Traffic management schemes such as Connection Admission Control (CAC), policing, and traffic shaping are important to provide multimedia communications with better Quality of Service (QoS). In the conventional model, admission control and policing are done at intermediate nodes, and traffic shaping is done at the edge of a network. However, QoS of communications should be defined between tasks or threads rather than between hosts. Therefore traffic management inside a host is as important as that in networks. We propose software-based traffic management architecture over a real-time microkernel. The architecture focuses on the interface between a network driver and user threads calling the driver. We categorized services of communication threads into three classes: Real-Time at Guaranteed Rate (RT-GR), Real-Time at Available Rate (RT-AR), and Best-Effort (BE). Our architecture is designed for an environment containing a mixture of these services. In the architecture, a sender periodic thread of RT-GR or RT-AR is executed such that the sending rate matches a user-specified rate. The network driver monitors the per-flow rate of injected data and discards the data if the injected rate exceeds the user-specified rate. To avoid the continuous discarding of data, the sending thread can adjust its sending rate by periodically looking at logged data concerning the rate. RT-AR service can achieve more than the specified rate when bandwidth is available. The scheme of software traffic management is effective in attaining higher throughput not only for full-duplex Ethernet but also for ATM because the difference of rate between hardware and software is reduced. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of the software-based traffic management architecture on Real-Time Mach. The results of performance evaluations demonstrate that our traffic management scheme performs well for full-duplex Ethernet.

To improve frequency efficiency or user capacity in multi-path fading environments, we introduce and investigate an orthogonal multi-carrier frequency hopping-code division multiple access (FH-CDMA). These improvements are achieved by combining the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and FH-CDMA schemes. The basic idea has been previously proposed by the authors. The aim of study in this paper is to evaluate the performance of this scheme in various environments. The theoretical analysis of bit error rate (BER) performance in this paper includes the effects of frequency selective fading in land mobile communications and of nonlinear amplification in satellite communications. A modified scheme of controlling transmission power to be controlled according to the number of simultaneously accessing users is also discussed. This modified scheme improves BER performance for frequency selective fading when the number of simultaneously accessing users in a cellular zone is small. Furthermore, an error-correcting code and its erasure decoding are applied in order to reduce errors due to hits in asynchronous FH/CDMA for reverse link as well as errors due to fading and noise.

In this paper, a type of multi-carrier direct sequence code division multiple access (MC-DS-CDMA) system which uses frequency spread coding is proposed and investigated for the down-link. An MC-DS-CDMA system is a combined system of CDMA and multi-carrier modulation. This system is often categorized as a "serial to parallel (S/P) type" system because serial to parallel converted data symbols are transmitted. They use different sub-carriers which are narrow-band DS waveforms. In this system, benefits of path or frequency diversity can not be obtained because of the narrow-band transmission of each data symbol. In order to benefit from the diversity, we propose to adopt frequency spread coding in an MC-DS-CDMA system. The proposed system exploits frequency diversity without additional redundancy, i. e. , no frequency or time redundancy is required to improve the performance. Computer simulation is carried out in a frequency selective fading channel and the results show its effectiveness in terms of average bit error rate (BER). Furthermore, the proposed system is compared with a multi-carrier (MC-) CDMA system which is often categorized as a "copy type" system and a single-carrier (SC-) DS-CDMA system using a RAKE receiver.

The constant modulus algorithm (CMA) of the adaptive array has been developed for suppressing the co-channel interference and the intersymbol interference in mobile communications. In this paper a novel CMA for the hybrid of the adaptive array and equalizer (HAE) is proposed to combat the problems of insufficient degrees of freedom and mainbeam multipath interferers. The HAE with CMA utilizes the constant modulus property for the output signal of the HAE to adjust the weight vectors of the array and equalizer simultaneously. The co-channel interferers can be canceled by the array and the multipath interferers can be removed by the array or the equalizer following the array in the HAE. Therefore, the array in the HAE with CMA may need less number of elements than that required by the CMA array which cancels both the co-channel interferers and multipath interferers. Besides, the presence of the mainbeam multipath interferers, which may seriously degrade the performance of the CMA array, has much less effect on the HAE with CMA since it can be suppressed by the equalizer instead of the array. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the merits of the CMA for the HAE.

