This paper introduces a methodology for simulating single-electron-transistor (SET)-based multiple-valued logics (MVLs). First, a physics-based analytical model for SET is described, and then a procedure for extracting parameters from measured characteristics is explained. After that, simulated and experimental results for basic MVL circuits are compared. As an advanced example of SET-based logics, a latched parallel counter, which is one of the most important components in arithmetic circuits, is newly designed and analyzed by a simulation. It is found that a SET-based 7-3 counter can be constructed with less than 1/10 the number of devices needed for a conventional circuit and can operate at a moderate speed with 1/100 the conventional power consumption.

We propose a novel hierarchical transmission method of DCT coefficients using multi-code DS/SS modulation. For low resolution image transmission over noisy channel, an error resilient and graceful degradation technique is necessary. Here, the DCT coefficients are divided into each stratum (a branch of multi-code DS/SS) and transmitted simultaneously through a noisy channel. By assigning an appropriate transmission energy that corresponds to their source energy variances, energy assignment, it is possible to maintain picture quality effectively even in a noisy channel. Analysis of this method was performed using an image data model, 2-D Gauss-Markov random field, which showed that picture quality is maintained even in the noisy channel condition.

In this paper, the amplitude coefficient in each mode of leakage waves is calculated by using the amplitude level of the electric field about these unwanted waves under Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) definition for measuring the leakage waves irradiated from door portion at the time of microwave oven manufacture, and the percentage of each mode included in leakage waves is also calculated by using finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. Furthermore, shielding effectiveness (SE) of choke structure for suppressing the leakage waves is calculated using combined waves composed of higher order modes as each percentages. As a result, the percentage of each mode included in the leakage waves is examined quantitatively. The approximation analysis for the SE of the choke structure can also be carried out. Therefore, efficient method for evaluating the door structure of the oven at the time of manufacture has been established without the use of the memory in the calculation.

We have investigated the pretilt angle of liquid crystal (LC) molecules induced by photo-alignment films of polyimide (Azo-PI) containing azobenzene in the backbone structure. To generate finite pretilt angles, the Azo-PI film with inclined alignment of the backbone structure was prepared by a double light-exposure method. In this method the corresponding polyamic acid (Azo-PAA) film was first exposed to linearly polarized ultraviolet/visible (UV/VIS) light (LP-light) at normal incidence, and then oblique angle irradiation of unpolarized UV/VIS light (UP-light) was performed in the plane of incidence perpendicular to the polarization direction of the LP-light. Repeated photo-isomerization reactions of azobenzene induce the alignment of the Azo-PAA backbone structure. By thermally imidizing the photo-treated film we obtained a thermally and optically stable Azo-PI film. The orientational distribution of the Azo-PI backbone structure was determined by measuring the polarized infrared absorption spectra as a function of the sample rotation angle and the angle of incidence. The pretilt angle of LC molecules was determined by a crystal rotation method. We found that the average inclination angle of the Azo-PI backbone structure increased with the UP-light exposure. The pretilt angle of LC molecules, measured from the surface plane, also increased with the UP-light exposure. We succeeded in generating a pretilt angle of 3. The relation between the LC pretilt angle and the average inclination angle of the Azo-PI backbone structure is discussed.

For large circuits, vector compaction techniques could provide a faster solution for power estimation with reasonable accuracy. Because traditional sampling approach will incur useless transitions between every sampled pattern pairs after they are concatenated into a single sequence for simulation, we proposed a vector compaction method with grouping and single-sequence consecutive sampling technique to solve this problem. However, it is very possible that we cannot find a perfect consecutive sequence without any undesired transitions. In such cases, the compaction ratio of the sequence length may not be improved too much. In this paper, we propose an efficient approach to relax the limitation a little bit such that multiple consecutive sequences are allowed. We also propose an algorithm to reduce the number of sequences instead of setting the number as one to find better solutions for vector compaction problem. As demonstrated in the experimental results, the average compaction ratio and speedup can be significantly improved by using this new approach.

This paper investigates a random-interleaver-based approach to space-time coding. The basic principle is to employ a good forward error correction (FEC) code and transmit randomly interleaved codewords over an antenna array. A low-cost estimation technique is considered. The complexity involved grows only linearly with the number of transmit antennas. Near-capacity performance can be achieved with moderate complexity.

