The Earth Simulator (ES), developed by the Japanese government's initiative "Earth Simulator project," is a highly parallel vector supercomputer system. In May 2002, the ES was proven to be the most powerful computer in the world by achieving 35.86 teraflops on the LINPACK benchmark and 26.58 teraflops for a global atmospheric circulation model with the spectral method. Three architectural features enabled these great achievements; vector processor, shared-memory and high-bandwidth non-blocking interconnection crossbar network. In this paper, an overview of the ES, the three architectural features and the result of performance evaluation are described particularly with its hardware realization of the interconnection among 640 processor nodes.

This study investigate the rectangular microstrip patch antenna on anisotropy substrates with superstrate and air gap, based on rigorous full-wave analysis and Galerkin's moment method. Results show that radiation patterns with varying air gap, permittivity of the superstrate and substrate, and thickness of the superstrate can be determined and analyzed.

We propose an analysis method for Franz-Keldysh (FK) oscillations appearing in photoreflectance (PR) spectra of heterojunction device structures, which enables precise and simultaneous evaluation of the built-in electric field strength and band-gap energy. Samples for PR measurements were n+-GaAs/n-Al0.3 Ga0.7 As/i-GaAs heterostructures with different Al0.3Ga0.7As-layer thickness. We have found that the phase of the FK oscillations originating from the i-GaAs buffer layer depends on the Al0.3 Ga0.7 As-layer thickness. We have derived a calculation model for FK oscillations that includes the interference of probe light. From the comparison of the calculated spectra with the measured spectra, we conclude that mixing of the real and imaginary parts of a modulated dielectric function, which is caused by the probe-light interference, gives rise to the phase shift of the FK oscillations. Our FK-oscillation analysis method reduces ambiguity in the estimation of band-gap energy that is considerable in a conventional analysis.

For the mass production of GaN-based electronic devices, growth of AlGaN/GaN heterostructures on substrates larger than 100 mm in diameter is indispensable. In this study, we demonstrate the growth of 100-mm-diameter Al0.26Ga0.74N/GaN heterostructures on sapphire substrates by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). The obtained films have specular surfaces, good crystal quality and good uniformity of alloy composition across the entire 100-mm-diameter epitaxial wafer. The bowing value of the 100-mm-diameter epitaxial wafer on c-face sapphire substrates is about 40 µm. This bowing value seems to be preferable for electronic device fabrication processes. These epitaxial wafers show good electrical properties.

A rectangular-to-radial waveguide transformer through a crossed slot is proposed as a feeder of a radial line slot antenna (RLSA) for use in a system of solar power satellite (SPS). The transformer is analyzed and designed by using the MoM with numerical eigenmode basis functions. The measured ripple of the amplitude is 3.0 dB in the φ-direction and a 7.0% frequency bandwidth for rotating mode with the ripple below 6 dB is obtained. This bandwidth is wider than that of conventional ring slot or cavity resonator with a coaxial feeder. The antenna measurements at 5.8 GHz show reasonable rotational symmetry both in the near-field distribution and the far field radiation patterns. The reflection is -27.7 dB at the design frequency and below -15 dB in the 7.0% bandwidth. The gain of the antenna with the diameter of 300 mm is 22.7 dBi and the efficiency is 56%.

In this paper, we propose new physical design techniques to reduce crosstalk noise and crosstalk-induced delay variations caused in a nanometer-scale system-on-a-chip (SoC). We have almost eliminated the coupling effect between signal wires by simply optimizing parameters for the automatic place and route methodology. Our approach consists of two techniques, (1) A 3-D optimization technique for tuning the routing grid configuration both in the horizontal and vertical directions. (2) A co-optimization technique for tuning the cell utilization ratio and the routing grid simultaneously. Experiments on the design of an image processing circuit fabricated in a 0.13 µm CMOS process with six layers of copper interconnect show that crosstalk noise is almost eliminated. From the results of a static timing analysis considering the worst-case crosstalk condition, the longest path delay is decreased by about 15% maximum if technique (1) is used, and by about 7% maximum if technique (2) is used. The 7-15% delay reduction has been achieved without process improvement, and this reduction corresponds to between 1/4 and 1/2 generation of process progress.

A microstrip array antenna with 45-degree inclined linear polarization is proposed for automotive radars. The proposed antenna has the advantages of high aperture efficiency, low profile and ease of manufacture. The rectangular radiating elements inclined at 45 degrees to the straight microstrip line are directly connected to it at their corners in the proposed array antenna. The radiating element has a feature that radiation conductance for co-polarization is controlled widely enough to set desired amplitude distribution keeping excited mode for cross-polarization negligibly small. The feed line loss of the linear array antenna having 15 wavelengths is estimated 0.9 dB in the design taking the loss of the microstrip line into account. The performance of two types of developed antennas, for electrical and mechanical scanning radars, is presented. The fan beam subarray antenna for electrical scanning radars has an aperture efficiency of 53% with gain of 22.5 dBi at 76.5 GHz. For mechanical scanning radars, the two-stage series feeding circuit is also proposed for lower feed line loss and setting desired amplitude distribution. The pencil beam array antenna has an aperture efficiency of 39% with gain of 32.2 dBi at 76.5 GHz.