In this study, wave propagation phenomena of phase states are observed at van der Pol oscillators coupled by inductors as a ladder. For the case of 17 oscillators, interesting wave propagation phenomena of phase states are found. By using the relationship between phase states and oscillation frequencies, the mechanisms of the propagation and the reflection of wave are explained. Circuit experimental results agree well with computer calculated results qualitatively.

The complexity of designing communication protocols has lead researchers to develop various techniques for designing and verifying protocols. One of the most important techniques is a compositional technique. Using a compositional technique, a large and complex protocol is designed and verified by composing small and simple protocols which are easy to handle, design and verify. Unlike the other compositional approaches, we propose compositional techniques for simultaneously composing service specifications and protocol specifications based on Formal Description Techniques (FDTs) called LOTOS. The proposed techniques consider alternative, sequential, interrupt and parallel composition of service specifications and protocol specifications. The composite service specification and the composite protocol specification preserve the original behaviour and the correctness properties of individual service specifications and protocol specifications. We use the weak bisimulation equivalence (), to represent the correctness properties between the service specification and the protocol specification. When a protocol specification is weak bisimulation equivalent to a service specification, the protocol satisfies all the logical properties of a communication protocol as well as provides the services that are specified in the service specification.

A new data-I/O scheme with a hidden writing-recovery architecture has been developed for the megabit-class high operating frequency SRAMs. Read-out nodes in the memory cell are separated from bitline-connected writing nodes so as not to delay sensing initiation due to uncompleted bitline recovery. The data stored in a memory cell are read-out by sensing the differential current signal on a double-rail virtual-GND line along bitlines. Each pair of virtual-GND lines is imaginarily short-circuited by a sense amplifier, so that the read-out circuitry would have large immunity against virtual-GND-line noises. The critical noise level associated with data destruction is analyzed at various supply voltages. The virtual-GND-line-sensed memory cell with the squashed topology, the swing-suppression-type low-power writing circuitry, and the current-sense amplifier with extra negative feedback loops, --which are used in the data-I/O scheme are also mentioned. Assuming a sub array in megabit-class SRAMs, 4 K-words 6 -bits test chip was fabricated with a 0.5-µm CMOS process. The SRAM achieved 180-MHz operation at a typical 3.3-V, 25 condition. The power dissipation at the practical operating frequency of 133-MHz was 50-mW.

In this paper, we present a traffic scheduling algorithm, called the Delay-Bound Monotonic with Average Rate Reservation (DM/ARR), which generates minimum output burstiness streams. We assume that connection i is policed by the leaky bucket algorithm with parameters (σi,ρi) where σi is the bucket size (or burstiness) and ρi is the leaky rate. Compared with the totally isolated scheme where connection i is allocated a bandwidth ri=max{σi/di,ρi} (di is the delay bound requirement of connection i), the DM/ARR algorithm has a better performance in the sense that it has a larger admission region. We prove that, among all possible scheduling algorithms that satisfy the delay bound requirements of established connections, DM/ARR results in the minimum output burstiness. This is important because a smaller burstiness implies a smoother traffic and thus the receiver (or next switch node in a multihop network) can handle it more easily. Numerical results show that the admission region of the DM/ARR algorithm is close to that of the earliest deadline first algorithm. A packetized version is studied for ATM networks.

A selectively grown Si1-xGex base heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) was fabricated, and effects of Ge and B profiles on the device performance were investigated. Since no obvious leakage current was observed, it is shown that good crystallinity of Si1-xGex was achieved by using a UHV/CVD system with high-pressure H2 pre-cleaning of the substrate. Very high current gain of 29,000 was obtained in an HBT with a uniform Ge profile by both increasing electron injection from the emitter to the base and reducing band gap energy in the base. Since the Early voltage is affected by the grading of Ge content in the base, the HBT with the graded Ge profile provides very high Early voltage. However, the breakdown voltage is degraded by increasing Ge content because of reducing bandgap energy and changing dopant profile. To increase the cutoff frequency, dopant diffusion must be suppressed, and carrier acceleration by the internal drift field with the graded Ge profile has an additional effect. By doing them, an extremely high cutoff frequency of 130 GHz was obtained in HBT with graded Ge profiles.

