A new mm-wave IC, constructed by flip-chip bonded heterojunction transistors and microstrip lines formed on Si substrate, has been proposed and demonstrated by using MBB (micro bump boding) technology. Millimeter-wave characteristics of the MBB region has been estimated by electro-magnetic field analysis. Good agreements between calculated and measured characteristics of this new IC (named MFIC: millimeter-wave flip-chip IC) have been obtained up to 60 GHz band. Several MFIC amplifiers with their designed performances have been successfully fabricated.

Design techniques are presented for high performance microstrip bandpass filters using GaAs FETs for loss compensation. The filters are based on conventional planar filter topologies with the addition of GaAs FET negative resistance circuits to amplify the signal within the resonators via a reflection-mode of amplification. Three practical filters have been demonstrated using these negative resistance techniques: (1) A filter employing an active loop configuration, (2) a dual-mode microstrip ring resonator filter, and (3) an end-coupled half-wavelength resonator filter. The investigation of this negative resistance method of loss compensation has led to the development of an exciting new type of miniaturised filter which employs MIC microstrip resonators with MMIC negative resistance chips bonded into the filter for loss compensation. This approach has the advantage of combining the proven capabilities of established MIC microstrip filter topologies with the excellent reproducibility of the MMIC loss compensation circuits.

Radio disturbances of digital microwave links are likely to increase as man-made structures screen the radio propagation paths, and unwanted waves reflected or scattered by the structures interfere with radio signals. This paper describes a practical method for evaluating the influence of propagation impairments due to man-made structures on digital microwave links and provides some model calculations of those impairments. Since multilevel and quadrature modulation techniques are employed to achieve high spectral efficiency for recent digital transmissions, not only average level attenuation but also in-band distortion and intersymbol interference have to be taken into account. Propagation distortion, diffraction loss and cross-polar interference due to reflected and scattered waves from man-made structures such as buildings and conductor structures are evaluated.

In this paper, we presented an analysis of single and coupled microstrip lines covered with protective dielectric film which is usually used in the microwave integrated circuits. The method employed in the characterization is called partial-boundary element method (p-BEM). The p-BEM provides an efficient means to the analysis of the structures with multilayered media or covered with protective dielectric film. The numerical results show that by changing the thickness of the protective dielectric films such as SiO2, Si and Polyimide covered on these lines on a GaAs substrate, the coupled microstrip lines vary within 10% on the characteristic impedance and within 25% on the effective dielectric constant for the odd mode of coupled microstrip line, respectively, in comparison with the structures without the protective dielectric film. In contrast, the single microstrip lines vary within 4% on the characteristic impedance and within 8% on the effective dielectric constant, respectively. The protective dielectric film affects the odd mode of the coupled lines more strongly than the even mode and the characteristics of the single microstrip lines.

In this paper, a waveguide-fed slot-coupled microstrip antenna is proposed as enhanced feeding structure of microstrip antenna and an analysis is pesented. The presence of dielectric substrate between a strip and a slot is explicitly taken into account in this analysis. The evaluation of the antenna characteristics is carried out using the method of moments and the spectral domain approach in terms of the electric current distribution on the strip and the magnetic current distribution on the slot.

A novel thick ground plane is proposed as a support for a slot-coupled microstrip antenna and as a heat sink for an MMIC installed on the back plane of the active array antenna. A multi-layer structure of ground planes is also studied for the benefit of easy installation of MMICs. The influence of this thick metal ground plane with a mono- and multi-layer has been investigated in detail. Both measured and calculated results of VSWR and calculated results of the back lobe are shown in detail. The calculated results of VSWR agree well with the measurements. It is made clear that the thickness of the ground plane can be extended to twenty times that of the antenna substrate while maintaining the antenna's performance. An LNA composing an MMIC was developed, attached to the back of the antenna, and operated at 23 GHz. The measured results of this active element agree well with calculated ones and confirm the applicability of the novel design.

A down sampling technique was applied to signal processing of fiber optic gyroscopes with optical phase modulation. The technique shifts the frequency spectrum of the gyroscopic signal down to low frequencies, and lowers the speed requirements for analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion and numerical operations. A single-chip digital signal processor (DSP) with a built-in A/D converter and timers was used to demonstrate the proposed technique. The DSP internally generated a phase modulation signal and sampling trigger timing. The reference signals for digital lock-in discrimination of gyroscopic spectrum are generated by using an external binary counter, and their phases were adjusted optimally by DSP software. The DSP compensated for fluctuations in laser source intensity and phase modulation index, using the signal spectrum extracted, and linearized the gyroscopic response. The measured resolution of rotation detection was 0.9 deg/s (with a full scale of 100 deg/s) and it agreed with the resolution in A/D conversion.

