This paper presents a novel X-handling technique, which removes the effect of unknowns on compacted test response with maximal compaction ratio. The proposed method combines with the current X-tolerant compactors and inserts masking cells on scan paths to selectively mask X's. By doing this, the number of unknown responses in each scan-out cycle could be reduced to a reasonable level such that the target X-tolerant compactor would tolerate with guaranteed possible error detection. It guarantees no test loss due to the effect of X's, and achieves the maximal compaction that the target response compactor could provide as well. Moreover, because the masking cells are only inserted on the scan paths, it has no performance degradation of the designs. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

A performance of the complex chaotic spreading sequences with constant power is investigated in a chip-synchronous complex CDMA with a complex scrambling. We estimate a signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) and a bit error rate (BER). An exact invariant measure of the complex chaotic spreading sequence can be obtained. Therefore, the SIR can be calculated analytically. The result can be used as one of the criteria for evaluating the performance of the complex CDMA using the chaotic spreading sequences.

We report Ultraviolet (UV)-induced visible light luminescence in artificial-lattice thin films of ion-doped silica glass (silica superstructure thin films). The film was composed of periodic nanometer layers of germanium-doped silica (Ge:SiO2), titanium-doped silica (Ti:SiO2), and tin-doped silica (Sn:SiO2). The thickness of each layer was between 10 and 30 nm. Despite the small thickness of the film (few microns), a relatively bright luminescence of white light was observed, along with cathode-ray luminescence in the superstructure film. In addition, irradiation of the superstructure film with UV light led to light amplification by stimulated emission at 405 nm. The experimental results suggest the potential application of silica superstructure thin films as optical amplifiers.

In this paper, we propose an area-efficient design of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) processor by applying a new common-expression-elimination (CSE) method to the sub-functions of various transformations required in AES. The proposed method reduces the area cost of realizing the sub-functions by extracting the common factors in the bit-level XOR/AND-based sum-of-product expressions of these sub-functions using a new CSE algorithm. Cell-based implementation results show that the AES processor with our proposed CSE method has significant area improvement compared with previous designs.

This paper presents a novel approach of analysing colour bleeding caused by image compression. This is achieved by isolating two components of colour bleeding, and evaluating these components separately. Although these specific components of colour bleeding have not been studied with great detail in the past, with the use of a synthetic test pattern -- similar to the colour bars used to test analogue television transmissions -- we have successfully isolated, and evaluated: "colour blur" and "colour ringing," as two separate components of colour bleeding artefact. We have also developed metrics for these artefacts, and tested these derived metrics in a series of trials aimed to test the colour reproduction performance of a JPEG codec, and a JPEG2000 codec -- both implemented by the developer IrfanView. The algorithms developed to measure these artefact metrics proved to be effective tools for evaluating and benchmarking the performance of similar codecs, or different implementations of the same codecs.

One fast inter mode decision algorithm is proposed in this paper. The whole algorithm is divided into two stages. In the pre-stage, by exploiting spatial and temporal information of encoded macrobocks (MBs), a skip mode early detection scheme is proposed. The homogeneity of current MB is also analyzed to filter out small inter modes in this stage. Secondly, during the block matching stage, a motion feature based inter mode decision scheme is introduced by analyzing the motion vector predictor's accuracy, the block overlapping situation and the smoothness of SAD (sum of absolute difference) value. Moreover, the rate distortion cost is checked in an early stage and we set some constraints to speed up the whole decision flow. Experiments show that our algorithm can achieve a speed up factor of up to 53.4% for sequences with different motion type. The overall bit increment and quality degradation is negligible compared with existing works.

A three-dimensional semiconductor package structure with inter-chip connections was developed for broadband data transfer and low latency electrical communication between a high-capacity memory and a logic device interconnected by a feedthrough interposer (FTI) featuring a 10 µm scale fine-wiring pattern and ultra-fine-pitch through vias. This technology features co-existence of the wide-band memory accessibility of a system-on-chip (SoC) and the capability of memory capacity increasing of a system-in-package (SiP) that is made possible by the individual fabrication of memory and logic on independent chips. This technology can improve performance due to memory band widening and a reduction in the power consumed in inter-chip communications. This paper describes the concept, structure, process, and experimental results of prototypes of this package, called SMAFTI (SMAart chip connection with FeedThrough Interposer). This paper also reports the results of the fundamental reliability test of this novel inter-chip connection structure and board-level interconnectivity tests.

The synthesis of single- and double-wall carbon nanotubes by gas flow-modified, catalyst-supported chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) is reported. We have investigated the gas flow condition dependence on the synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by placing blocks in the CCVD reactor. Carbon nanotubes having large diameters are preferentially grown under turbulent flow conditions. This indicates that the diameter distribution of CNTs can be controlled by modification of the gas flow condition in the CCVD.

