In-line transceiver chip emitting at 1.3 µm and receiving at 1.55 µm is described regarding the crosstalk occurring between the 1.3-µm laser and the 1.55-µm integrated photodiode. Contribution of optical and electrical crosstalk to the overall crosstalk is measured and discussed. Techniques to overcome the crosstalk are proposed and demonstrated by showing the feasibility of system compatible diplex sensitivities.

Micromachined sensors and actuators applied with electrostatic fields are getting widely developed. At the same time, "electrets," which are dielectrics carrying non-equilibrium permanent space charges or polarization distribution, are in demand because they improve the transducer characteristics. In this paper, we have reported on our successful fabrication of silicon dioxide electrets with extremely superior long-term charge stability by plasma chemical vapor deposition (PCVD). We have also reported on the correlation between the deposition conditions, the long-term charge stability and thermally stimulated current (TSC). Finally, the characterization of the long-term stable electrets will be described and discussed.

This paper describes the design, characteristics, and applications of newly developed latching-type 1 2 and 1 8 single-mode fiber switches. These switches have been successfully fabricated using micromachine technology. To reduce insertion loss and light reflection, an index-matching oil is injected into the switches. The fabricated 1 2 switches exhibit a low insertion loss of 0.31 dB, high return loss of 51 dB, relatively fast switching speed of 2 ms, and low driving power of 9 mw. Switching operation is stable over 108 switching times. A practical 1 8 single-mode fiber switch was also constructed using seven 1 2 switches cascaded in three stages. The fabricated 1 2 and 1 8 switches have been applied to an NTT multichannel video distribution FTTH system to enhance system reliability.

We describe the design, fabrication, and characteristics of FDM/WDM coupler deposited by TEOS-O3 based APCVD method on silicon substrates. Due to drastically reduced birefringence by APCVD process, completely polarization independent narrow band (100 GHz) Mach-Zehnder type FDM coupler was obtained. We also fabricated 1.3/1.55 µm directional coupler type WDM coupler with very low insertion loss.

In this paper, we discuss the principle of the clumsy painter method proposed for extracting interested regions from image signals automatically. We theoretically clarify the reason why the clumsy painter method is effective so well. We compare its algorithm with the opening operation in mathematical morphology, and prove that the clumsy painter method has the advantage over the opening operation in mathematical morphology on removing uninterested regions from image signals. Simulating these two methods on two simple geometrical models, we show that the extracted redults by the opening operation are included in those by the clumsy painter method.

A simple extension to treat evanescent modal excitation at the aperture of a parallel plane waveguide is shown here by GTD diffracted rays with complex propagation angles. Numerical comparison with other solution confirmed that our simple solution can be used for modal excitation estimation below the cut-off frequency.

The fault tolerant computer (FTC) is applied as a communication or database server in the information service and computer aided process control fields. User requires of the FTC are to provide the current level of performance and software transparency needing no additional dedicated program for fault tolerance. To meet these requirements, we propose quadprocessor redundancy (QPR) architecture that combines dualRISC based duplicated CPUs integrating main memories, and duplicated I/O subsystems by using some additional hardware. Duplicated CPUs run under the instruction level synchronization (lock step operation) , and the duplicated I/O subsystems are managed by an operating system. When a fault is detected, the faulty CPU is isolated by hardware. User program is continuously executed by the remaining CPU. We applied the QPR to our UNIX servers, and achieved satisfactory levels of performance.

The Hopfield neural network for optimization problems often falls into local minima. To escape from the local minima, the neuron unit in the neural network is modified to become an oscillatory unit by adding a simple self-feedback circuit. By combining the oscillatory unit with an energy-value extraction circuit, an oscillatory neural network is constructed. The network can repeatedly extract solutions, and can simultaneously evaluate them. In this paper, the network is applied to four NP-complete problems to demonstrate its generality and efficiency. The network can solve each problem and can obtain better solutions than the original Hopfield neural network and simple algorithms.

In this paper we propose a method of formal verification of totally self-checking (TSC) properties of combinational circuits using logic function manipulation. We show that the problem of verification of TSC properties can be transformed to a satisfiability problem of decision functions formed from characteristic functions of a circuit's output code words. Then the problem can be solved using binary decision diagrams (BDD). Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this paper, we evaluate the throughput performance of CDMA Slotted ALOHA systems. To improve the throughput performance, we employ the Quasi-synchronous sequences and the Modified Channel Load Sensing Protocol as an access control procedure. As a result, we found a good throughput by the QS-sequences. By employing MCLSP, we can keep the maximum throughput even in high offered load and in the presence of a long access timing delay, which is one of the issue in satellite packet communication systems.

A radio propagation experiment at the Okinawa Radio Observatory of the Communications Research Laboratory is investigating the feasibility of calibrating the spaceborne precipitation radar onboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission by using the path-averaged rainfall rate estimated from rain attenuation. Because this estimated rainfall rate has errors due to the spatial inhomogeneity of rainfall rate and the variability of raindrop size distribution, we used distrometer data to evaluate both of these errors by computer simulation.

