We have proposed a new low-IF transceiver architecture to simultaneously achieve both a small chip area and good minimum input sensitivity. The distinctive point of the receiver architecture is that we replace the complicated high-order analog filter for channel selection with the combination of a simple low-order analog filter and a sharp digital band-pass filter. We also proposed a high-speed convergence AGC (automatic gain controller) and a demodulation block to realize the proposed digital architecture. For the transceiver, we further reduce the chip area by applying a new form of direct modulation for the VCO. Since conventional VCO direct modulation tends to suffer from variation of the modulation index with frequency, we have developed a new compensation technique that minimizes this variation, and designed the low-phase noise VCO with a new biasing method to achieve large PSRR (power-supply rejection ratio) for oscillation frequency. The test chip was fabricated in 0.35-µm BiCMOS. The chip size was 3 3 mm2; this very small area was realized by the advantages of the proposed transceiver architecture. The transceiver also achieved good minimum input sensitivity of -85 dBm and showed interference performance that satisfied the requirements of the Bluetooth standard.

We compared two edge-blending methods for multi-projection displays, elliptic and rectangular blending, by simulating three common situations: (1) an inaccurately estimated calibration parameter, (2) a worn projector lamp, and (3) a shifted viewpoint. We used a two-level-of-detail display including a high-gain rear-projection screen in the simulation to demonstrate an extreme case. The comparisons showed how strongly inaccurate elements affect a composite besides affecting the appearance itself. A subjective assessment was also carried out to obtain the evaluations of actual users. The simulation results showed that in many cases elliptic blending is more effective than rectangular blending.

An important barrier to the application of high-temperature superconducting microwave filters is their power-handling capability. To clarify the key parameters for improving the power-handling capability of rf filters based on high-temperature superconductors with microstrip structures, we synthesize bandpass filters with different layouts using several kinds of thin film high-temperature superconductors, and subject them to third-order intermodulation measurements. By improving the sensitivity of the measurement set-up through the selective reduction of the fundamental output signals, we succeed in measuring the intermodulation signals of the superconducting filters. The experimental results indicate that increasing the film thickness and utilizing MBE-grown films of NdBa2Cu3O7 films are effective in obtaining high-power handling microstrip filters.

A hybrid method-of-moments (MoM) and immittance approach for efficient and accurate analysis of printed slots and strips of arbitrary shape in layered waveguide for various applications has been proposed. An impedance-type MoM is formulated from the electric field integral equation (EFIE) for printed strip case and an admittance-type MoM is formulated from the magnetic field integral equation (MFIE) for the printed slot case, using the Galerkin's technique. Immittance approach has been used to calculate spectral dyadic Green's functions for the layered waveguide. For efficient analysis of large and complex structures, equivalent circuit parameters of a block are first extracted and complete structure is analyzed through cascaded ABCD matrices. The equivalent circuit characterization of printed strip and slot in layered waveguide has been done for the first time. Finite periodic structure loaded with printed strips has been investigated and it shows the electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) behavior. The electromagnetic (EM) program hence developed is checked for its numerical accuracy and efficiency with results generated with High-frequency structure simulator (HFSS) and shows good performance.

We consider a new post-filtering algorithm for residual acoustic echo cancellation in hands-free application. The new post-filtering algorithm is composed of AR analysis, pitch prediction, and noise reduction algorithm. The residual acoustic echo is whitened via AR analysis and pitch prediction during no near-end talker period and then is cancelled by noise reduction algorithm. By removing speech characteristics of the residual acoustic echo, noise reduction algorithm reduces the power of the residual acoustic echo as well as the ambient noise. For the hands-free application in the moving car, the proposed system attenuated the interferences more than 15 dB at a constant speed of 80 km/h.

A K-band monolithic driver amplifier with equalizer circuits has been developed. It is necessary for the equalizer circuit to be low losses in the high-frequency range and for its S21 values to increase as the operation frequency increases. In order to realize these features, it is desirable for the equalizer to have element location considering high-frequency current flows. In this paper, we present a novel low-loss, high-pass equalizer circuit layout that has superior characteristics in the high-frequency range. We used a high-pass filter as the equalizer circuit and performed a detailed evaluation of the high-frequency characteristics of the filter circuit test element groups (TEGs) for three layout types. It was found that the best filter circuit layout for the three types consisted of two capacitors and one resistor, placed with parallel connections. The resistor is located at the center and the capacitors are located at both sides of the resistor. This filter is called the CRC-type in this paper. An MMIC test sample, a K-band monolithic amplifier with CRC-type filter circuits, was fabricated. The amplifier had a gain of 21.6 dB, a Rollett stability factor K of 28.9, an input VSWR of 1.63, an output VSWR of 1.92, and a 1 dB compressed output power of 22.6 dBm at 26 GHz.

