Reduction in the illumination wavelength for exposure leads to higher resolution while keeping the depth of focus. Thus, KrF excimer laser lithography has been positioned as the next generation lithography tool behind g/i-line optical lithography, and many studies have been investigated. In the early days, the excimer laser lithography had many inherent problems, such as inadequate reliability, difficult maintainability, high operating cost, and low resolution and sensitivity of resist materials. However, the performance of the excimer laser stepper has been improved and chemical amplification resists have been developed for the past decade. At present, KrF excimer lithography has reached the level of trial manufacturing of lower submicron ULSI devices beyond 64 Mbit DRAMs.

New illumination principle for photolithography is investigated. As the optical microlithography approaches its own limit, it becomes apparent that the simple extrapolation of the present technology is not sufficient for the future demands. This paper introduces the new imaging technology that overcomes such a boundary. First, the basic imaging formulae are analyzed and the illumination light is classified into 4 cases. 3-beam case and 2-beam case carry the object information, and the comparison of these 2 cases is carried out theoretically. It can be shown that the 2-beam case has greater depth of focus than that of the 3-beam case, though it has inferior contrast at the best focus. Since this degradation, however, has little effect, the enlargement of the depth of focus can be achieved. In reality, 2-dimensional imaging must be considered. Quadrupole effect can be deduced by the results of the analysis. It shows great improvement in the depth of focus near resolution limit. As it can be applied to the conventional masks, it can be a promising candidate for fhe future lithography. Experimental results are also shown to demonstrate the analysis.

In this paper, we propose an extended LR parsing algorithm, called LR parsing with a category reachability test (the LR-CRT algorithm). The LR-CRT algorithm enables a parser to efficiently recognize those sentences that belong to a specified grammatical category. The key point of the algorithm is to use an augmented LR parsing table in which each action entry contains a set of reachable categories. When executing a shift or reduce action, the parser checks whether the action can reach a given category using the augmented table. We apply the LR-CRT algorithm to improve a speech recognition system based on two-level LR parsing. This system uses two kinds of grammars, inter- and intra-phrase grammars, to recognize Japanese sentential speech. Two-level LR parsing guides the search of speech recognition through two-level symbol prediction, phrase category prediction and phone prediction, based on these grammars. The LR-CRT algorithm makes possible the efficient phone prediction based on the phrase category prediction. The system was evaluated using sentential speech data uttered phrase by phrase, and attained a word accuracy of 97.5% and a sentence accuracy of 91.2%

This paper discusses three approaches for combining an efficient LR parser and phoneme-context-dependent HMMs and compares them through continuous speech recognition experiments. In continuous speech recognition, phoneme-context-dependent allophonic models are considered very helpful for enhancing the recognition accuracy. They precisely represent allophonic variations caused by the difference in phoneme-contexts. With grammatical constraints based on a context free grammar (CFG), a generalized LR parser is one of the most efficient parsing algorithms for speech recognition. Therefore, the combination of allophonic models and a generalized LR parser is a powerful scheme enabling accurate and efficient speech recognition. In this paper, three phoneme-context-dependent LR parsing algorithms are proposed, which make it possible to drive allophonic HMMs. The algorithms are outlined as follows: (1) Algorithm for predicting the phonemic context dynamically in the LR parser using a phoneme-context-independent LR table. (2) Algorithm for converting an LR table into a phoneme-context-dependent LR table. (3) Algorithm for converting a CFG into a phoneme-context-dependent CFG. This paper also includes discussion of the results of recognition experiments, and a comparison of performance and efficiency of these three algorithms.

The design of N-dimensional (N-D) FIR filters requires in general an enormous computational effort. One of the most successful methods for design and implementation is the McClellan transformation. In this paper a numerically simple technique for determining the coefficients of the transformation is suggested. This appears to be the simplest available method for the design of N-D hyperspherically symmetric FIR filters with excellent symmetry.

For the connection request procedure in mobile communication systems, a previous study had shown that the 3-channel systems provide the haighest maximum of stable per channel throughput. In this paper, we propose and study a new algorithm, called the Parallel Collision Resolution Algorithm, which can be implemented in a Q-channel connection request environment, where Q3. For the implementation, the channels are arranged in R groups, where R is a positive integer. The collision resolution scheme distributes the collided messages over all the groups so that throughput and delay measures can be improved. At any point in time, there can be a maximum of R collision resolution schemes operational irrespective of the channel or the group number over which collisions occurred. The performance measures are estimated by computer simulation. Under the new algorithm, almost the same level of the perchannel stable throughput measure of a 3-channel network can be achieved in networks for which Q3. This feature allows freedom to the network designer to employ a higher number of connection request channels without forfeiting high channel utilization rates. When Q is an integral multiple of 3, the maximum stable per channel throughput level achieved can be the same as that achieved by the 3 channel system, if the grouping of channels is such that each group consists of 3 channels. When Q is not an integral multiple of 3, the intuitive strategy of organizing the channels in such a way that Q/3 groups consist of 3 channels each and one group consists of (Q mod 3) channels, may result in much degraded performance. It is found that, if the channels are so organised that no group is composed of (Q mod 3) channels, the performance levels can be substantially enhanced. Also, under the new algorithm, the delay measure is significantly improved, particularly in schemes like the mobile satellite systems with high propagation delays. We conclude that the new scheme presents a promising collision resolution methodology for connection request procedures.

