This paper describes a new free-space optical switch structure based on cascaded beam shifters (each consists of a liquid-crystal polarization controller array and a birefringent plate). This structure comprises 2-input, 2-output switching elements that are locally connected by links. It is applicable to a variety of switching networks, such as a Clos network. The switching network based on this structure is an analog switch that is transparent to signal format, bit rate, and modulation type, so it can handle various types of optical signals. Theoretical feasibility studies indicate that compact large-scale switches (i.e., 100-1000 ports) with relay lens systems can be implemented using beam shifters with a 0.4-dB insertion loss and a 30-dB extinction ratio. Experimental feasibility studies indicate that a 1024-cell beam shifter module with a 0.5-dB insertion loss and a 23-dB extinction ratio is possible at present. An alignment-free assembly technique using precise alignment guides is also confirmed. An experimental 8-stage, 1024-input 256-output concentrator shows low insertion loss characteristics (6.8dB on average) owing to the low-loss beam shifters and the alignment-free assembly technique. Practical switching networks mainly require the improvement of the extinction ratio of the beam shifter module and the development of a fiber pig-tailing technique. This switch structure is applicable to transparent switching networks such as subscriber line concentrators and inter-module connectors.

A case structure expression is one of the most important forms to represent the meaning of the sentence. Case structure analysis is usually performed by consulting case frame information in a verb dictionary. However, this analysis is very difficult because of several problems, such as word sense ambiguity and structural ambiguity. A conventional method for solving these problems is to use the method of selectional restriction, but this method has a drawback in the semantic marker (SM) method --the trade-off between descriptive power and construction cost. In this paper, we propose a method of case structure analysis based on examples in case frame dictionary This method uses the case frame dictionary which has some typical example sentences for each case frame, and it selects a proper case frame for an input sentence by matching the input sentence with the examples in the case frame dictionary. The best matching score, which is utilized for selecting a proper case frame for a predicate, can be considered as the score for the case structure of the predicate. Therefore, when there are two or more readings for a sentence because of structural ambiguity, the best reading of a sentence can be selected by evaluating the sum of the scores for the case structures of all predicates in a sentence. We report on experiments which shows that this method is superior to the conventional, coarse-grained SM method, and also describe the superiority of the example-based method over the SM method.

In this paper, the formulation of unified transport model is reviewed along with its implementation in a three-dimensional device simulator. The model features an accurate description of the energy exchange among electrons, holes and lattice, and is therefore suitable for self-consistently simulating thermal effects and non-stationary phenomena, as well as their possible interactions. Despite the model complexity, it is shown that the computational effort required for its solution is reasonably close to more conventional approaches. Application examples are also given, in which both unipolar and bipolar devices are simulated, discussing the relative importance of different phenomena and highlighting the simultaneous occurrence of carrier and lattice heating.

As a general basis for constructing a cooperative and flexible dialogue system, we are interested in modelling the inference process of an agent who participates in a dialogue. For this purpose, it is natural and powerful to model it in his general cognitive framework for problem solving. This paper presents such a framework. In this framework, we represent agent's mental states in the form called Mental World Structure, which consists of multiple mental worlds. Each mental world is a set of mental propositions and corresponds to one modal context, that is, a specific point of view. Modalities in an agent's mental states are represented by path expressions, which are first class citizens of the system and can be composed each other to make up composite modalities. With Mental World Structure, we can handle modalities more flexibly than ordinary modal logics, situation theory and other representation systems. We incorporate smoothly into the structure three basic inference procedures, that is, deduction, abduction and truth maintenance. Precise definitions of the structure and the inference procedures are given. Furthermore, we explain as examples, several cooperative dialogues in our framework.

Directional dry etching of Tantalum is described X-ray lithography absorber patterns. Experiments are carried out using both reactive ion etching in CBrF3-based plasma and electron-cyclotron-resonance ion-stream etching in Cl2-based plasma. Ta absorber patterns with perpendicular sidewalls cannot be obtained by RIE when only CBrF3 gas is used as the etchant. While adding CH4 to CBrF3 effectively improves the undercutting of Ta patterns, it deteriorates etching stability because of the intensive deposition effect of CH4 fractions. By adding an Ar/CH4 mixture gas to CBrF3, it is possible to use RIE to fabricate 0.2-µm Ta absorber patterns with perpendicular sidewalls. ECR ion-stream etching is investigated to obtain high etching selectivity between Ta and SiO2 (etching mask)/SiN (membrane). Adding O2 to the Cl2 etchant improves undercutting without remarkably decreasing etching selectivity. Furthermore, an ECR ion-stream etching method is developed to stably etch Ta absorber patterns finer than 0.2µm. This is successfully applied to X-ray lithography mask fabrication for LSI test devices.