An efficient architecture for a FPGA symmetry FIR filter is proposed that employs 2-bit parallel-distributed arithmetic (2-bit PDA). The partial product is pre-calculated and saved into the distributed ROM. This eliminates the large amount of logic needed to compute multiplication results. The proposed architecture consumes less area and offers higher speed operation because the multiplier is omitted.

In texture mapping, anisotropic filtering methods, which require more texels, have been proposed for high-quality images. Memory bandwidth, however, is still limited by a bottleneck in the texture-filtering hardware. In this paper, we propose anisotropic texture filtering based on edge function. In generating the weight that plays a key role in filtering texels loaded from memory, the edge function gives accurate contribution of texels to the pixel intensity. The quality of images is superior to other methods. For images of the same quality, our method requires less than half the texels of other methods. In other words, the improvement in performance is more than twice that of other methods.

The paper presents a novel stroke decomposition approach based on a directional filtering technique for recognizing Chinese characters. The proposed filtering technique uses a set of the second-order Gaussian derivative (SOGD) filters to decompose a character into a number of stroke segments. Moreover, a new Gaussian function is proposed to overcome the general limitation in extracting stroke segments along some fixed and given orientations. The Gaussian function is designed to model the relationship between the orientation and power response of the stroke segment in the filter output. Then, an optimal orientation of the stroke segment can be estimated by finding the maximal power response of the stroke segment. Finally, the effects of decomposition process are analyzed using some simple structural and statistical features extracted from the stroke segments. Experimental results indicate that the proposed SOGD filtering-based approach is very efficient to decompose noisy and degraded character images into a number of stroke segments along an arbitrary orientation. Furthermore, the recognition performance from the application of decomposition process can be improved about 17.31% in test character set.

This paper presents a technique for improving the SNR and resolution of complex bandpass ΔΣADCs which are used for wireless communication systems such as cellular phone, wireless LAN and Bluetooth. Oversampling and noise-shaping are used to achieve high accuracy of a ΔΣAD modulator. However when a multi-bit internal DAC is used inside a modulator, nonlinearities of the DAC are not noise-shaped and the SNR of the ΔΣADC degrades. For the conversion of complex intermediate frequency (IF) input signals, a complex bandpass ΔΣAD modulator can provide superior performance to a pair of real bandpass ΔΣAD modulators of the same order. This paper proposes a new noise-shaping algorithm--implemented by adding simple digital circuitry--to reduce the effects of nonlinearities in multi-bit DACs of complex bandpass ΔΣAD modulators. We have performed simulation with MATLAB to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm, and the results show that the proposed algorithm can improve the SNR of a complex bandpass ΔΣADC with nonlinear internal multi-bit DACs.

An IIR digital low pass filter with flat monotonic passband, equiripple stopband and narrower transition bandwidth than that of Inverse Chebyshev digital filters of the same order is designed. The requisite equiripple stopband is realized by designing the filter in Deczkeys' w-plane. The characteristic functions are designed so as to have a root of multiplicity n at ω = 0 to ensure the n degree of flatness of the passband, and to have a pair of complex conjugate roots with coordinates constrained such that the magnitude response of the passband attenuates monotonically. The freedom in the coordinate of the complex conjugate roots is exploited to minimize the transition bandwidth. The equations are derived that give the minimum transition bandwidth of the proposed filter, which is considerably narrower than that of Inverse Chebyshev filters. It is showen through practical numerical examples that the order of the proposed filter is as low as half that of the Inverse Chebyshev filter satisfying the same specification.

Energy dissipation in cache memories is becoming a major design issue for embedded microprocessors. Predictive filter cache based instruction cache hierarchy has been shown to effectively reduce the energy-delay product. In this paper, a simplified pattern prediction algorithm is proposed for the filter cache hierarchy. The prediction scheme relies on the static nature of the hit or miss pattern of the instruction access streams. The static patterns are maintained in a small 32x1-bit wide Static Pattern Table (SPT). Our investigations show that the proposed prediction algorithm is superior to that based on Next Fetch Prediction Table (NFPT) for all the benchmarks simulated. With the proposed approach, energy delay product reduction of up to 6.79% was evident when compared with that using NFPT. Moreover, since the prediction scheme is based on the static assignment of patterns, it lends well for area and power efficient implementation than that employs dynamic pattern prediction although it is marginally inferior (i.e. 0.69%) in term of energy delay product.

In this paper, an area efficient VLSI architecture of decision feedback equalizer is derived accommodating 64/256 QAM modulators. This architecture is implemented efficiently in VLSI structure using EDA tools due to its regular structure. The method is to employ a time-multiplexed design scheme, so-called Folding, which executes multiple operation on a single functional unit. In addition, we define a new folding set by grouping the adjacent filter taps with data transfer having the same processing sequence between blocks and perform the internal data-bit optimization. By doing so, the computational complexity is reduced by performance optimization and also silicon area is reduced by using a shared operator. Moreover, through the performance and convergence time comparison of the various LMS (e.g. LMS, data signed LMS, error signed LMS, signed-signed LMS) ) coefficient updating algorithms, we identify an optimum LMS algorithm scheme suitable for the low complexity, high performance and high order (64 and 256) QAM applications for the presented Fractionally Spaced Decision Feedback Equalizer. We simulated the proposed design scheme using SYNOPSYSTM and SPWTM.