A large-swing, high-driving, low-power, class-AB buffer amplifier, which consists of a high-gain input stage and a unity-gain class-AB output stage, with low variation of quiescent current is proposed. The low power consumption and low variation of the quiescent output current are achieved by using a weak-driving and a strong-driving pseudo-source followers. The high-driving capability is mainly provided by the strong-driving pseudo-source follower whose output transistors are turned off in the vicinity of the stable state to reduce the power consumption and the variation of output current, while the quiescent state is maintained by the weak-driving pseudo-source follower. The error amplifiers with source-coupled pairs of the same type transistors are merged into a single error amplifier to reduce the area of the buffer and the current consumption. An experimental prototype buffer amplifier implemented in a 0.35-µm CMOS technology demonstrates that the circuit dissipates an average static power consumption of only 388.7 µW with the standard deviation of only 3.4 µW, which is only 0.874% at a power supply of 3.3 V, and exhibits the slew rates of 2.18 V/µs and 2.50 V/µs for the rising and falling edges, respectively, under a 300 Ω /150 pF load. Both of the second and third harmonic distortions (HD2 and HD3) are -69 dB at 20 kHz under the same load.

One of the categories of decoding techniques for DFT codes in erasure channels is the class of iterative algorithms. Iterative algorithms can be considered as kind of alternating mapping methods using the given information in a repetitive way. In this paper, we propose a new iterative method for decoding DFT codes. It will be shown that the proposed method outperforms the well-known methods such as Wiley/Marvasti, and ADPW methods in the decoding of DFT codes in erasure channels.

In providing video programs to a number of clients through networks, a broadcasting approach is more appropriate than a true-video-on-demand approach in efficient use of bandwidth. However, the broadcasting approach also needs excessively wide bandwidth if many video programs are to be transmitted. This study presents a very simple but novel architecture called dynamic channel broadcasting, for video-on-demand systems. The proposed architecture uses both static and dynamic broadcasting channels to improve the efficiency of channels. The proposed architecture eliminates the necessity of dividing each video into segments and switching channels frequently unlike the pyramid broadcasting, the skyscraper broadcasting and the harmonic broadcasting. Also this new architecture needs a smaller buffer size. The numerical results demonstrate that the newly proposed approach in some cases requires only 14% of the bandwidth required for the conventional broadcasting while maintaining the start-up latency.

Estimating the parameters of a statistical distribution from measured sample values forms an essential part of many signal processing tasks. K-distribution has been proven to be an appropriate model for characterising the amplitude of sea clutter. In this paper, a new method for estimating the parameters of K-Distribution is proposed. The method greatly lowers the computational requirement and variance of parameter estimates when compared with the existing non-maximum likelihood methods.

This paper proposes a SNR estimation scheme based on Gibbs sampler. This scheme can estimate SNR using a very short received sequence, and does not require any prior information of the transmitted symbol. Compared with the existing estimators, the performance of this method is better when real SNR is larger than 5 dB in both single path channel and multi-path channel.

Both the Hopfield network and the genetic algorithm are powerful tools for object recognition tasks, e.g., subgraph matching problems. Unfortunately, they both have serious drawbacks. The Hopfield network is very sensitive to its initial state, and it stops at a local minimum if the initial state is not properly given. The genetic algorithm, on the other hand, usually only finds a near-global solution, and it is time-consuming for large-scale problems. In this paper, we propose an integrated scheme of these two methods, while eliminating their drawbacks and keeping their advantages, to solve object recognition problems under affine transformations. Some arrangements and programming strategies are required. First, we use some specialized 2-D genetic algorithm operators to accelerate the convergence. Second, we extract the "seeds" of the solution of the genetic algorithm to serve as the initial state of the Hopfield network. This procedure further improves the efficiency of the system. In addition, we also include several pertinent post matching algorithms for refining the accuracy and robustness. In the examples, the proposed scheme is used to solve some subgraph matching problems with occlusions under affine transformations. As shown by the results, this integrated scheme does outperform many counterpart algorithms in accuracy, efficiency, and stability.

