This paper describes a new and realisable speech enhancement structure which simulates the cocktail party effect with a modified iterative Wiener filter and a multi-layer perceptron neural network. The key idea is to use the neural network as a speaker recognition system to govern the iterative Wiener filter. The neural network is a modified perceptron with a hidden layer using feature date extracted from LPC cepstral analysis. The proposed technique has been successfully used for speech enhancement when the interference is competing speech or broad band noise.

This paper describes a new hierarchical bit line organization utilizing a T-shaped bit line(H-BLT) and its practical implementation in a 4-Mb SRAM using a 0.4µm CMOS process. The H-BLT has reduced the number of I/O circuits for multiplexers, sense amplifiers and write drivers, resulting in an efficient multiple blockdivision of the memory cell array. The size of the SRAM die was reduced by 14% without an access penalty. The active current is 30mA at 5 V and 10 MHz. The typical address access time is 35 ns with a 4.5 V supply voltage and a 30 pF load capacitance. The operating voltage range is 2.5 V to 6.0 V. H-BLT is a bright and useful architecture for the high density SRAMs of the future.

The most troublesome problem in automated X-ray mask inspection is how to exactly determine the threshold level for extracting the pattern portions of each scanning electron microscopic (SEM) image. An exact determination is difficult because the histogram shows, in most cases, a complicated multi-modal pattern and the true threshold level often varies with each successive image. This paper presents a novel thresholding approach for segmenting SEM images of X-ray masks. In this approach, the shape of the histogram of each image is iteratively analyzed until a threshold value minimizing the cost of the correspondence with a reference histogram and satisfying criteria for determining thresholds is obtained. This new approach is used in an automated inspection system. When the input image resolution is set to 0.05µm/pixel, experiments confirm 0.1µm defects are unfailingly detected.

We analyze dynamics of a simple hysteresis network (ab. SHN) which has only two parameters. We classify the periodic orbits and clarify the number of attractors and their domain of attraction. The SHN is a piecewise linear system, and therefore we can calculate the trajectory using exact solutions. We clarify the bifurcation sets on which equilibrium attractors bifurcate to the periodic orbits. We also give a sufficient condition for stability of the periodic orbits, and the stability is verified by laboratory experiment. The results of this paper may contribute to the development of an efficient multi functional artificial neural network.

A GTL/LV-CMOS interfaced 1 M bit(32k words 36bits/64k words18bits) BiCMOS cache SRAM is designed within a 5.65 10.54mm2 chip size. The process is 0.4µm BiCMOS with 4 poly-Si layers, 3 Metal layers, and TFT memory cells(2.66 4.94µm2). The late write operation is newly adopted. The late write operation method improvements make the fast access time 6 ns and the shorter cycle time 5 ns.

Weather clutter was measured using an L-band long-range (200 nmi.) air-route surveillance radar (ARSR), from the stored data of five scans. It is shown that weather clutter obeys a Weibull distribution, and moreover such Weibull-distributed weather clutter also obeys a Weibull distribution after passing through a moving target indicator (MTI) processor realized by a double canceller. Some adaptive methods for suppressing Weibull-distributed clutter are summarized.

In this paper, we show that by suitably selecting a notation to construct synchronization requirement specifications (SRS) for multimedia presentation we can express the timing characteristics at an abstract level, verify the specification, and obtain a hardware implementation through a sequence of transformations of the specification. First, we introduce the notion of a well-formed SRS and its hardware model. Second, we model an SRS as a timed Petri net and interpret the transitions of the net as hardware signals. To obtain logic functions from the SRS, we simplify the net and obtain a signal transition graph satisfying the unique state coding property. Finally, we show how to obtain a logic-level design of synchronizers.

Discrete-time chaotic circuits realizing a tent map and a Bernoulli map are synthesized using switched-current (SI) techniques. For these proposed circuits, simulations are performed concerning the return maps and bifurcation trees. The theoretical analysis is carried out to predict the bifurcation tree under the existence of the nonidealities in the return map. This analysis has been done by assuming the return maps to be piecewise linear. The proposed circuits are built with commerciallyavailable IC's. And their return maps and bifurcation trees are measured in the experiment. The design formulas are obtained for the bifurcation trees and they are confirmed by the simulation results. The proposed circuits are integrable by a standard BiCMOS technology.

This paper describes methods in which natural language is used to describe video contents, knowledge of which is needed for intelligent video manipulation. The content encoded by natural language is extracted by a language analyzer in the form of subject-centered dependency structures which is a language-oriented structure, and is combined in an incremental way into a single structure called a multi-path index tree. Content descriptors and their inter-relations are extracted from the index tree in order to provide a high speed retrieval and flexibility. The content-based video index is represented in a two-dimensional structure where in the descriptors are mapped onto a component axis and temporal references (i.e., video segments aligned to the descriptors) are mapped onto a time axis. We implemented an experimental image retrieval systems to illustrate the proposed index structure 1) has superior retrieval capabilities compare to those used in conventional methods, 2) can be generated by an automated procedure, and 3) has a compact and flexible structure that is easily expandable, making an integration with vision processing possible.

A structural active-object system (SAOS) is a transition-based object-oriented system suitable for rapid development of hardware logic simulators. A SAOS consists of a collection of interacting structural active objects (SAOs), whose behaviors are determined by the transition statements provided in their class definitions. Furthermore, SAOs can be structurally and hierarchically composed from their component SAOs like hardware components. These features allow SAOs to model components for circuit simulation more naturally than passive objects used in ordinary object-oriented programming. Also, we can easily create new kinds of components by using the inheritance mechanism. Executions of transition statements may be event-and/or time-driven, and hence digital, analog, and mixed-mode simulation is possible. Prototype simulation programs with graphical user interfaces have been developed as SAOS programs for digital, analog, and mixed-mode circuit simulation.