This paper investigates a two-class priority queue with decrementing service of a parameter (k1=, k2=k,1k) which operates as follows: Starting once a class-1 message service, a single server serves all messages in queue 1 until it becomes empty. After service completion in queue 1, the server switches over to queue 2 and continues serving messages in queue 2 until either queue 2 becomes empty, or the number of messages decreases to k less than that found upon the server's arrival at queue 2, whichever occurs first. It is assumed that arrival streams are Poissonian, message service times are generally distributed, and switch-over times are zero. We derive queue-length generating functions and LSTs of message waiting time distributions.

Land mobile communications in Japan have shown remarkable progress in recent years. The total number of all types of radio stations has exceeded 750 million as of March, 1992 and more than 80% of them are used for land mobile communications. The more radio telecommunications becomes popular, the more demand for communicating at any time, at any place and with anyone, intensifies. Various new land mobile systems such as digital cellular telephones have been developed and to be introduced. These new systems are designed to promote effective frequency use in order to meet the exploding demand for it. The digitalization of land mobile communication systems will be the key technology which enable to bring the new possibility in the land mobile communications.

This paper describes voice communication connection controls in digital public land mobile networks (D-PLMNs). Voice communications in the D-PLMNs are carried at about 10 kbit/s over narrow-band TDMA channels with highly efficient cellular voice encoding schemes. Extensive research is being carried on half-rate voice encoding schemes that will effectively double radio resources. We first outline the configuration of voice communication connection between a cellular phone in the D-PLMN and a telephone in a fixed network, and we describe the optimum position for the CODECs that transform cellular voice codes to the conventional voice codes used in the fixed network, and vice versa. Then we propose a CODEC-bypassed communication control scheme that improves the quality of voice communication between cellular phones. And we propose a cellular voice code negotiation scheme in the D-PLMN which supports different cellular voice encoding schemes. We also propose an efficient channel reassignment scheme for effectively assigning TDMA channels to voice calls with two different bitrates (full-rate and half-rate), and we analyze this scheme's traffic capability. Finally, we describe a dual-tone multiple-frequency (DTMF) signal transmission scheme and estimate the number of DTMF signal senders required in the D-PLMN.

A vertex-capacitated network is a graph whose edges and vertices have infinite positive capacities and finite positive capacities, respectively. Such a network is a model of a communication system in which capacities of links are much larger than those of stations. This paper considers a problem of realizing a flow-saturation in an undirected vertex-capacitated network by adding the least number of edges. By defining a set of influenced vertex pairs by adding edges, we show the follwing results.(1) It suffices to add the least number of edges to unsaturated vertex pairs for realizing flow-saturation.(2) An associated graph of a flow-unsaturated network defined in this paper gives us a sufficient condition that flow-saturation is realized by adding a single edge.

Digital mobile communication systems have been developed to cope with remarkable growth of the existing analog cellular telephone market. The digital cellular system needs to meet the following requirements: higher frequency efficiency, increased system capacity, new services including ISDN services, and network reliability improvements. New techniques supporting digital mobile radio sevices are presented in this paper, with special focus on TDMA radio link control. Radio channel and signalling structures are designed to achieve spectrum efficiency and flexibility. A random access scheme giving excellent access capability is shown. This paper also presents the system design and configurations of a TDMA digital cellular system based on the Japan standard, which is being developed by NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc. The system is based on the OSI model to enhance system flexibility for future services. Various techniques and devices to achieve economical and compact base stations and portable telephones are developed: multiple-carrier amplifier with extremely low distortion, facsimile/data adaptors with error free and high throughput, coherent detection with adaptive carrier tracking, and so on.

The demand for mobile communications is continuing to grow, but there is a limit on the radio frequency resources. Micro cellular systems are a strong solution to this problem. However, Forced Call Termination (FCT) and Channel Changing (CC) occur frequently in these systems because of their small cell size. This paper proposes a new Dynamic Channel Assignment (DCA) strategy which uses information of moving direction of Mobile Stations (MSs) to reduce FCT and CC. This strategy, the MD (Moving Direction) strategy, is compared with other major DCA strategies by simulating a one-dimensional service area covering a road, such as an expressway. The simulation shows that the MD strategy performs better than the other strategies with regard to FCT, CC, and carried load. FCT is an especially important factor in the quality of service. The MD strategy reduces FCT and has the largest carried load of the strategies, which means that it has the most efficient channel usage. This is an attractive characteristic of the MD strategy for micro cellular systems.