A method of tone recognition has been developed for dissyllabic speech of Standard Chinese based on discrete hidden Markov modeling. As for the feature parameters of recognition, combination of macroscopic and microscopic parameters of fundamental frequency contours was shown to give a better result as compared to the isolated use of each parameter. Speaker normalization was realized by introducing an offset to the fundamental frequency. In order to avoid recognition errors due to syllable segmentation, a scheme of concatenated learning was adopted for training hidden Markov models. Based on the observations of fundamental frequency contours of dissyllables, a scheme was introduced to the method, where a contour was represented with a series of three syllabic tone models, two for the first and the second syllables and one for the transition part around the syllabic boundary. Corresponding to the voiceless consonant of the second syllable, fundamental frequency contour of a dissyllable may include a part without fundamental frequencies. This part was linearly interpolated in the current method. To prove the validity of the proposed method, it was compared with other methods, such as representing all of the dissyllabic contours as the concatenation of two models, assigning a special code to the voiceless part, and so on. Tone sandhi was also taken into account by introducing two additional models for the half-third tone and for the first 4th tone of the combination of two 4th tones. With the proposed method, average recognition rate of 96% was achieved for 5 male and 5 female speakers.

Recent works have shown that the size reduction of printed dipole antennas was possible thanks to a proper shaping of the radiating element. Following the same idea (choice of suitable shape), a shortened slot fed patch antenna exhibiting two step discontinuities, is described, analysed and optimized with a simple transmission line model. The shortening ratio (ρ) can reach 80% for matched antenna, printed on a substrate with a low dielectric constant (εr=2.2). The calculated results of input impedance are validated by experiment.

Recent technical advances in WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) technologies suggest that their practical application is imminent. By adopting WDM technologies in the transport network, a bandwidth abundant B-ISDN could be realized cost-effectively. This requires the introduction of WDM technologies, especially into the path layer. This paper explores optical path cross-connect (OPXC) nodes that offer very high levels of expandability because existing traffic demands, which are rather limited, must be efficiently supported while permitting easy step-wise expansion in capacity. This paper highlights modularity with regard to incoming/outgoing links. The OPXC architecture that offers the highest modularity is elaborated, and its transmission characteristics, optical loss and switching power consumption are evaluated. This paper also examines OPXC architecture considering the interface needed to connect electrical path cross-connects. The proposed OPXC architectures provide flexibility and minimum investment to encourage the early introduction of B-ISDN and also supports incremental network growth to match traffic demand. The design of OPXC parameters in terms of transmission performance is shown to ensure the applicability of the proposed OPXC architecture to long-haul optical fiber transmission networks. This is made possible with the low optical component losses offered by the OPXC. The proposed OPXC architectures will, therefore, be applied not only to regional networks, but also to global area networks. Thus they will play a key role in realizing the optical path infrastructure for the future bandwidth abundant B-ISDN.

With the foreseen growth of communication capacity, further capacity and flexibility enhancements are required for future transport networks. Photonic switching is expected to be a key technology to solve the potential bottleneck, which could be found in transport network nodes. This paper first explains the "Optical Fiber Freeway" concept, as an example of future transport networks. Following this, the possible optical transport network structure using photonic switching technologies, for realizing the Optical Fiber Freeway concept, is explained. An Optical CrossConnect (OXC) and optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ADM) are key components. Examples of recent development of photonic switching systems toward these targets are also reviewed. An OXC using photonic Space-Division (SD) switching technology has been proposed and demonstrated. This type of OXC will realize flexible reconfiguration and optical hitless switching, and it can meet the introduction of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technique. Line failure restoration operation at 2.4Gb/s has been successfully demonstrated. An optical packet network with a slotted ring/bus structure using a wavelength address technique has been proposed as a packet/cell based optical ADM. The experimental system employs a practical media access control system as well as a fast-wavelength switched transmitter suppressing thermally induced wavelength drift. Cell communication at 622Mb/s has been demonstrated with the experimental system. These results show that hardware technologies have been developed steadily. With a future study on an all optical network management scheme, a high capacity and flexible optical network would be realized.

A self-induced-transparent (SIT) system that takes advantage of morphology dependent resonances (MDR's) in a Mie-sized microsphere doped with a resonant material is proposed. The present system is doubly resonant: one has microscopic origin (the two-level system), while the other has macroscopic origin (the MDR). In this geometry, owing to the feedback action of MDR's, the pulse area can be much expanded, and thus the electric-field amplitude of the incident pulse can be reduced substantially compared with the conventional one-way SIT propagation. Theoretical results that incorporate dephasing due to structural imperfections are shown.

The wave forms of electric and magnetic fields radiated by short gap discharges are measured to analyze electrostatic discharge (ESD) events in the near-field zone with the monopole antennas, the loop antenna and the 5.5GHz bandwidth waveform digitizer. The antenna outputs are corrected by the measured characteristics of the antennas. The relations between the measured electric field and the discharge currents are discussed.

On mutually coupling lines, the transmission signal is dispersively propagated by crosstalk coupling between lines and shows complex propagation characteristics caused by reciprocal reflections. Usually, the differential equation and the integral equation have been applied to analyze the solutions of transmission lines. In this paper, we propose a different analytical method of the propagation characteristics of signal and crosstalk noise. By setting up crosstalk coupling line as a sectionally divided digital transmission network and by using the signal flow graph and the difference equation, the propagation characteristics in the frequency domain, the space domain and the time domain on mutually coupling lines can be obtained. To verify the validity of this method and analyze the complex propagation problems, we first study the crosstalk characteristics of a twisted pair cable via the third circuit by unidirectional coupling. Subsequently we will analyze the coupling theory of bidirectional coupling lines.