The performance of a drift-diffusion device simulator using massively parallel processors is improved by modifying the preconditioner for the iterative solver and by improving the initial guess for the Newton loop. A grid-to-processor mapping scheme is presented to implement the partitioned natural ordering preconditioner on the CM-5. A new preconditioner called the block partitioned natural ordering, which may include fill-ins, improves performance in terms of CPU time and convergence behavior on the CM-5. A multigrid discretization to implement a block Newton initial guess routine is observed to decrease the CPU time by a factor of two. Extensions of the initial guess routine show further reduction in the final fine grid linear iterations.

New insights pertaining to hot-carrier degradation of CMOS inverters have been obtained using an in-house reliability simulator named HIRES (Hitachi Reliability Simulator). The simulation of three out of four different inverter configurations which utilize series-connected NMOSFET devices between the output node and ground results in higher levels if degradation than that induced by intuition. For two of the configurations--the cascode inverter (where the gate of all NMOSFET's are connected to the input) and the two-input NAND gate--degradation levels are comparable to that of a simple two-transistor CMOS inverter. This high level of degradation is found to be caused by the fact that most of the output voltage is dropped across one of the series-connected NMOSFET transistors rather than being equally divided between the two. From degradation simulation results, a design methodology is developed to optimize the inverter circuits to minimize hot-carrier degradation by balancing the degradation suffered between the two series-connected NMOSFET's. Using this approach, up to a factor of 109 improvement in device lifetime is achieved.

Recently, high-dose implantation and low temperature annealing have become one of the key techniques in shallow junction formation. To fabricate shallow junction in quarter-micron CMOS VLSIs, it is well known being important to evaluate the transient enhanced diffusion (TED) of implanted dopants at low temperature furnace annealing, which is caused by the damages of implantation. We have newly studied the TED phenomena by a compact empirical method. This approach has merits of simplicity and better physical intuition, because we can use only minimal parameters to describe the TED phenomena. The other purpose of this work is to evaluate two-dimensional transient enhanced diffusion focusing on phosphorus implant and furnace annealing. Firstly, we defined effective diffusivity of the TED and determined extraction procedure of the model parameters. Number of the TED model parameters is minimized to two, which describe effective enhanced diffusivity and its activation energy. The parameters have been extracted from SIMS profile data obtained from samples which range 1013-31015 cm-2 and 850-950 for phosphorus implanted dose and annealing temperature, respectively. Simulation results with the extracted transient enhanced diffusion parameters show good agreements well with the SIMS data within 2% RMS-error. Critical doses for phosphorus enhanced diffusion have been determined in 950 annealing condition. No transient enhanced diffusion is observed at 950 under the implant dose of 11013 cm-2. Also the transient enhanced diffusivity is leveled off over the dose of 11014 cm-2. It is seen that the critical dose in TED phenomena might be temperature dependent to a certain extent. We have also verified that two-dimensional effect of the TED phenomena experimentally. Two-dimensional phosphorus n- layer is chosen to verify the simulation. It was concluded that the TED has isotropic nature in phosphorus n- diffusion formation.

This paper describes modeling and simulation of submicron NMOSFET current drive focusing on carrier velocity-saturation effects. A new simple analytical model is proposed which predicts a significant degradation of drain current in sub- and quarter-micron NMOSFET's. Numerical two-dimensional simulations clarify that the degradation is namely caused by high lateral electric field along the channel, which leads to deep velocity-saturation of channel electrons even at the source end. Experimental data of NMOSFET's, with gate oxide thickness (Tox) of 9-20 nm and effective channel lengths (Leff) of 0.35-3.0 µm, show good agreement with the proposed model. It is found that the maximum drain current at the supply voltage of Vdd=3.3 V is predicted to be proportional to Leff0.54 in submicron NMOSFET's, and this is verified with experiments.

We investigated the impact of velocity overshoot effect on collector signal delay of bipolar devices by using Monte Carlo simulation method. We found that insertion of an i-layer (lightly doped, intrinsic layer) between base and collector can increase the delay, but the strength of this effect is a function of the i-layer thickness. When the i-layer becomes thinner, the problem of increasing delay seems to disappear. This recovery of delay is realised with a mechanism which is completely different from that in drift-diffusion model.