This paper proposes an ASIP performance optimization method taking clock frequency into account. The performance of an instruction set processor can be measured using the execution time of an application program, which can be determined by the clock cycles to perform the application program divided by the applied clock frequency. Therefore, the clock frequency should also be tuned in order to maximize the performance of the processor under the given design constraints. Experimental results show that the proposed method determines an optimal combination of FUs considering clock frequency.

In this paper we present a Quality of Service (QoS) management architecture for distributed multimedia applications in heterogeneous communication environments of wired and wireless networks. Gaps in network performance such as bandwidths and error rates between wired and wireless networks, as well as gaps in terminal performance in media handling between desktop computers and handheld computers, bring about heterogeneities. Furthermore, even performance gaps among various desktop computers cause heterogeneities. As a result of these heterogeneities in network and terminal performances and various user preferences, the QoS requirement from each receiver is different. Therefore, mechanisms that adjust and satisfy each QoS requirement are needed. We propose a proxy server called Communication Coordination Server (CCS), which intermediates a video server and a receiver and manages the QoS coordination. The CCS performs QoS admission, adjustment, and allocation mechanisms to satisfy the user's QoS requirement. Then transcoding is used to realize the allocated QoS, and it decodes the input video stream from the video server and encodes it within the CCS. A QoS mapping mechanism that translates application-level QoS into resource-level QoS is needed for the QoS admission. We also propose a new QoS mapping mechanism using spline functions that enables a continuous QoS translation. We have built a CCS prototype in our laboratory testbed, and have verified that the CCS can resolve the heterogeneities between the server and receiver by the QoS adjustment mechanism of the transcoding and the QoS admission.

We have developed an active Q adaptor (AQA) to achieve integration of multiple management protocols and dynamic modification of managed object (MO) definitions. To achieve dynamic modification, we introduce a new MO framework, called dynamic-MO, which has the ability of modifying its own definition. A dynamic-MO is composed of meta-data and some behavior programs. Meta-data lists attributes of a dynamic-MO in a text format and a behavior program describes actions of a dynamic-MO in scripting language such as Java, Tcl, etc. In our AQA architecture, modules which manage individual components of a dynamic-MO communicate among themselves via an object request broker (ORB) in order to achieve system scalability with high performance. To realize the functionality of a dynamic-MO, we propose interfaces among these modules that are independent of dynamic-MO definitions and an update mechanism of behavior programs. We define the interfaces based on the common management information protocol (CMIP) operations to avoid re-defining the interfaces when dynamic-MO definitions are modified. Furthermore, to execute modified behavior programs without any negative influence on the workings of the other behavior programs, we employ a Java class-loader which has its own specific naming-space on a Java virtual machine (Java VM). With all of these features, our AQA is extremely promising for developing programmable network management systems for end-to-end management of heterogeneous telecommunication networks.

In this paper, we design and implement a Web-based Internet/Intranet service management system which can support Quality of Service (QoS) contracted by users and service providers, using Service Level Agreement (SLA) concept. We have analyzed the requirements and management information for Internet/Intranet service management. Based on this analysis, we have defined the suitable QoS parameters for the management of Internet/Intranet services, and developed new WWW service Management Information Bases (MIBs) for QoS management by extending the existing IETF's MIBs. The support of QoS management is done by incorporating the SLA concept, which is measured, monitored and controlled systematically in a multi-domain environment. Finally, we have built a prototype system, and evaluated its performance. The prototype system utilizes Java and CORBA technologies, so that various benefits of these technologies such as platform independence and scalability can be obtained.

