This paper proposes a new robust adaptive beamformer applicable to microphone arrays. The proposed beamformer is a generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) with a variable blocking matrix using coefficient-constrained adaptive filters (CCAFs). The CCAFs, whose common input signal is the output of a fixed beamformer, minimize leakage of the target signal into the interference path of the GSC. Each coefficient of the CCAFs is constrained to avoid mistracking. In the multiple-input canceller, leaky adaptive filters are used to decrease undesirable target-signal cancellation. The proposed beamformer can allow large look-direction error with almost no degradation in interference-reduction performance and can be implemented with a small number of microphones. The maximum allowable look-direction error can be specified by the user. Simulation results show that the proposed beamformer, when designed to allow about 20of look-direction error, can suppress interference by more than 17 dB.

Enhancement of resonance is shown by coupling and summing in sinusoidally driven chaotic neural networks. This resonance phenomenon has a peak at a drive frequency similar to noise-induced stochastic resonance (SR), however, the mechanism is different from noise-induced SR. We numerically study the properties of resonance in chaotic neural networks in the turbulent phase with summing and homogeneous coupling, with particular consideration of enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by coupling and summing. Summing networks can enhance the SNR of a mean field based on the law of large numbers. Global coupling can enhance the SNR of a mean field and a neuron in the network. However, enhancement is not guaranteed and depends on the parameters. A combination of coupling and summing enhances the SNR, but summing to provide a mean field is more effective than coupling on a neuron level to promote the SNR. The global coupling network has a negative correlation between the SNR of the mean field and the Kolmogorov-Sinai (KS) entropy, and between the SNR of a neuron in the network and the KS entropy. This negative correlation is similar to the results of the driven single neuron model. The SNR is saturated as an increase in the drive amplitude, and further increases change the state into a nonchaotic one. The SNR is enhanced around a few frequencies and the dependence on frequency is clearer and smoother than the results of the driven single neuron model. Such dependence on the drive amplitude and frequency exhibits similarities to the results of the driven single neuron model. The nearest neighbor coupling network with a periodic or free boundary can also enhance the SNR of a neuron depending on the parameters. The network also has a negative correlation between the SNR of a neuron and the KS entropy whenever the boundary is periodic or free. The network with a free boundary does not have a significant effect on the SNR from both edges of the free boundaries.

We proposed Reversible Energy Recovery Logic (RERL) using an 8-phase clocking scheme, which is a dual-rail reversible adiabatic logic for ultra-low-energy applications. Because we eliminated non-adiabatic energy loss in RERL by using the concept of reversible logic, RERL has only adiabatic and leakage losses. In this paper we explain its operation and logic design and present its simulation and experimental results. We also present an energy-efficient 8-phase, clocked power generator that uses an off-chip inductor. With simulation results for the full adder, we confirmed that the RERL circuit consumed substantially less energy than other logic circuits at low-speed operation. We evaluated a test chip implemented with a 0.6-µm CMOS technology, which integrated a chain of inverters with a clocked power generator. In the experimental results, the RERL circuit consumed only 4.5% of the dissipated energy of a static CMOS circuit at an optimal operating speed of 40 kHz. In conclusion, RERL is suitable for the applications that do not require high performance but low-energy consumption because its energy consumption can be decreased to the minimum by reducing the operating frequency until adiabatic and leakage losses are equal.

A timing synchronization is required in the mobile station to determine the correct transmission timing of the mobile-to-base bursts. In this letter, a timing synchronization technique using the reliability check and smoothing algorithm is proposed for the GSM receiver. The reliability check scheme extends the usefulness of this algorithm into low SNR region. And also smoothing algorithm is carried out by a first-order filter with an asymmetric step size. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is adequate for timing recovery of GSM modem.

Under a contamination of background sound noises, it seems difficult especially in a real working situation to evaluate various type statistics of only an objective sound signal fluctuation. In many cases of the noise evaluation, some signal processing method have been employed to eliminate the effect of background sound noises by first measuring emitted sound levels. In this study, a new evaluation method of sound level fluctuation is proposed in principle on the basis of the measurement of heterogeneous physical quantity other than sound pressures or sound levels to eliminate the effect of background sound noises. Though the theoretical analysis on acoustical emission caused by a mechanical vibration seems very difficult in a working situation, the sound noise fluctuation emitted only from an objective sound source can be effectively evaluated through its related vibration measurement by employing a fairly unified stochastic method proposed on the basis of a generalized regression analysis between sound and vibration. Here, the regression coefficients are determined by employing the least squares error method to minimize the mean square of estimation error to illustrate well the sound data by means of vibration data. Finally, the effectiveness of proposed method has been experimentally applied to the sound noise evaluation of a jigsaw.