Recurrent neural networks have the potential of performing parallel computation for associative memory and optimization, which is realized by the electronic implementation of neural networks in VLSI technology. Since the time delays in real electronic implementation of neural networks are unavoidably encountered and they can cause systems to oscillate, it is thus practically important to investigate the qualitative properties of neural networks with time delays. In this paper, a class of sufficient conditions is obtained, under which neural networks are globally asymptotically stable independent of time delays.

Hankel's asymptotic expansions are frequently used for numerical calculation of cylindrical functions of complex order. We beforehand need to estimate the precisions of the cylindrical functions calculated with Hankel's asymptotic expansions in order to use these expansions. This letter presents comparatively simple expressions for rough estimations of the errors of the cylindrical functions calculated with the asymptotic expansions, and features of the errors are discussed.

In this letter, we propose a blind adaptation method for the decision feedback equalizer (DFE). In the proposed scheme, a DFE is divided into two parts: a front-end linear equalizer (LE), and a prediction error filter (PEF) followed by a feedback part. The coefficients of the filters in each part are updated using constant modulus algorithm and decision feedback prediction algorithm, respectively. The front-end LE removes intersymbol interference ISI, and the PEF with feedback part whitens the noise to reduce noise power enhanced by the LE. Pre-processing by the LE enables the DFE to equalize nonminimum phase channels. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme provides reliable convergence, and the resulting symbol error rate is much less than that of the conventional LE and very close to that of the DFE using a training sequence.

The response time of adders is mainly determined by the carry propagation delay. This letter deals with a scheme which combines the address addition and decoding together. Although addition is involved in the process, we show that it can be computed without carry propagation. Memory latency is one of the most performance limiting factors. The authors present a new decoder logic named fused add-decoder (FADEC), which performs address addition and decoding in a single process. FADEC can reduce memory latency by eliminating separate address addition cycle.

This letter shows an architectural approach for analyzing real-time aspects of distributed multimedia processing systems. The results of this letter are 1) to propose the concept real-time supporting environments which consist of real-time traffic management/control environment and real-time application environment and 2) to analyze the real-time requirements of such environments.

Recently two interesting conjectures on the linear complexity of binary complementary sequences of length 2nN0 were given by Karkkainen and Leppanen when those sequences are considered as periodic sequences with period 2nN0, where those sequences are constructed by successive concatenations or successive interleavings from a pair of kernel complementary sequences of length N0. Their conjectures were derived from numerical examples and suggest that those sequences have very large linear complexities. In this paper we give the exact formula of characteristic polynomials for those complementary sequences and show that their conjectures are true.

Optical access networks will be key infrastructures to realize the multimedia society in the near future. Usually, in the case of trunk line, optical cables are installed under the ground. But optical fiber cables approach to offices and homes for optical access networks, the cables often take forms of aerial cables. Some issues must be considered in the optical cable splicing of aerial routes. This paper discusses some subjects; for example, a spare length of the fiber in a cable closure should be short and the splicer should be light weight and compact size to ensure easy operation in the aerial site. This paper also proposes two types of fusion splicers and a useful operation table for aerial optical cable splicing.

As a low-cost optical transceiver for access network systems, we propose a new monolithic transceiver photonic integrated circuit (PIC) fabricated by bandgap energy controlled selective metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). In the PIC, all optical components are monolithically integrated. Thus, the number of optical alignment points is significantly reduced and the assembly costs of the module is decreased compared to those of hybrid modules, that use silica waveguides. Moreover, by using selective MOVPE, extremely low-loss buried heterostructure waveguides can be fabricated without any etching. In-plane bandgap energy control is also possible, allowing the formation of active and passive core layers simultaneously without complicated fabrication. The transceiver PIC showed fiber-coupled output power of more than 1 mW and receiver bandwidth of 7 GHz. Modulation and detection operations at 500 Mb/s were also demonstrated. As a cost effective fabrication technique for monolithic PICs, bandgap energy controlled selective MOVPE is a promising candidate.

This paper describes the technological issues in achieving a low-cost hybrid WDM module for access network systems. The problems which should be resolved in developing a low-cost module are clarified from the viewpoint of the module assembly in mass production. A design concept for a low-cost module suitable for mass production is indicated, which simplifies the alignment between a laser diode and a waveguide, and reduces the number of the components such as lenses and mirrors. The low-cost module is achieved by employing a flip-chip bonding method with passive alignment using a spot-size converter integrated laser diode (SS-LD) and p-i-n waveguide photodiodes (WGPDs) on a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) platform. We confirm that the SS-LD and the WGPD provide high coupling efficiency with a large tolerance for passive alignment. To achieve a high-sensitivity receiver, the module is designed to employ an asymmetric PLC Y-splitter that prefers a PD responsivity to an LD output power because of the high-coupling efficiency of the LD, and to employ a bare preamplifier mounting to reduce the parasitic capacitance into a preamplifier. We also demonstrate the dynamic performance for a 50-Mb/s burst signal, such as a high sensitivity, an instantaneous AGC response, and a small APC deviation of the transceiver.