This paper describes the hierarchical behavioral description language celled SFL and its processing system. This integrated CAD system called PARTHENON is used for designs of the leading ASICs in the NTT Systems Labs. This paper shows, therefore, the effectiveness of PARTHENON as a practical high-lelel synthesis system through real design experience. SFL was developed to aid in the design of the hardware functions and behaviors of ASICs composed solely of clocksynchronized circuits. The main features of SFL are as follows: (1) It is not mixed with connection description, but employs only behavioral description (like procedual description in program language), and it provides hierarchical expression of behavioral description. (2) It permits the description of parallel processing operations by adopting a new hardware task concept. And, (3) it is linked with the behavioral simulator, logic synthesizer, and other components of the processing system. After describing SFL in some detail, a brief explanation of its synthesizer and other processing components is provided, along with its application results in the real design of some leading ASICs at the NTT Systems Laboratories.

Most of actual environmental systems show a complicated fluctuation pattern of non-Gaussian type, owing to various kinds of factors. In the actual measurement, the fluctuation of random signal is usually contaminated by an external noise. Furthermore, it is very often that the reliable observation value can be obtained only within a definite fluctuating amplitude domain, because many of measuring equipments have their proper dynamic range and original random wave form is unreliable at the end of amplitude fluctuation. It becomes very important to establish a new signal detection method applicable to such an actual situation. This paper newly describes a dynamical state estimation algorithm for a successive observation contaminated by the external noise of an arbitrary distribution type, when the observation value is measured through a finite dynamic range of measurement. On the basis of the Bayes' theorem, this method is derived in the form of a wide sense digital filter, which is applicable to the non-Gaussian properties of the fluctuations, the actual observation in a finite amplitude domain and the existence of external noise. Differing from the well-known Kalman's filter and its improvement, the proposed state estimation method is newly derived especially by paying our attention to the statistical information on the observation value behind the saturation function instead of that on the resultant noisy observation. Finally, the proposed method is experimentally confirmed too by applying it to the actual problem for a reverberation time measurement from saturated noisy observations in room acoustics.

Asymptotic bounds are considered for unidirectional byte error-correcting codes. Upper bounds are developed from the concepts of the Singleton, Plotkin, and Hamming bounds. Lower bounds are also derived from a combination of the generalized concatenated code construction and the Varshamov-Gilbert bound. As the result, we find that there exist codes of low rate better than those on the basis of Hamming distance with respect to unidirectional byte error-correction.

A new arithmetic multiple-valued algebra with functional completeness is introduced. The algebra is called Neuro-Algebra for it has very similar formula and architecture to neural networks. Two canonical forms of multiple-valued functions of this Neuro-Algebra are presented. Since the arithmetic operations of the Neuro-Aglebra are basically a weighted-sum and a piecewise linear operations, their implementations are very simple and straightforward. Furthermore, the multiple-valued networks based on the Neuro-Algebra can be trained by the traditional back-propagation learning algorithm directly.

Test pattern generation is getting much harder as the circuit size becomes larger. One problem is that it tends to take much time and another one is that it is difficult to detect redundant faults. Aiming to cope with these problem, an enhanced unique sensitization technique is proposed in this paper. This powerful global implication reduces the number of backtracks with reasonable computational time. And a fast test pattern generator featuring this unique sensitization demonstrates its performance using large benchmark circuits with over ten thousands of gates. It takes only a minute to detect all testable faults and to identify all redundant faults of 20,000 gates circuit on a workstation.

Acceleration techniques have been incorporated into the generalized method of characteristics (GMC) to perform transient analysis of uniform transmission lines, for the special case when the transmission lines are driven by digital signals. These techinques have been proved to improve the simulation speed to a great extent when the analysis is carried out using iterative waveform relaxation method. It has been identified that the load impedance connected to the transmission line has a bearing on the efficiency of one of these acceleration techniques. Examples of an RLCG line terminated with linear loads as well as nonlinear loads are given to illustrate the advantage of incorporating these acceleration techniques.

This letter discusses a behavior of solitons in a Josephson junction transmission line which is described by a perturbed sine-Gordon equation. It is shown that a soliton wave leads a quasi-periodic break down route to chaos in a Josephson transmission line. This route show phase locking, quasi-periodic state, chaos and hyper chaos, and these phenomena are examined by using Poincar sections, circle map, rotation number, and so on.