This paper proposes a traffic-adaptive dynamic routing method, which we have named RAG, for connectionless packet networks. Conventional traffic control methods discard the packets which cause congestion. Furthermore, conventional routing methods propagate control messages all over the network for gathering global topology information, and this causes more congestion. In contrast, RAG estimates traffic conditions all over a network without any communication between nodes and makes the best use of free links so that packets make detours to avoid congestive sites. RAG adopts distributed control based on game theory (non-communication, non-zero-sum, two-person). With RAG, nodes play a packet-forwarding game without any communication with each other, and each node controls ordering and routing of the forwarding packets based on the node's individual payoff table which is dynamically reconstructed by observation of surrounding nodes. Nodes cooperate with each other, except for punishment for disloyalty. Repetition of these local operations in nodes aims at the emergence of the gradual network-global traffic balancing. The results of experiments in comparison with the conventional shortest path first (SPF) routing method show that the throughput is about 1.58 times higher with the new method.

In this paper, we propose a new competitive learning algorithm for training single-layer neural networks to cluster data. The proposed algorithm adopts a new measure based on the idea of "symmetry" so that neurons compete with each other based on the symmetrical distance instead of the Euclidean distance. The detected clusters may be a set of clusters of different geometrical structures. Four data sets are tested to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.

A new method using new test structure, which is connected 15.4 million MOS transistor, for evaluating extrinsic oxide breakdown is proposed. The active gate area which is needed to predict reliability will be shown. And by using this new method, activation energy not only for the intrinsic breakdown but also for the extrinsic breakdown are obtained.

Recently, Miura introduced a construction method of one-point algebraic geometry codes on singular curves, which is regarded as a generalization of one on nonsingular curves, and enables us to construct codes on wider class of algebraic curves. However, it is still not clear whether there really exist singular curves on which we can construct good codes that are never obtained from nonsingular curves. In this paper, we show that for fixed designed minimum distance in a wide range, the dimension of codes on a singular curve is smaller than or equal to that of the codes on its normalization, and the number of check symbols of the former codes is larger than that of the latter codes. This implies the optimality of nonsingular curves for code construction.

This paper proposes a method of improving the accuracy of the attenuation constant estimate obtained by using the cross-spectral technique. In the cross-spectral technique, the envelope of the estimated impulse response is deformed due to the use of a time window. As a result, the estimated impulse response decays more rapidly than the real impulse response does, and the attenuation constant obtained by the estimated impulse response becomes larger than the real value. This paper first describes how the attenuation constant changes in the process of impulse response estimation. Next, we propose a method of improving the accuracy of the estimation. The effect of the proposed method is confirmed by computer simulation.

In this paper, an adaptive method for active control of vibration intensity in the frequency domain is proposed. In this method, vibration intensity is observed with the 4-sensor method, and the coefficients of an adaptive FIR filter for the active control is renewed with the Block Filtered-X LMS algorithm in the frequency domain. An experiment with the proposed method is performed on a simple model. As a result, the proposed method gives larger attenuation of vibration intensity than the conventional method in the high frequency region. The overall attenuation in vibration intensity in that frequency region is 14.1 dB with the proposed method, while it is 7.0 dB with the conventional method. In the lower frequency region, the reduction in vibration intensity by the proposed method is roughly equivalent to that obtained by the conventional method. An improvement may also be achieved there by setting the intervals between error sensors properly.

In this paper, the correlation properties are used to develop two efficient encoding schemes for speech line spectrum frequency (LSF) parameters. The first scheme (1D KL), which exploits the intraframe correlation, is based on one-dimensional Karhunen-Loeve (KL) transformation; the second scheme, which requires some coding delays to further utilize the interframe correlation, uses two-dimensional (2D KL) transform in the frequency domain or one-dimensional KL transform co-operating with DPCM in the time domain. Moreover, since the KL transform is globally optimal, which is sensitive to the change of input data statistics, further two adaptive transform coding systems are also investigated in this paper. The performance of all systems for different bit rates is investigated and adequate comparisons are made. It is shown that the gain of using KL transformation to exploit the intraframe and interframe correlation is 3 and 4 bits/speech frame, respectively.