Long-wavelength 1.3 µm GaInAsP/InP vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) have been demonstrated in an array configuration. With the strong current confinement by a buried heterostructure and the efficient optical feedback by a dielectric cavity, five VCSEL elements in a 24 array operated at room temperature with 5 mW total power output and wavelength error within 5%. The stacked planar optics including the VCSEL array is a promising optical transmitter in ultra large scale parallel optical communication systems.

GaAs-based micromachining is a very attractive technique for integrating mechanical structures and active optical devices, such as laser diodes and photodiodes. For monolithically integrating mechanical parts onto laser diode wafers, the micromachining technique must be compatible with the laser diode fabrication process. Our micromachining technique features three major processes: epitaxitial growth (MOVPE) for both the structural and sacrificial layers, reactive dry-etching by chlorine for high-aspect, three-dimensional structures, and selective wet-etching by peroxide/ammonium hydroxide solution to release the moving parts. These processes are compatible with laser fabrication, so a cantilever beam structure can be fabricated at the same time as a laser diode structure. Furthermore, a single-crystal epitaxial layer has little residual stress, so precise microstructures can be obtained without significant deformation. We fabricated a microbeam resonator sensor composed of two laser diodes, a photodiode, and a micro-cantilever beam with an area of 400700 µm. The cantilever beam is 3 µm wide, 5 µm high, and either 110µm long for a 200-kHz resonant frequency or 50 µm long for a 1-MHz resonant frequency. The cantilever beam is excited by an intensity-modulated laser beam from an integrated excitation laser diode; the vibration signal is detected by a coupled cavity laser diode and a photodiode.

In this paper, an electrostatic actuator with electret is proposed. Electrets are the electrical equivalent of magnets. They are dielectric's carrying a non equilibrium permanent space charge or polarization distribution. This distribution can create either an external electric field or internal properties such as piezo or pyroelectricity. In the first case it is possible to make new types of electrostatic actuators by the external electric field. An electrostatic relay with electret is fabricated to demonstrate the possibility of an electrostatic actuator with electret. The size of relay is 5.2 mm11.5 mm. Its amature beam is 50 µm thick, 2.9 mm wide, 6.3 mm long, and acts as a moving electrode. Facing it, the stationary electrode is 20 µm away from the moving electrode. On the stationary electrode, new type of electret made from SiO2 is deposited. We have succeeded in making the armature operate at low applied voltage 20 V. On the same structure without electret, we need more than 120 V to make the same armature operation. We have also succeeded in making the armature latching.

A light, thin and flexible applicator using a microstrip patch array for microwave heating is presented and tested in this work. The applicator is made of a flat silicone rubber bag, inside of which flows cooling water. EM coupling feeding is applied, which has no direct contact between the feed and the patch, to improve durability and reliability when it is repeatedly applied to the uneven surface of the heated portion of the human body. Simulations of SAR distribution are performed using the finite difference time domain (FD-TD) method. Simulated data are compared with the experimental ones using cubic and cylindrical phantom models with single and multielement patch applicators. Simulations of temperature distribution are also performed using the heat transfer equation. Simulated data are compared with the experimental ones using cubic and cylindrical phantom models. The simulated results agree well with the experimental ones. The results obtained here show that the multielement flexible microstrip patch applicator which operates at 430MHz can heat a relatively shallow and widespread area on the human body for hyperthermia treatments.

This paper presents the results of a study made to determine the line length coverage of the high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (HDSL) present in NTT's local networks. The HDSL carries one bi-directional 784 kbit/s channel per pair and supports the digital interface at 1544kbit/s by using two cable pairs. The primary purpose of this study is to estimate the range limits for candidate transmission schemes considering line installation conditions, and to determine the most promising transmission scheme and its feasibility given the environment of NTT's local networks. Pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmission schemes are compared for HDSL implementation. It is shown that 2B1Q-PAM and 16-QAM generally achieve better performance than the more complicated PAM and QAM given the presence intra-system crosstalk interference (interference between identical transmission systems). The range limits determined by inter-system crosstalk interference (interference between different transmission systems) with basic rate access (BRA) implementing a burst-mode transmission method are also estimated. This paper concludes that 2B1Q-PAM achieves the best overall performance in NTT's local networks. A feasibility study of 192-6144 kbit/s transmission is also described.

Mixed-signal LSIs promise to permit increased levels of integration, not only in voiceband but also in multi-GHz-band applications such as wireless communications and optical data links. This paper reviews the evolution of mixed-signal communications LSIs and discusses some of their design problems, including device noise and crosstalk noise. In the low-power and low-voltage designs emerging as new disciplines, the target supply voltage for voiceband LSIs is around 1 V, and even GHz-band circuits are approaching 2 V. MOS devices are expected to play an important role even in the frequency range over 100 MHz, in the area of wireless or optical communications circuits.