Since the time required for testing logic circuits is proportional to the number of test vectors, the size of test sets as well as test generation time is one of the most important factors to be considered in test generation. The size of test sets becomes an essential issue, especially for scan designed circuits, because of the need to shift a test vector serially into the scan path. In this paper, we propose new methods of generating compact test sets to detect al the irredundant single stuck-at faults in combinational circuits. The proposed algorithms calculate a test function for each fault which corresponds to the set of all test vectors for the fault and generate a compact test set by analyzing the test functions. The analysis is based on finding a test vector which detects the largest number of remaining faults. Since our methods select a test vector among all the test vectors, represented by a test function, for a target fault, smaller test sets can be generated, in general, than that by conventional test set compaction methods. The experimental results show that the size of test sets generated by our method is about one-third as large as that without compaction.

This paper proposes a new subscriber distribution method called FTTA (Fiber To The Area), which uses millimeter-wave radio band to connect subscribers with base station and optical fiber to connect base station with control station in order to obtain broad-band transmission. Usually two main causes of signal degradation, i.e., rainfall attenuation on radio channel and intermodulation distortion on optical channel are considered in this system. Taking into considerations of these two factors, we analyze the available capacity of FTTA system for various 22nQAM modulation levels. The analysis clarifies that there exists an optimum modulation level that can maxize the available capacity, and AGC circuit in the base station is useful to compensate the rainfall attenuation. It is shown that 18.0Gbps is available under the optimum modulation method of the 64QAM with AGC and 12.0Gbps under the 16QAM without AGC when 20 carriers are used.

The Princeton University Behavioral Synthesis System (PUBSS) performs high-level synthesis on communicating processes. The compiler accepts models written in a subset of VHDL, but performs synthesis using a more specialized model, the behavior FSMs (BFSMs), for synthesis. The simulation semantics of VHDL presents challenges in describing behavior without overly constraining that behavior solely to make the simulation work. This paper describes mismatch between the simulation semantics provided by VHDL and the synthesis semantics required for high-level synthesis and describes how we solved these problems in PUBSS.

We have developed a new HIGFET structure achieving an extremely high K-value of 13.3 S/Vcm with a gate length of 0.15 µm. Self-aligned ion implantation is excluded to suppress a short-channel effect. An i-GaAs cap layer and an n+-GaAs contact layer are employed to reduce source resistance. The threshold voltage shift is as small as 50 mV when the gate length is reduced from 1.5 µm to 0.15 µm. Source resistance is estimated to be 53 mΩcm. We have also developed a new fabrication process that can achieve a shorter gate length than the minimum size of lithography. This process utilizes an SiO2 sidewall formed on the n+-GaAs contact layer to reduce the gate length. A gate length of 0.15 µm can be achieved using 0.35 µm lithography.

To clarify the stereopsis disturbance in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), we analyzed binocular eye movement when subjects shifted their gaze between targets at different depths. Subjects are patients with Alzheimer's disease, Mluti-infarct dementia (MID), or Olivopontocerebellar atrophy (OPCA), and healthy controls. Targets are arranged in two ways: along the median plane and asymmetrically crossing the median plane, at distances from the eyes of 1000 mm and 300 mm. When the targets are switched at the onset of a beep, the subjects shifted their gaze to the lit target. The experiment is conducted in a dimly lit room whose structure is capable of providing good binocular cues for depth. In AD subjects, especially in the subjects whose symptoms are moderate (advanced stage), vergence is limited and the change in the convergence angle is small, unstable, and non-uniform. These results are different from those of other patients (MID) and OPCA) or healthy controls and suggest a disturbance of stereopsis in the parietal lobe where AD patients typically have dysfunctions.

An algorithm interpolating parallel cross-sections between CT slices is described. Contours of equiscalar or constant-density surfaces on cross-sections are directly obtained as non-intersecting loops from grayscale slice images. This algorithm is based on a general algorithm that the authors have proposed earlier, constructing triangulated orientable closed surfaces from grayscale volumes and is particularly suited for a new technique, called laser stereolithography, which creates real 3D plastic objects using UV laser to scan and harden liquid polymer. The process of laser stereolithography is executed slice by slice, and this technique really requires some interpolation of intermediate cross-sections between slices. For visualizing, surfaces are only expected to be shaded almost continuously. The local defects are invisible and not cared about if the picture resolution is rather poor. On the contrary, topological faults are fatal to construct solid models by laser stereolithography, i.e., every contour line on cross-sections must be closed with no intersection. Not a single break of a contour line is tolerated. We already have many algorithms available for equiscalar surface construction, and it seems that if we cut the surfaces, then contour lines could be obtained. However, few of them are directly applicable to solid modeling. Marching cubes algorithm, for example, does not ensure the consistency of surface topology. Our algorithm guarantee an adequate topology of contour lines.