A novel method of extraction of emitter, Re, and base, Rb, resistances of bipolar junction transistors, BJTs, is proposed. Re and Rb are obtained from static characteristics and noise power spectral density of low frequency, 1/f, fluctuations, measured in the base and collector currents of the devices. Measurements carried out on quasi self-aligned silicon BJTs show that Re and Rb values obtained by the proposed method scale correctly with transistor dimensions and match the values estimated from the device layout.

A novel method to enhance the practical security of interferometric quantum cryptography is proposed, giving the protocol and detailed constructions including a controlled spontaneous photon emitter, a superradiance amplifier, beam splitters, phase shifters, and a pair of Mach-Zehnder interferometers. The intrinsic uncertainty due to the random phase selection out of three, leads to the detection of eavesdropping. The physical uncertainty of the controlled spontaneous emission of coherent photons also adds temporal equivocation to confuse eavesdroppers.

An advanced characterization method for sub-micron DRAM cell transistors has been proposed for the analysis of transistor test structures using memory cell patterns. When the actual memory cell layout is used as a test structure, the parasitic source and drain resistance of the test structure affected conventional transistor parameters such as threshold voltage. To solve this problem, reduced drain current measurement methods have been proposed to suppress the parasitic resistance voltage drop. In these measurements, two new transistor parameters, Vgoff and Vgsat, have been proposed which are related to off-leakage and full writing, respectively. These parameters are found to be good parameters for monitoring DRAM bit failures. A new threshold voltage measurement methodology has also been proposed for test structures with high parasitic resistance.

New test structures for evaluating isolation capacitance (CTS) and isolation breakdown voltage (BVCCO) have been developed. Using these test structures, we examined the scaling limit of the width and the structure of narrow isolation U-grooves for high-speed and high-density LSIs. We separated the capacitance CTS into two components, CTSS (bottom component) and CTSL (peripheral component), and analyzed the effect of the device structure (isolation width and filling materials) on CTS. We found that the minimum width of the isolation U-groove is especially limited by the increased isolation capacitance between the neighboring N+ buried layers. The minimum width is about 0.3 µm even when SiO2 is used as a filling material. So we developed an effective method to overcome this limitation. Use of a double-trench structure and/or an SOI substrate meet the requirement. A double-trench structure can reduce CTS by more than 50%, while SOI substrates gives reduced CTS, high BVCCO, high α-ray immunity, and reduced process steps.

The effect of lot size change and test processing logistics on VLSI manufacturing final test process efficiency and cost due to the transition of from conventional 5 or 6 inches to 300 mm (12 inches) in wafer size is evaluated through simulation analysis. Simulated results show that a high test efficiency and a low test cost are maintained regardless of arrival lot size in the range of the number of 300 mm wafers per lot from 1 to 25 and the content of express lots in the range of up to 50% by using WEIGHT+RPM rule and the right final test processing logistics. WEIGHT+RPM rule is the rule that considers the jig and temperature exchanging time, the lot waiting time in queue and also the remaining processing time of the machine in use. The logistics has a small processing and moving lot size equal to the batch size of testing equipment.

This paper proposes an adaptive microphone array using blind deconvolution. The method realizes an signal enhancement based on the combination of blind deconvolution, synchronized summation and DSA (Delay-and-Sum Array) method. The proposed method improves performance of estimation by the iterative operation of blind deconvolution using a cost-function based on the coherency function.

A compact new test structure using shift register circuits for extracting components of the capacitance matrix of the multi-layer interconnections has been proposed. An extraction method of the capacitance matrix is also presented. As a result of fabrication, capacitance values obtained by measurement are in good agreement with the numerical calculation. We also showed an estimation method of the measurement errors.

We consider a system of coupled two oscillators with external force. At first we introduce the symmetrical property of the system. When the external force is not applied, the two oscillators are synchronized at the opposite phase. We obtain a bifurcation diagram of periodic solutions in the coupled system when the single oscillator has a stable anti-phase solution. We find that the synchronized oscillations eventually become in-phase when the amplitude of the external force is increased.