Crosstalk in optical switch is an intrinsic drawback of optical networks, and avoiding crosstalk is important for making optical network work properly. Horizontal expansion and vertical stacking are two basic techniques for creating nonblocking multistage interconnection networks (MINs). Rearrangeable (nonblocking) optical MINs are feasible since they have lower complexity than their strictly nonblocking counterparts. In this paper, we study the crosstalk-free permutations in rearrangeable optical MINs built on a combination of horizontal expansion and vertical stacking of banyan networks, and provide a scheme for realizing crosstalk-free permutations in this kind of optical MINs. The basic idea of this scheme is to first decompose a permutation into multiple partial permutations by using Euler Split technique, then route and realize each of these partial permutations crosstalk-free in one plane (stacked copy) of a MIN based on both the Euler Split technique and self-routing property of a banyan network. The tradeoff between the overall time complexity and hardware cost of this class of MINs is also explored in this paper.

Employing a triangular dielectric phase shifter simplifies the beam forming network of an offset beam array antenna because this structure achieves phase control in a single configuration. This paper proposes a design method for a low loss offset beam planar antenna that incorporates a triangular dielectric plate phase shifter on parallel microstrip feedlines. Our design method reduces the loss of the phase shifter by optimizing the microstrip line width. By using the proposed design equation, the optimum low loss phase shifter configuration can be easily established. In addition, this paper presents the actual design of a triangular plate considering size reduction. The results of experiments of the offset beam antenna indicate that our design method is effective in obtaining a simple, low loss, and compact configuration.

A new type of compact one dimension (1-D) microstrip photonic bandgap (PBG) structure for filter is presented. A miniature semiconductor-based structure band-stop filter with four cells is simulated, fabricated, and measured. Agreement between the experimental and simulation results has been achieved. The filter with four proposed PBG structure exhibits deep (about -60 dB) and steep (about 40 dB/GHz) stop-band characteristics. It also has less loss and ripples in the pass-band. The period of the PBG lattice is about 0.2 λe (λe, guiding wavelength at the center frequency of stop-band), or 0.068 λ0 (λ0 wavelength in air), and the filter is very compact and much easier for fabrication and realization in MIC and MMIC.

A general circuit model of a filter having one cross coupling path is analyzed, and a new theory is developed for the design of a filter with transmission zeros in its stopband. By using the derived formulas, the reactance element values in the cross coupling path are determined readily. The transmission zeros can thus be assigned at desired frequencies. Various design examples are provided, together with simulated results, which validate the proposed theory.

Microstrip antennas on various Uniplane Compact Photonic BandGap (UC-PBG) substrates are investigated. Particularly, anisotropic characteristics of UC-PBG is studied and applied to the design of microstrip diplexer antennas. Moreover, an Embedded UC-PBG (EUC-PBG) scheme is presented to overcome the strong backward radiation caused by the conventional UC-PBG antennas. Such antennas demonstrate the improved radiation properties over the conventional UC-PBG antennas, and the evidence on surface wave suppression is also demonstrated. Experimental results show very good agreement with theoretical predictions.

Implementation issues on generalized multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS) -based photonic switching networks are experimentally analyzed. A resilient control plane architecture using in-fiber and out-of-fiber control channels is proposed to resolve issues of establishing the control plane in out-of-band networks. The resilient control plane is demonstrated in a photonic cross-connect (PXC) -based GMPLS network involving a 1,000 km transmission line. Fast signaling for provisioning and restoration operation is accomplished by implementing in-fiber control channels as primary, and the out-of-fiber control channels effectively operate as secondary and restore messaging of the control information between neighbors. The control channel protection is initiated by the link management protocol (LMP). Using the test bed, optical layer routing operation is investigated to assess the effects on the signal quality of wavelength paths, and transparent routing of the wavelength paths over one-hop and two-hops route is demonstrated within 1 dB difference regarding the Q factor. Stable operation of loss of light (LOL) -triggered restoration is demonstrated by setting the optical level threshold 5 dB higher than the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise level.

On a transmission line lowpass filter fabricated on a printed circuit board using open-circuited microstrip straight-line stubs, the frequency at the edge of a passband or stopband tends to be higher than the frequency determined by the filter synthesis theory. One of the reasons for this is thought to be the interconnection of a low-impedance straight-line stub and transmission lines. The length of a constituent transmission line cannot be determined precisely because of the finite width. Therefore, as a means of avoiding the frequency shift between a trial circuit and a theoretical one, we first introduce a radial-line stub, and then show the equivalency of a radial-line stub to a straight-line stub in a range of zero to the first resonant frequency from the view point of their input impedances. Dimensional data of radial-line stubs corresponding to low-impedance straight-line stubs are investigated with respect to examples of three-, five- and seven-element Butterworth and Chebyshev filters. It was found that frequency characteristics of trial lowpass filters using radial-line stubs agree well with theoretical characteristics known as the Butterworth or Chebyshev.

