operator MAX during timing analysis. In contrast to ASCM which uses non-nested sparse grid and tensor product quadratures to approximate the MAX operator for weakly and strongly nonlinear conditions respectively, MASCM proposes a modified nested sparse grid quadrature to approximate the MAX operator for both weakly and strongly nonlinear conditions. In the modified nested sparse grid quadrature, we firstly construct the second order quadrature points based on extended Gauss-Hermite quadrature and nested sparse grid technique, and then discard those quadrature points that do not contribute significantly to the computation accuracy to enhance the efficiency of the MAX approximation. Compared with the non-nested sparse grid quadrature, the proposed modified nested sparse grid quadrature not only employs much fewer collocation points, but also offers much higher accuracy. Compared with the tensor product quadrature, the modified nested sparse grid quadrature greatly reduced the computational cost, while still maintains sufficient accuracy for the MAX operator approximation. As a result, the proposed MASCM provides comparable accuracy while remarkably reduces the computational cost compared with ASCM. The numerical results show that with comparable accuracy MASCM has 50% reduction in run time compared with ASCM.

This paper addresses the problem of optimizing metalization patterns of back-end connections for the power-MOSFET based driver since the back-end connections tend to dominate the on-resistance Ron of the driver. We propose a heuristic algorithm to seek for better geometric shapes for the patterns targeting at minimizing Ron and at balancing the current distribution. In order to speed up the analysis, the equivalent resistance network of the driver is modified by inserting ideal switches to avoid repeatedly inverting the admittance matrix. With the behavioral model of the ideal switch, we can significantly accelerate the optimization. Simulation on three drivers from industrial TEG data demonstrates that our algorithm can reduce Ron effectively by shaping metals appropriately within a given routing area.

Factorization of Hadamard matrices can provide fast algorithm and facilitate efficient hardware realization. In this letter, constructions of factorizable multilevel Hadamard matrices, which can be considered as special case of unitary matrices, are inverstigated. In particular, a class of ternary Hadamard matrices, together with its application, is presented.

In this paper, we demonstrate a 10.66 Gb/s bidirectional TDM over long-reach WDM hybrid PON supported by distributed Raman amplification, and the power budget margin is measured to be 15 dB for downstream transmission and 12 dB for upstream transmission, with dual Raman pump power of 300 mW.

This paper presents a reordering model using a source-side parse-tree for phrase-based statistical machine translation. The proposed model is an extension of IST-ITG (imposing source tree on inversion transduction grammar) constraints. In the proposed method, the target-side word order is obtained by rotating nodes of the source-side parse-tree. We modeled the node rotation, monotone or swap, using word alignments based on a training parallel corpus and source-side parse-trees. The model efficiently suppresses erroneous target word orderings, especially global orderings. Furthermore, the proposed method conducts a probabilistic evaluation of target word reorderings. In English-to-Japanese and English-to-Chinese translation experiments, the proposed method resulted in a 0.49-point improvement (29.31 to 29.80) and a 0.33-point improvement (18.60 to 18.93) in word BLEU-4 compared with IST-ITG constraints, respectively. This indicates the validity of the proposed reordering model.

In this paper, we propose a method for extracting an object boundary from a low-quality image such as an infrared one. To take full advantage of a training set, the overall shape is modeled by incorporating statistical characteristics of moments into the point distribution model (PDM). Furthermore, a differential equation for the moment of overall shape is derived for shape refinement, which leads to accurate and rapid deformation of a boundary template toward real object boundary. The simulation results show that the proposed method has better performance than conventional boundary extraction methods.

A new deadbeat control scheme for linear systems with input constraints is presented. Input constraints exist in most control systems, but in conventional dead-beat control, logical strategy to handle it has not been studied enough. The proposed controller in this paper adjusts the number of steps for dead-beat tracking on-line, in order to achieve delayed deadbeat-tracking performance and satisfy any admissible input constraint. Increasing the number of steps for dead-beat tracking and formulating the corresponding degree of freedom into null-space vectors make it possible to obtain delayed dead-beat tracking, and minimize the inevitable delay, respectively. LMI feasibility problems are solved to numerically obtain the solution and minimize the unavoidable step-delay. As a result, calculation effort is reduced compared to LMI-optimization problem. The proposed schemes can be readily numerically implemented. Its practical usefulness is validated by simulation for 6-axis robot model and experimental results for DC-motor servoing.

We study the online file allocation problem on ring networks. In this paper, we present a 7-competitive randomized algorithm against an adaptive online adversary on uniform cactus graphs. The algorithm is deterministic if the file size is 1. Moreover, we obtain lower bounds of 4.25 and 3.833 for a deterministic algorithm and a randomized algorithm against an adaptive online adversary, respectively, on ring networks.