This paper introduces the concept of an extended pseudo-biorthogonal basis" (EPBOB), which is a generalization of the concepts of an orthonormal (OB), a biorthonormal (BOB), a pseudo-orthogonal (POB), and a pseudo-biorthogonal (PBOB) bases. Let HN be a subspace of a Hilbert space H. The concept of EPBOB says that we can always construct a set of 2M (MN) elements of H but not necessarily all in HN such that like BOB any element f in HN can be expressed by fMΣm=1(f,φ*m)φm. For a better understanding and a wide application of EPBOB, this paper provides their characterization and shows how they preserve the formalism of BOB. It also shows how to construct them.

In this paper, we attempt the comparison of the image/signal restoration between Projection Filter, which is regarded as one of the linear optimal filters, and the non-linear filter based on MEM. From the simulation, we show the advantage of MEM restoration filter in restoring noisy degraded images.

A new trial of statistical evaluation for an output response of power linear type acoustic systems with nonstationary random input is proposed. The purpose of this study is to predict the output probability distribution function on the basis of a standard type pre-experiment in a laboratoty. The statistical properties like nonstationarity, non-Gamma distribution property and various type linear and non-linear correlations of input signal are reflected in the form of differential operation with respect to distribution parameters. More concretely, the pre-experiment is carried out for a power linear acoustic system excited only by the Gamma distribution type sandard random input. Considering the non-negative random property for the output response of a power linear system, the well-known statistical Laguerre expansion series type probability expression is first employed as the framework of basic probability distribution expression on the output power fluctuation. Then, the objective output probability distribution for a non-stationary case can be easily derived only by successively employing newly introduced differential operators to this basic probability distribution of statistical Laguerre expansion series type. As an application to the actual noise environment, the proposed method is employed for an evaluation problem on the stochastic response probability distribution for an acoustic sound insulation system excited by a nonstationary input noise.

In multidimensional signal sampling, the orthogonal sampling scheme is the simplest one and is employed in various applications, while a non-orthogonal sampling scheme is its alternative candidate. The latter sampling scheme is used mainly in application where the reduction of the sampling rate is important. In three-dimensional (3-D) signal processing, there are two typical sampling schemes which belong to the non-orthogonal samplings; one is face-centered cubic sampling (FCCS) and the other is body-centered cubic sampling (BCCS). This paper proposes a new design method for 3-D band-limiting FIR filters required for such non-orthogonal sampling schemes. The proposed method employs the McClellan transformation technique. Unlike the usual 3-D McClellan transformation, however, the proposed design method uses 2-D prototype filters and 2-D transformation filters to obtain 3-D FIR filters. First, 3-D general sampling theory is discussed and the two types of typical non-orthogonal sampling schemes, FCCS and BCCS, are explained. Then, the proposed design method of 3-D bandlimiting filters for these sampling schemes is explained and an effective implementation of the designed filters is discussed briefly. Finally, design examples are given and the proposed method is compared with other method to show the effectiveness of our methos.

Industrial radio control systems require a high degree of safety and reliability even in operating environments where harsh interference conditions exist. In order to implement Spread Spectrum (SS) modulation techniques in industrial radio control systems, a hybrid Direct Sequence/Frequency Hopping (DS/FH) system with high speed synchronization capability was designed, implemented and evaluated. In this system, a digital matched filter was utilized for despreading the DS signal. By manipulating the despread signal and sensing the correlation peak, the frequency hopping circuit can operate without a special synchronizing circuit. The focus of this report is on an engineering sample created for the 900MHz band available as an ISM band in the U.S. In this sample, error correction code was integrated with the hybrid DS/FH which gives the system excellent narrow-band interference rejection properties and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) capabilities.

This paper describes a neural network scheduler for scheduling independent and nonpreemptable tasks with deadlines and resource requirements in critical real-time applications, in which a schedule is to be obtained within a short time span. The proposed neural network scheduler is an integrate model of two Hopfield-Tank neural network medels. To cope with deadlines, a heuristic policy which is modified from the earliest deadling policy is embodied into the proposed model. Computer simulations show that the proposed neural network scheduler has a promising performance, with regard to the probability of generating a feasible schedule, compared with a scheduler that executes a conventional algorithm performing the earliest deadline policy.

The capacity of a cellular direct sequence code division multiple access system is investigated in situations with and without power control for both the reverse link (from mobile to base station) and the forward link (from base station to mobile). The capacity is defined as the number of simultaneous users per cell with a prespecified performance. A theoretical analysis of the effect of imperfect power control on the reverse link capacity is presented using an analytical model. To investigate the reverse link capacity without any form of power control, a general spatial user distribution is developed which is very suitable for analytical study of any multiple access system with the near-far effect problem. The performance of the reverse link of a CDMA system is also evaluated considering the users located in surrounding cells. Finally, the forward link capacity is studied considering multiple cells. Two possible forward power control schemes, namely carrier-to-interference ratio driven and distance driven systems, are discussed.