In this paper, a sidelobe suppression technique for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based cognitive radios (CR) is proposed. In the OFDM-based CR systems, after the CR terminal executes spectrum sensing, it transmits a CR packet by activating the subcarriers in the frequency bands where no signals are detected (hereinafter, these subcarriers are called "active subcarrier") and by disabling (nulling) the subcarriers in the frequency bands where the signals are detected. In this situation, a problem arises in that the signals that leak from the active subcarriers to the null subcarriers may interfere with the primary systems. Therefore, this signal leakage has to be minimized. In many OFDM-based wireless communication systems, one packet or frame consists of multiple OFDM symbols and the discontinuity between the consecutive OFDM symbols causes the signal leakage to the null subcarriers. In the proposed method, signal leakage to the null subcarriers is suppressed by regenerating null subcarriers in the frequency-domain signal of the whole packet as follows. One CR packet consisting of multiple OFDM symbols having null subcarriers and guard interval (GI) is buffered and oversampled, and then the oversampled signal is Fourier transformed at once and consequently the frequency-domain signal of the packet is obtained. The null subcarriers in the frequency-domain signal are zeroed again, and then the signal is inverse Fourier transformed and transmitted. The proposed method significantly suppresses the signal leakage. The spectral power density, the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and the packet error rate (PER) performances of the proposed method are evaluated by computer simulations and the effectiveness of the proposed method is shown.

The public safety spectrum is generally under-utilized due to the unique traffic characteristics of bursty and mission critical. This letter considers the application of dynamic spectrum access (DSA) to the combined spectrum of public safety (PS) and commercial (CMR) users in a common shared network that can provide both PS and CMR services. Our scenario includes the 700 MHz Public/Private Partnership which was recently issued by the Federal Communications Commission. We first propose an efficient DSA mechanism to coordinate the combined spectrum, and then establish a call admission control that reflects the proposed DSA in a wideband code division multiple access based network. The essentials of our proposed DSA are opportunistic access to the public safety spectrum and priority access to the commercial spectrum. Simulation results show that these schemes are well harmonized in various network environments.

An inversion method of bridge height over water by polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is developed. A geometric ray description to illustrate scattering mechanism of a bridge over water surface is identified by polarimetric image analysis. Using the mapping and projecting algorithm, a polarimetric SAR image of a bridge model is first simulated and shows that scattering from a bridge over water can be identified by three strip lines corresponding to single-, double-, and triple-order scattering, respectively. A set of polarimetric parameters based on the de-orientation theory is applied to analysis of three types scattering, and the thinning-clustering algorithm and Hough transform are then employed to locate the image positions of these strip lines. These lines are used to invert the bridge height. Fully polarimetric image data of airborne Pi-SAR at X-band are applied to inversion of the height and width of the Naruto Bridge in Japan. Based on the same principle, this approach is also applicable to spaceborne ALOSPALSAR single-polarization data of the Eastern Ocean Bridge in China. The results show good feasibility to realize the bridge height inversion.

Scalable video coding (SVC) was standardized as an extension of H.264/AVC by the JVT (Joint Video Team) in Nov. 2007. The biggest feature of SVC is multi-layered coding where two or more video sequences are compressed into a single bit-stream. This letter proposes a fast block mode decision algorithm in spatial enhancement layer of SVC. The proposed algorithm achieves early decision by limiting the number of candidate modes for block with certain characteristic called same motion vector block (SMVB). Our proposed method reduces the complexity, in terms of encoding time by up to 66.17%. Nevertheless, it shows negligible PSNR degradation by only up to 0.16 dB and increases the bit-rate by only up to 0.64%, respectively.

This paper studies reflection and transmission of a TE plane wave from a two-dimensional random slab with statistically anisotropic fluctuation by means of the stochastic functional approach. By starting with a representation of the random wavefield presented in the previous paper [IEICE Trans. Electron., vol.E92-C, no.1, pp.77-84, Jan. 2009], a solution algorithm of the multiple renormalized mass operator is newly shown even for anisotropic fluctuation. The multiple renormalized mass operator, the first-order incoherent scattering cross section and the optical theorem are numerically calculated and illustrated in figures. The relation between statistical properties and anisotropic fluctuation is discussed.

Many signal processing systems, particularly in the multimedia and telecommunication domains, are synthesized to execute data-intensive applications: their cost related aspects -- namely power consumption and chip area -- are heavily influenced, if not dominated, by the data access and storage aspects. This paper presents an energy-aware memory allocation methodology. Starting from the high-level behavioral specification of a given application, this framework performs the assignment of the multidimensional signals to the memory layers -- the on-chip scratch-pad memory and the off-chip main memory -- the goal being the reduction of the dynamic energy consumption in the memory subsystem. Based on the assignment results, the framework subsequently performs the mapping of signals into both memory layers such that the overall amount of data storage be reduced. This software system yields a complete allocation solution: the exact storage amount on each memory layer, the mapping functions that determine the exact locations for any array element (scalar signal) in the specification, and an estimation of the dynamic energy consumption in the memory subsystem.