High temperature adversely impacts on circuit's reliability, performance, and leakage power. During behavioral synthesis, both resource usage allocation and resource binding influence thermal profile. Current thermal-aware behavioral syntheses do not utilize location information of resources from floorplan and in addition only focus on binding, ignoring allocation. This paper proposes thermal-aware behavioral synthesis with resource usage allocation. Based on a hybrid metric of physical location information and temperature, we rebind operations and reallocate the number of resources under area constraint. Our approach effectively controls peak temperature and creates even power densities among resources of different types and within resources of the same type. Experimental results show an average of 8.6 drop in peak temperature and 5.3% saving of total power consumption with little latency overhead.

A novel structure for a composite right/left-handed (CRLH) corrugated waveguide in the millimeter-wave band is proposed. The CRLH waveguide is composed of a rectangular waveguide with tilted corrugations on its bottom broad wall. By operating above and below the cutoff frequency of the dominant mode of the rectangular waveguide, the CRLH waveguide provides, respectively, an inherent series inductance and shunt capacitance, and an inherent shunt inductance. Moreover, the tilted corrugations provide a series inductance and a series capacitance, which can support CRLH propagation. A frequency-scanning antenna using this CRLH waveguide is also studied numerically and experimentally. The results demonstrate that the antenna can provide backward-to-forward beam scanning, including the broadside direction. A scanning angle from -9.9 to +2.2 is achieved within a 1.8-GHz frequency range in the 60-GHz band.

Active Shape Model (ASM) is a powerful statistical tool for image interpretation, especially in face alignment. In the standard ASM, local appearances are described by intensity profiles, and the model parameter estimation is based on the assumption that the profiles follow a Gaussian distribution. It suffers from variations of poses, illumination, expressions and obstacles. In this paper, an improved ASM framework, GentleBoost based SIFT-ASM is proposed. Local appearances of landmarks are originally represented by SIFT (Scale-Invariant Feature Transform) descriptors, which are gradient orientation histograms based representations of image neighborhood. They can provide more robust and accurate guidance for search than grey-level profiles. Moreover, GentleBoost classifiers are applied to model and search the SIFT features instead of the unnecessary assumption of Gaussian distribution. Experimental results show that SIFT-ASM significantly outperforms the original ASM in aligning and localizing facial features.

This paper presents a novel method using multi-objective optimization algorithm to automatically find the best solution from a topology library of analog circuits. Firstly this method abstracts the Pareto-front of each topology in the library by SPICE simulation. Then, the Pareto-front of the topology library is abstracted from the individual Pareto-fronts of topologies in the library followed by the theorem we proved. The best solution which is defined as the nearest point to specification on the Pareto-front of the topology library is then calculated by the equations derived from collinearity theorem. After the local searching using Nelder-Mead method maps the calculated best solution backs to design variable space, the non-dominated best solution is obtained. Comparing to the traditional optimization methods using single-objective optimization algorithms, this work can efficiently find the best non-dominated solution from multiple topologies for different specifications without additional time-consuming optimizing iterations. The experiments demonstrate that this method is feasible and practical in actual analog designs especially for uncertain or variant multi-dimensional specifications.

In this paper, we propose a calculation method of gate delay for SSTA (Statistical Static Timing Analysis) considering MIS (Multiple Input Switching). In SSTA, statistical maximum/minimum operation is necessary to calculate the latest/fastest arrival time of multiple input gate. Most SSTA approaches calculate the distribution in the latest/fastest arrival time under SIS (Single Input Switching assumption), resulting in ignoring the effect of MIS on the gate delay and the output transition time. MIS occurs when multiple inputs of a gate switch nearly simultaneously. Thus, ignoring MIS causes error in the statistical maximum/minimum operation in SSTA. We propose a statistical gate delay model considering MIS. We verify the proposed method by SPICE based Monte Carlo simulations. Experimental results show that the neglect of MIS effect leads to 80% error in worst case. The error of the proposed method is less than 20%.

The researches on predicting and removing of lithographic hot-spots have been prevalent in recent semiconductor industries, and known to be one of the most difficult challenges to achieve high quality detection coverage. To provide physical design implementation with designer's favors on fixing hot-spots, in this paper, we present a noble and accurate hot-spot detection method, so-called "leveling and scoring" algorithm based on weighted combination of image quality parameters (i.e., normalized image log-slope (NILS), mask error enhancement factor (MEEF), and depth of focus (DOF)) from lithography simulation. In our algorithm, firstly, hot-spot scoring function considering severity level is calibrated with process window qualification, and then least-square regression method is used to calibrate weighting coefficients for each image quality parameter. In this way, after we obtain the scoring function with wafer results, our method can be applied to future designs of using the same process. Using this calibrated scoring function, we can successfully generate fixing guidance and rule to detect hot-spot area by locating edge bias value which leads to a hot-spot-free score level. Finally, we integrate the hot-spot fixing guidance information into layout editor to facilitate the user-favorable design environment. Applying our method to memory devices of 60 nm node and below, we could successfully attain sufficient process window margin to yield high mass production.