This paper proposes a novel extraction method of line parameters for multi-coupled lines on high-speed and high-density PCBs, where it uses TDR measurement in time domain and S-parameter measurement in frequency domain. The accuracy of the proposed method have been verified experimentally by comparing the crosstalk noise in the time domain, where (1) the proposed method extracts RLGC matrices by measuring the test pattern, (2) the crosstalk noise is obtained through SPICE simulation using the extracted RLGC matrices, and (3) the SPICE-simulated crosstalk noise is compared with the measured crosstalk noise. From the crosstalk noise comparison, the proposed method is proven to be very accurate. For N-coupled lines, the proposed method doesn't require expensive 2N-port probe for N-coupled lines but only two-port probe, which provides a simple, accurate, and economic extraction method of line parameters for multi-coupled line on the PCB. In the early stage of PCB design, the proposed method is very useful, because it extracts accurate interconnection parameters of each test board and enables to compensate various side effects due to the variation of PCB fabrication process. Also, the proposed method is necessary to analyze the signal integrity of future high-density and high-speed digital system on PCBs.

This paper presents a frequency domain simultaneous equations method capable of automatically recovering noise reduction effect degraded by secondary path changes. The simultaneous equations method has been studied, first in time domain. Accordingly to the study, in the time domain, the simultaneous equations method requires an additional filter and a system identification circuit used for transforming the solution of the simultaneous equations into the coefficients of noise control filter, which increase the processing cost. To reduce the processing cost, this paper studies on the application of a frequency domain processing technique, the cross spectrum method, to the simultaneous equations method. By directly applying the equation defining the cross spectrum method to the solution, the additional filter becomes unnecessary. In addition, the system identification circuit is replaced with the inverse Fourier transform. Thereby, the processing cost drastically decreases. This paper also presents simulation results to confirm that the proposed method can automatically recover the noise reduction effect degraded by a path change and provides much higher convergence speed than that of the filtered-x NLMS algorithm with the perfectly modeled secondary path filter.

We propose a hierarchical cross-connect node employing tunable waveband aggregators on the internal links. In a square grid network, the number of the switch ports for the internal links is reduced by 40 to 60% when the number of nodes is 50.

A novel periodic element for the sandwich photonic bandgap (PBG) structure named as H-shape element is presented in this paper. Sandwich PBG structure is a kind of PBG structure whose periodic lattice is buried in the midmost of the substrate. There's no requirement to drill or suspend the substrate. The new H-shape element is made of a central block connected with a long and narrow block on either side, and possesses a quite deep forbidden gap, whose width and depth can be tuned by varying the dimension of the central block. Theoretical results, as confirmed experimentally, indicate that the maximum insertion loss in the stopband is up to 80 dB. This sandwich microstrip structure can be constructed using conventional printed-circuit-board fabrication processes and integrated with other microwave components in a multilayered circuit. An improved notch filter with chirped central blocks is presented. The length of the filter is reduced by 16.7%, and the fractional bandwidth is increased by 8.1% compared with that of a conventional sandwich microstrip notch filter on the same substrate. The experimental results agree well with the finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations.

In this paper, a novel circuit structure of Push-Push oscillator using λg/2 microstrip resonator is proposed, in which a common resonator plays two functions of frequency determining and power combining. This type of Push-Push oscillator is named "Dipole Resonator Push-Push oscillator" here, where an additional power combiner circuit required in conventional Push-Push oscillators can be eliminated. The Push-Push oscillator adopting this design concept has the advantages of the easy circuit design, the simple circuit structure and the miniaturization of the circuit size. As a most simple example of this design concept, a K-band Push-Push oscillator using a λg/2 microstrip resonator is designed and achieved. The high output power of +8.4 dBm at the frequency of 21.68 GHz (2f0) is obtained with the phase noise of -100.5 dBc/Hz at the offset frequency of 1 MHz. Besides, a high suppression of the undesired fundamental frequency signal (f0) of -26 dBc is realized.

In an attempt to enhance the impedance bandwidth and gain, a notched patch antenna is proposed that has a pair of L-strip feeders, and it has been experimentally studied. The enhanced features were confirmed and proved by comparing the proposed antenna with the antennae that have been reported in the relevant literatures. The experimental results showed that the impedance bandwidth (SWR2) of 35.74% and the peak gain of 8.69 dBi (at 2.17 GHz) were obtained by the frequency band under 2.5 GHz. Designed originally for PCS and IMT-2000 service band, the proposed antenna, with its simple structure, may easily be mass-produced and may have various commercial applications.