Since multiview video coding (MVC) based on H.264/AVC uses a prediction scheme exploiting inter-view correlation among multiview video, MVC encoder compresses multiple views more efficiently than simulcast H.264/AVC encoder. However, in case that the number of views to be encoded increases in MVC, the total encoding time will be greatly increased. To reduce computational complexity in MVC, a fast mode decision using both Macroblock-based region segmentation information and global disparity vector among views is proposed to reduce the encoding time. The proposed method achieves on the average 1.5 2.9 reduction of the total encoding time with the PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) degradation of about 0.05 dB.

When cognitive radio (CR) systems dynamically use the frequency band, a control signal is necessary to indicate which carrier frequencies are currently available in the network. In order to keep efficient spectrum utilization, this control signal also should be transmitted based on the channel conditions. If transmitters dynamically select carrier frequencies, receivers have to receive control signals without knowledge of their carrier frequencies. To enable such transmission and reception, this paper proposes a novel scheme called DCPT (Differential Code Parallel Transmission). With DCPT, receivers can receive low-rate information with no knowledge of the carrier frequencies. The transmitter transmits two signals whose carrier frequencies are spaced by a predefined value. The absolute values of the carrier frequencies can be varied. When the receiver acquires the DCPT signal, it multiplies the signal by a frequency-shifted version of the signal; this yields a DC component that represents the data signal which is then demodulated. The performance was evaluated by means of numerical analysis and computer simulation. We confirmed that DCPT operates successfully even under severe interference if its parameters are appropriately configured.

Traditional TCP has a good congestion control strategy that adapts its sending rate in accordance with network congestion. In addition, a fast recovery algorithm can help TCP achieve better throughput by responding to temporary network congestion well. However, if multiple packet losses occur, the time to enter congestion avoidance phase would be delayed due to the long recovery time. Moreover, during the recovery phase, TCP freezes congestion window size until all lost packets are recovered, and this can make recovery time much longer resulting in performance degradation. To mitigate such recovery overhead, we propose Momentary recovery algorithm that recovers packet loss without an extra recovery phase. As other TCP and variants, our algorithm also halves the congestion window size when packet drop is detected, but it performs congestion avoidance phase immediately as if loss recovery is completed. For lost packets, TCP sender transmits them along with normal packets as long as congestion window permits rather than performs fast retransmission. In this manner, we can eliminate recovery overhead efficiently and reach steady state momentarily after network congestion. Finally, we provide a simulation based study on TCP recovery behaviors and confirm that our Momentary recovery algorithm always shows better performance compared with NewReno, SACK, and FACK.

A 2 to 5 GHz-band self frequency dividing quadrature mixer utilizing current re-use configuration with small size and broad band operation is proposed for a direct conversion receiver and a low-IF receiver of cognitive radio. The proposed mixer operates at twice the LO frequency by directly using a static type flip-flop frequency divider as the LO switching circuit for quadrature signal generation. The current re-use configuration is realized because the dc current of the frequency divider and the RF common-emitter amplifier share the same current flow path. Simulations and experiments verify that the proposed mixer offers broad band operation, miniaturization, and low power consumption. The mixer IC fabricated by 0.35 µm SiGe-BiCMOS technology achieved the conversion gain of 20.6 dB, noise figure of 11.9 dB and EVM for π/4-shift QPSK signal of 4.4% at 2.1 GHz with power consumption of 15 mW and size of 0.22 0.31 mm2. For the confirmation of broad band operation, the characteristics of conversion gain and noise figure were measured at 5.2 GHz. The proposed mixer could operate at 5.2 GHz with enough conversion gain, but the noise figure was inferior to that of 2.1 GHz. Therefore the further investigation and improvement about the noise figure will be needed for higher frequency.

In this paper, we use frequency-domain equalization (FDE) to create coherent optical single-carrier (CO-SC) transmission systems that are very tolerant of chromatic dispersion (CD) and polarization mode dispersion (PMD). The efficient transmission of a 25-Gb/s NRZ-QPSK signal by using the proposed FDE is demonstrated under severe CD and PMD conditions. We also discuss the principle of FDE and some techniques suitable for implementing CO-SC-FDE. The results show that a CO-SC-FDE system is very tolerant of CD and PMD and can achieve high transmission rates over single mode fiber without optical dispersion compensation.

Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were fabricated on graphite plates using "Ar+ ion sputtering method" in large amount at room temperature. The morphology of CNFs was controlled by a simultaneous carbon supply during ion sputtering. CNF-tipped cones were formed on graphite plate surfaces without carbon supply whereas those with a simultaneous carbon supply featured mainly needle-like protrusions of large size. The field electron emission (FE) properties, measured using parallel plate configurations in 10-4 Pa range, showed the threshold fields of 4.4 and 5.2 V/µm with a current density of 1 µA/cm2 for CNF-tipped cones and needle-like protrusion, respectively. Reliability test results indicated that CNF-tipped cones were more stable than needle-like protrusion. The morphological change after reliability test showed a so-called "self-regenerative" process and structure damage for CNF-tipped cones and needle-like protrusions, respectively.