For IF direct sampling phase detection method (IFSM) which realizes the arithmetical operations with digital filters by direct A/D (Analog to Digital) conversion of IF (Intermediate Frequency) signal, the method to eliminate DC offset is proposed and developed by using the gate array. A principle of the proposed method and the results of the measurement are shown.

The power transfer characteristics of a symmetric nonlinear directional coupler (NLDC) are analyzed rigorously using the beam propagation method based on the finite difference scheme. The NLDC consists of two linear waveguides separated by a Kerr-like nonlinear gap layer. The change of nonlinear refractive index along the coupler is precisely evaluated by making use of the second-order iteration procedure with respect to a small propagation length. For the incidence of TE0 mode of the isolated linear waveguide, the highly accurate numerical results are obtained for the behavior of power transfer, and the coupling length and critical power for optical switching. The dependencies of the coupling length and critical power on the width of the gap layer and the input power levels are discussed, compared with those predicted by the coupled-mode approximations.

Junction leakage current of trench isolation devices is strongly influenced by trench configuration. The origin of the leakage current is the mechanical stress that is generated by the differential thermal expansion between the Si substrate and the SiO2 filled isolation trench during the isolation forming process. A two-dimensional mechanical stress simulation was used to analyze trench-isolated devices. The simulated distribution and magnitude of stress were found to agree with Raman spectroscopic measurements of actual devices. The stress in the deeper regions between deep trenches is likely to increase greatly as the size of devices diminishes, so it is important to reduce this stress and thus suppress junction leakage current.

This paper presents a new method for resolving lexical (word sense) ambiguities inherent in natural language sentences. The Sentence Analyzer (SENA) was developed to resolve such ambiguities by using constraints and example-based preferences. The ambiguities are packed into a single dependency structure, and grammatical and lexical constraints are applied to it in order to reduce the degree of ambiguity. The application of constraints is realized by a very effective constraint-satisfaction technique. Remaining ambiguities are resolved by the use of preferences calculated from an example-base, which is a set of fully parsed word-to-word dependencies acquired semi-automatically from on-line dictionaries.

A software package has been developed for simulating complex silicon and heterostructure devices in 3D. Device geometries are input with a mouse-driven geometric modeler, thus simplifying the definition of complex 3D shapes. Single components of the device are assembled through boolean operations. Tetrahedra are used for grid generation, since any plane-faced geometry can be tessellated with tetrahedra, and point densities can be adapted locally. The use of a novel octree-like data structure leads to oriented grids where desirable. Bad angles that prevent the convergence of the control volume integration scheme are eliminated mostly through topological transformations, thus avoiding the insertion of many redundant grid points. The discretized drift-diffusion equations are solved with an iterative method, using either a decoupled (or Gummel) scheme, or a fully coupled Newton scheme. Alternatively, generated grids can be submitted to a Laplace solver in order to calculate wire capacitances and resistances. Several examples of results illustrate the flexibility and effectiveness of this approach.

This paper briefly reviews recent studies on free-space photonic switches, and discusses classifications, applications and technical issues to be solved. The free-space photonic switch is a switch that uses light beam interconnections based on free-space optics instead of guided-wave optics. A feature of the free-space switch is its high-density three-dimensional structure that enables compact large-scale switches to be created. In this paper, the free-space switches are classified by their various attributes such as logical network configuration, path-establishment method, number of physical stages, signal-waveform transmission form, interconnection optics and so on. The logical network configuration (topological geometry or topology) is strongly related to the advantages of the free-space switches over the guided-wave switches. The path-establishment method (path-shifting/branching-and-gating) and the number of physical stages (single-stage/multistage) are related to physical switching characteristics. Signal-waveform transmission form (analog/digital) is related to switch application. Interconnection optics (imaging system/micro-beam system) is related to the density and volume of the switching fabric. Examples of the free-space switches (single-stage, analog multistage, digital multistage and photonic ATM switches) are described. Possible applications for analog switches are subscriber-line concentrators, inter-module connectors, and switching networks for parallel or distributed computer systems. Those for digital switches include multistage space-division switches in time-division circuit-switching or packet switching systems (including asynchronous transfer mode [ATM] switching system) for both communications switching systems and parallel/distributed computer systems. Technical issues of the free-space switches (system, device, assembly technique) must be solved before creating practical systems. In particular, the assembly technique is a key issue of the free-space switches.