An approximate formula is proposed for the equivalent susceptance of a circular iris in a parallel plate waveguide when the TEM mode cylindrical wave is incident from the center of the iris. Schwinger's variational method for a linear iris is generalized to the cylindrical case, and an approximate closed form formula is obtained which recovers the result of the linear iris when the radius of the circular iris is sufficiently larger than the wavelength. For verification of the formula, an exact integral equation is formulated and solved numerically by Galerkin's method. A comparison between them shows good agreement.

In this paper, a method of Transmission Power Control (TPC) for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (OFDM-DS-CDMA), in order to compensate for power attenuation at each subcarrier, is proposed. Instead of assigning same power levels for all-subcarriers, different transmission power levels are assigned to different subcarriers, according to the attenuation of the subcarriers. System performance, in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER), has been evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation. The simulation results presented significant improvement, the proposed system performed much better than the system without TPC. It is shown that the Each Carrier TPC performs better than All Carriers TPC, which all carriers are controlled uniformly, hence Each Carrier TPC is more suitable for OFDM-DS-CDMA system.

This letter is concerned with a new algorithm which can be used to design a time-domain equalizer (TEQ) for xDSL systems employing the discrete multitone (DMT) modulation. The proposed algorithm, derived by neglecting the terms which do not affect the performance of a DMT system in ARMA modeling, is shown to have a good performance compared with the previous TEQ algorithms even with a significantly lower computational complexity. In addition, the proposed algorithm does not require the channel impulse response or training sequence, since all processing is made only with the received data.

A procedure for quickly developing highly integrated multifunctional MMICs by using the three-dimensional masterslice MMIC technology has been developed. The structures and advanced features of this technology, such as miniature transmission lines, a broadside coupler, and miniature function block circuits, enable multifunctional MMICs to be quickly and easily developed. These unique features and basic concept of the masterslice technology are discussed and reviewed to examine the advantages of this technology. As an example of quick MMIC development, an amplifier, a mixer, and a down-converter are fabricated on a newly designed master array.

We propose a new technique that is able to extract the small-signal equivalent-circuit elements of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) without causing any gate degradation. For the determination of extrinsic resistance values, unlike other conventional techniques, the proposed technique does not require an additional relationship for the resistances. For the extraction of extrinsic inductance values, the technique uses the R-estimate, which is known to be more robust relative to the measurement errors than the commonly used least-squares regression. Additionally, we suggest an improved cold HEMT model that seems to be more general than conventional cold HEMT models. With the use of the improved cold HEMT model, the proposed technique extracts the extrinsic resistance and inductance values.

Millimeter-wave systems increasingly are entering into commercial systems, both for communication and sensors for traffic or industrial applications. In many cases, circuit technology of the involved front-ends includes monolithic and hybrid integrated circuits and even waveguide components like filters or antenna feeds. In addition to the standard technical and environmental requirements, these front-ends have to be fabricated in large quantities at very low cost. After a short review of the problems and some general interconnect and packaging techniques for mm-wave front-ends, achievements of a research program will be presented at the example of components for a 28 GHz communication front-end. Emphasis is put on a novel feed-through structure using multilayer carrier substrates for mm-wave circuits, some advances in electromagnetic field coupling for interconnects to mm-wave MMICs, and the realization of packages including waveguide components by plastic injection molding and electroplating. Results of filters and a diplexer produced in this way are shown, including pretuning of the filters to compensate the shrinking of the plastic parts during cooling.

This paper describes the effectiveness of compact semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in the photonic transport system (PTS). Such amplifiers are small enough to permit high-density packaging. SOAs, having unsaturated signal gain of 10 dB and saturation output power of 10 dBm, can improve the Q-value by 3 over the SOA input power range of 10 dB. Within this range, the signal transport distance can be expanded from 360 km to 600 km by placing SOAs on individual optical channels in a PTS even though the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) generated by individual SOAs is combined with the optical signals and delivered to the same output fiber. This result indicates that it is useful to employ compact SOAs in the PTS for enlarging the distances between nodes.