This paper illustrates activities and accomplishments being made by DAVIC, a non-profit organization pushing forward its open, international, cross-industry standards for audio-visual information systems, of which video-on-demand is the representative. Core technologies selected in its firstly published specifications and their interoperability aspects are summarized here. Preliminary results in our interoperability testing are also shown. Finally, we touch upon the coming work plan of DAVIC which covers wider range of access network capabilities and service domains, e.g. internet.

This paper designs recursive least-squares fixed-point smoother and filter, which use the observed value, the probability that the signal exists, and the covariance information relevant to the signal and observation noises, on the estimation problem associated with the uncertain observations in linear continuous-time systems.

This paper investigates the performance of an integrated voice and data transmission protocol that can be used in mobile communication networks, e.g. mobile cellular and LEOGEO satellite networks. Voice and data are concentrated at place such as base station in a cellular network. Time sensitive voices are supported by the concentrator in the manner of TDMA. Loss sensitive data are collected, stored, and transmitted using idle TDMA slots. Data users transmit data to the concentration point using ALOHA protocol. Characterization of data arrivals to the concentrator is done by the method of moment matching. The emphasis of this study is on the data performance in terms of packet loss rate, average buffer occupancy, and mean packet waiting time. It is demonstrated through numerical examples that a buffer of reasonable size is good enough to offer satisfactory performance. The analysis is also validated by computer simulations.

The Michelson-interferometer (MI) optical resonator has been applied, together with physical interests, to a low pressure and slow-flow type CO2 laser for specifying the system to a probe laser source. The fundamental characteristics online-selection, oscillation power and transverse mode are also investigated in comparison to the CO2 laser obtained for various resonators such as an open-ended reflective-multiple interferometer (RMI), an open-sided MI, a Fox-Smith interferometer and soon. Consequently, it is confirmedthat the MI type laser proposed can be one of the promising scheme, without losing oscillation power much and transverse mode quality as a probe laser towards lineshape (or laser) parameter analysis. Translating one of the MI mirror by a slight distance on the order of a micron meter along the gain axis, we can not only switch either a single rotational-vibrational line or combination of multiple lines, but also obtain different combination of lines by translating a large amount of the translation distance of the order of 100 µm. Moreover, elimination of one of the side-mirrors in the MI resonator enables us to switch the oscillation lines at the expense of some output power.

This paper describes a newly developed sensing scheme with a bit-by-bit program verify technique for NAND flash disk systems. This sensing scheme achieves good noise immunity for large capacitive coupling between bitlines, and makes NAND flash memories operable for flexible power supply voltages including both 3.3V and 5V. A highly reliable read operation is performed for power supply voltages above 3V and a bitline-bitline coupling ratio below 50%. The sensing scheme also achieves an intelligent page copy function with 20% reduction in time and without external buffers and CPU resources.

We report two new timing control methods for high-speed synchronous interfaces in view of their application to high-speed synchronous DRAMs. These two new circuits are the measure-controlled DLL and the register-controlled DLL.We quantitatively analyzed the minimum operational cycle time for a synchronous interface, and related the minimum bus cycle time to two factors; the bus-to-clock timing skew, and the unit delay time of the DLL. Based on this analysis, we concluded that the I/O performance can be beyond 400 MHz by suppressing both factors to less than 200 ps.

A family of single-switch ZVS-CV (Zero-voltage switchingclamped voltage) dc-to-dc converters is presented. This class of converter is realized by employing a commutation inductor circuit which is connected in parallel with either the transistor or the freewheeling diode in a conventional PWM converter. The technique described here is simple and output-voltage control is easy. The converters that comprise this family are derived form Buck, Boost, Buck/Boost, Cuk, Sepic and Zeta PWM converters. The steady-state characteristics of these converters such as the voltage conversion ratio, the ZVS conditions, and the input and output current ripples are analyzed. The analysis is confirmed by experiment.

One of the important properties of multihop network is the mean internodal distance to evaluate the transmission delay, and the connective semi-random network achieves smaller mean internodal distance than other networks. However, the results are shown only by computer simulation and no theoretical analysis is investigated. Moreover, the network connective probability of the connective semi-random network is relatively small. In this paper, we propose the restricted connective semi-random network whose network connective probability is larger than that of the conventional connective semi-random network. And we theoretically analyze the mean internodal distance and the network connective probability of these two networks. It is shown that if the restriction is loose, the mean internodal distance of our model is almost the same as that of the conventional model, whereas the network connective probability of our model is larger than that of the conventional model. Moreover, the theoretical analyzed results of the mean internodal distance agree well with the simulated results in the conventional model and our model with small restriction.

This paper is concerned with bandwidth reservation for circuit groups which handle calls requesting asymmetric forward and backward multi-connections. A model of circuit group with sub-group configuration is treated, and two types of the bandwidth reservation schemes for the model are studied in this paper. One is a global scheme with monitoring the whole circuit group, and the other is a local scheme with monitoring each sub-group independently. The problems of optimizing the reservation parameters are formulated, and optimization methods for the problems are proposed. Numerical example are presented, and effectiveness of the reservation schemes with using the optimized parameters is numerically examined.

The problem of TM-wave scattering and radiation from a finite number of thick slits in a parallel plate waveguide is solved. The Fourier transform and the mode matching are used to obtain simultaneous equations for the field inside the slits. The simultaneous equations are solved to obtain a series solution which is amenable to numerical computation. The numerical computations are performed to illustrate the behaviors of scattering, transmission, and reflection in terms of incident angle, slit size and operating frequency. The presented solution is computationally very efficient and useful for slotted-waveguide leaky-wave antenna applications.