Numerical simulation of multiple semiconductor devices is necessary to analyze dynamic two- and three-dimensional interactions among devices in CMOS inverters, SRAM cells, and other more complicated gates. With the advent of complete 3D process simulation, an alternative to brute-force transient device simulation must be found for large contiguous silicon regions. Our approach differs from brute-force methods in that we focus not on the time-step control but rather on the latency in the system. By latency, we do not mean that activity within parts of the simulation has ceased or has reached a steady state. Rather, we imply that a simpler form of the solution, a macromodel, can be used to decouple the problem into smaller subproblems. This means that while integrating at a particular time-step, the system of device equations needs only to be solved for a subset of nodes, whereas the node device variables approximated by macromodels are treated as fixed boundary conditions. This drastically reduces the size of the system of equations to be solved at each time-step and allows each node to have a different time-step. Because the responses have exponential-like behavior, we aim to approximate carrier and potential values with closed-form exponential macromodels during a time interval. To assure the accuracy of the simulation, we implement several error formula which predict the range of validity of this interval. Moreover, this approach takes advantage of a standard workstation environment (e.g. SparcStation, DECstation, RS6000). This method has been successfully exploited in circuit simulators like SAMSON, which relies on a sophisticated predictor/corrector scheme based on Gear's backward-differentiation formulae (BDF) and depends on partitioning the circuit by inspection. The device simulation problem differs because the partitioning can not be performed by inspection, and the overhead of implementing multi-order BDF would negate the advantage of the decoupling. Instead, we propose the event-driven simulator, AWETOPSY (Asymptotic Waveform Evaluation for Transient Optimized and Partitioned Simulation) that uses automatic partitioning (domain decomposition) and a straightforward second-order integration scheme that we call the power method in conjunction with exponentially-based macromodeling of Asymptotic Waveform Evaluation to exploit the latency. Although Asymptotic Waveform Evaluation (AWE) was originally developed to simplify the solution of linear circuits, we have adapted it to transient device simulation.

The requirement of structural boundedness or passivity leads to important classes of digital filters among which are the wave digital (WD) filters and the LBR cascade structures having low coefficient sensitivity. Contrary to the WD filters, the LBR filters are directly synthesized in z-domain and several authors presented different approaches for a better understanding of the synthesis procedure especially for complex transfer functions. Some tentatives were also made to give parallels between passive analog and digital filters (i.e. WD or LBR filters). A general approach to LBR synthesis with transmission zeros not necessarily on the unit circle is presented along with some explicit expressions for the LBR (and the generalized complex counterpart LBC) filter parameters for the realization of an input transfer function. The results can be of interest in automated procedures for low sensitivity digital filter design.

We have developed a novel method of numerical synthesis of optical waveguides, which consists of the endless loop of the random sampling of waveguide parameters, numerical analysis and the judgment of calculated result. This loop is repeated until some objective solutions satisfying required characteristics are discovered. When the structural condition is almost unknown and there is no clue to search it, this method is useful for discovering new-type waveguides, and this concept is applicable to any other devices. We applied this method to the search of new waveguide structures having multilayer claddings, and obtained many types of low loss single mode waveguides, including ARROW-type waveguides, waveguide-type polarizers and a very narrow band wavelength filter.

The aim of this study is to evaluate mental workload (MWL) quantitatively by HRV (Heart Rate Variability) measures. The electrocardiography and the respiration curve were recorded in five different epochs (1) during a rest condition and (2) during mental arithmetic tasks (addition). In the experiment, subjects added two numbers. The work levels (figures of the number in the addition) were set to one figure, two figures, three figures and four figures. The work level had effects on the mean percent correct, the number of answers and the mean processing time. The psychological evaluation on mental workload obtained by the method of paired comparison increased with the work level. Among the statistical HRV measures, the number of peak and trough waves could distinguish between the rest and the mental loading. However, mental workload for each work level was not evaluated quantitatively by the measure. The HRV measures were also calculated from the power spectrum estimated by the autoregressive (AR) model identification. The ratio of the low frequency power to the high frequency power increased linearly with the work level. In conclusion, the HRV measures obtained by the AR power spectrum analysis were found to be sensitive to changes of mental workload.