In this paper, first, we consider how to illustrate the effect of background noise to the measurement of room acoustics under a background noise of arbitrary distribution type. Two kinds of estimation methods are proposed to evaluate a proper reverberation time of a room by observing real unrefined decay curves, which can not realize smoothly a sufficient decay of 60 dB in a low frequency region, especially under a contamination of background noise. In the first method, an observation equation is derived from a stochastic model by means of well-known Sabine's differential equation, which is approximately rewritten in a matched form of difference equation especially to preserve its original physical meaning and functional linearity on the reverberation parameter. The effect of background noise is eliminated by employing a generalized state estimation algorithm based on Bayes' theorem. In the second one, after reflecting the effect of background noise in an observation equation of measuring model, a well-known mutual information criterion is introduced to estimate a reverberation time especially based on the basic property of statistical independency between signal and background noise. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed methods are experimentally confirmed too by applying it to the actual measurement of a reverberation time in the actual living situation of room contaminated by a background noise. The proposed methods are, however, some technique using actively the higher order correlation beyond a linear one, and so they are methodology-trials which should coexist with other techniques.

This paper presents a cost-effective CORDIC-based architecture for adaptive lattice filters. An implementation method for an ARMA lattice filter using the CORDIC algorithm has been proposed. The previously proposed method can provide a simple filter architecture; however, it has problems such as redundant structure and numerical inaccuracy. Therefore, by solving each problem we derive a new non-redundant filter architecture with improved numerical accuracy. The obtained filter architecture provides a low cost ARMA lattice filter in which high-precision data processing is feasible. In addition, the proposed architecture can be applied to AR-type lattice filters, so that it may have several applications in adaptive signal processing. The presented filter architecture is useful from a hardware point of view because it facilitates an effective VLSI design of various adaptive lattice filters.

This paper presents an algorithm for fingerprint matching using the Phase-Only Correlation (POC) function. One of the most difficult problems in human identification by fingerprints has been that the matching performance is significantly influenced by fingertip surface condition, which may vary depending on environmental or personal causes. This paper proposes a new fingerprint matching algorithm using phase spectra of fingerprint images. The proposed algorithm is highly robust against fingerprint image degradation due to inadequate fingertip conditions. A set of experiments is carried out using fingerprint images captured by a pressure sensitive fingerprint sensor. The proposed algorithm exhibits efficient identification performance even for difficult fingerprint images that could not be identified by the conventional matching algorithms.

A silicon (Si) wire waveguiding system fabricated on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates is one of the most promising platforms for highly-integrated, ultra-small optical circuits, or microphotonics devices. The cross-section of the waveguide's core is about 300-nm-square, and the minimum bending radius are a few micrometers. Recently, crucial problems involving propagation losses and in coupling with external circuits have been resolved. Functional devices using silicon wire waveguides are now being tested. In this paper, we describe our recent progress and future prospects on the microphotonics devices based on the silicon-wire waveguiding system.

We theoretically investigated the resolution of the photonic crystal (PC) K-vector superprism, which utilized the wavelength-dependent refraction of light at an angled output end as a narrow band filter at 1.55 µm wavelength range. Similarly to the case of the conventional S-vector prism, we defined the equi-incident-angle curve against the dispersion surface, and calculated the beam collimation, wavelength sensitivity and resolution parameters for light propagation in the PC. We estimated that the resolution of the K-vector prism is the same as or higher than that of the S-vector prism and the PC can be significantly miniaturized. In addition, we clarified the relation of the S-vector prism phenomenon and the position of the output end in the K-vector prism, and different results for the reduced and repeated zone schemes, which are important for the detailed design. We also confirmed that the light propagation simulated by the FDTD method well agreed with the results of the dispersion surface analysis.

A new sorting algorithm and architecture for fast median filter are proposed. This algorithm results in low area VLSI architecture producing low switching activity and without using feedback. The main idea is to employ the extra matrix for fast search operation of rank of oldest window element. We simulated and synthesized this algorithm using SYNOPSYSTM and showed the sufficiency in real time operation.

In this letter, we present the new type parallel-coupled band-pass filter (BPF) which uses the dielectric guide in coupled sections with finite metallization thickness. A mode-matching method has been used to analyze this new structure and the simulation results are shown and validated through comparison with other available data. The results in this letter show that the dielectric guide of coupled lines with finite metal strips can be newly added to the design parameters of the parallel-coupled BPF structure and other microwave applications.