Modeling and performance analysis have played an important role in the economical design and efficient operation of switching systems, and is currently becoming more important because the switching systems should handle a wide range of traffic characteristics, meeting the grade of service requirements of each traffic type. Without these techniques we could no longer achieve economy and efficiency of the switching systems in complex traffic characteristic environments. From the beginning of research on electronic switching systems offering circuit-switched applications, Stored Program Control (SPC) technology has posed challenges in the area of modeling and performance analysis as well as queueing structure, efficient scheduling, and overload control strategy design. Not only teletraffic engineers and performance analysts, but also queueing theorists have been attracted to this new field, and intensive research activities, both in theory and in practice, have continued over the past two decades, now evolving to even a broader technical field including traditional performance analysis. This article reviews a number of important issues that have been raised and solved, and whose solutions have been reflected in the design of SPC switching systems. It first discusses traffic problems for centralized control systems. It next discusses traffic problems inherent in distributed switching systems.

In this letter authors discussed on the strategy to apply computerized tests on learners who have negative attitude to computerized tests. First, learners' image to computer system was measured by semantic differential method (SD method). It was revealed that the image of computer systems was made up of four factors of subjective evaluation (Es), objective evaluation (Eo), potency (P) and activity (A). Learners who have negative attitude to computerized test were revealed to have negative image on (Es) and (A) factors, while on the other hand have rather positive image on (Eo) and (P) factors. Then authors developed the feedback record charts laying stress on (Eo) and (P) factors. This feedback chart was effective to improve learners' acceptability of computerized test.

The velocity overshoot and hot carrier effects in thin-film SOI-nMOSFETs have been studied using a two-dimensional device simulator based on the energy transport model. It has been found that the velocity overshoot effect in a nearly-intrinsic device becomes pronounced in the short channel region because of their high carrier mobility. The distribution of the electron velocity in a 0.2 µm channel length SOI device shows that the velocity overshoot takes place over the whole channel region, which enhances the drive capability significantly. The behaviors of hot carriers injected into the gate oxide and the back oxide have been simulated for the first time by using the energy distribution functions of electrons and holes at the SOI-SiO2 interface and solving the current continuity equation in the oxide layer. It has been found that hot carriers are injected not only into the gate oxide but also into the back oxide, which can degrade hot-carrier reliability in small-featured thin-film SOI-MOSFETs.

Processors are important resources of stored program control (SPC) switching systems, and estimation of their workload level is crucial to maintaining service quality. Processor utilization is measured as processor usage per unit time, and workload level is usually estimated from measurement of this utilization during a given interval. This paper provides an approximate distribution of processor utilization of SPC switching systems, and it provides a method for designing an overload detection scheme. This method minimizes the observation interval required to keep overload detection errors below specified values. This observation interval is obtained as an optimal solution of a linear programming.

This paper describes a perspective on Personal Communicatoins Services (PCS) and technological trends. It takes into consideration rules pertaining to the use of PCS for mobile radio communication and countermeasures to cope with the huge increase in PCS subscribers. In this paper, PCS network structures, inter-regional roaming, microcell structure, radio access and channel access methods are also covered as PCS technologies. Furthermore, trends in domestic and international standards are also described. Although these technologies present many difficulties, we believe that they will be overcome and PCS services will be introduced in the near future.

A multicast error control protocol proposed by Metzner is generalized and the performance of the proposed protocol on random error channels (binary symmetric channels) is analyzed. The proposed protocol adopts an encoding procedure based on a product code structure, whith enables each destined user terminal to decode the received frames with the Reddy-Robinson algorithm. As a result, the performance degradation due to the re-broadcasting of the replicas of the previously transmitted frames can be circumvented. The numerical results for the analysis and the simulation indicate that the proposed protocol yields higher throughput and less degradation of throughput with an increase of the number of destined terminals.

Separability is a valuable property of nonlinear mappings. By exploiting this property, computational complexity of many numerical algorithms can be substantially reduced. In this letter, a new algorithm is presented that detects the separability of nonlinear mappings using the concept of "computational graph". A hybrid algorithm using both the top-down search and the bottom-up search is proposed. It is shown that this hybrid algorithm is advantageous in detecting the separability of nonlinear simultaneous functions.

Chaotic behavior in a series resonance circuit with a ferroelectric triglycine sulfate (TGS) crystal was observed just below the ferroelectric phase transition temperature. We have analyzed the nonlinear responses by applying external electric fields to the crystal. The computer simulation was made for the modified forroelectric hysteresis loops to realize the experimental results. The fractal correlation dimension was determined to be ν=1.8 in the chaotic phase.