The 70-GHz band propagation characteristics of two different hot-spot zones are measured and analyzed: (1) a transmitter fixed to a ceiling servicing the area beneath it (type A), and (2) a transmitter fixed to a wall servicing the area in front of it (type B). Measurements were made in two different settings, a lobby and a train. The results show that zone B produces a smaller delay spread in relation to distance. A comparison of the use of vertical and circular polarization shows that circular polarization produces a smaller delay spread in the type B zone. The results also indicated that the function of the delay spread value for the distance in a lobby and train in type B zone.

This paper proposes a new FeRAM design style based on grounded-plate PMOS-gate (GPPG) cell structure. A GPPG cell consists of a PMOS access transistor and a ferroelectric capacitor. Its plate is grounded. The proposed scheme employs three novel operating methods: 1) VDD precharged bitline, 2) negative-voltage wordline technique and 3) negative-pulse restore. Because this configuration doesn't need the on-pitch plate control circuitry, it is effective in realizing cost-effective chip sizes. Implementation of a 2.5-V, 2-Mb FeRAM prototype design in a 0.5-µm technology shows a cell array efficiency of 57%, an access time of 85 ns and an active current of 12 mA, respectively.

We have fabricated ferroelectric Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films using low-pressure consolidation process during the sol-gel method. Drastic improvements of electrical properties have been obtained for the PZT thin films fabricated with low-pressure consolidation process. A remanent polarization (Pr) of 37 µC/cm2 and a coercive field (EC) of 64 kV/cm have been achieved. In addition, the leakage current of the PZT films fabricated using low-pressure consolidation is 102 times smaller than that of the films fabricated with the usual process of sol-gel method. It is also found that the low-pressure consolidation process is effective on improvements of electrical properties of PZT films fabricated at lower crystallization temperatures and with sub-100 nm thickness.

Identification of targets using sequential high range-resolution (HRR) radar signatures is studied. Classifiers are designed by using hidden Markov models (HMMs) to characterize the sequential information in multi-aspect HRR signatures. The higher-order moments together with the target dimension and the number of dominant wavefronts are used as features of the transient HRR waveforms. Classification results are presented for the ten-target MSTAR data set. The example results show that good classification performance and robustness are obtained, although the target features used here are very simple and compact compared with the complex HRR signatures.

A bandpass filter (BPF) with shielded inverted microstrip lines (SIMSL), previously demonstrated by the author, has shown the nontrivial asymmetry of filter responses in spite of adopting a conventional filter synthesis procedure. This paper will reveal the mechanism of the asymmetry and propose prescriptions for recovering the defect, in addition to observing the wave propagation property of SIMSL. Firstly, the behavior of phase constants or effective dielectric constants for various modes propagating on single SIMSL are indicated in terms of the line configuration, and the dispersion characteristics of the quasi-TEM mode are interpreted from the point of mode coupling between the pure TEM mode and dielectric slab modes. Then it is shown that the asymmetry is dependent only on the transmission characteristics of SIMSL parallel-coupled lines involved in the filter circuits. Theoretical considerations reveal that the asymmetry is due to the fact that SIMSL has quite different phase constants for the even- and odd-mode. On the basis of these results, the optimized BPF is designed and it is experimentally demonstrated that the symmetry of its responses is notably recovered. Furthermore, this optimization is still quite efficient for achieving high attenuation properties at its harmonics.

In this paper, an experimental result of complex refractive index of soda-lime glass at 30-GHz obtained by transmission method is presented at first. Secondly, a simple empirical formula of complex refractive index of soda-lime glass over frequency range from 0.1-GHz to 1000-GHz is derived using the present experimental result together with data previously reported in literatures by various researchers.

Visual defects, called mura in the field, sometimes occur during the manufacturing of the flat panel liquid crystal displays. In this paper we propose an automatic inspection method that reliably detects and quantifies TFT-LCD region-mura defects. The method consists of two phases. In the first phase we segment candidate region-muras from TFT-LCD panel images using the modified regression diagnostics and Niblack's thresholding. In the second phase, based on the human eye's sensitivity to mura, we quantify mura level for each candidate, which is used to identify real muras by grading them as pass or fail. Performance of the proposed method is evaluated on real TFT-LCD panel samples.

A low-band spectrum envelope reconstruction method was tested to see if it could improve the sound quality of F0 modified speech with the PSOLA (Pitch Synchronous OverLap Add) method. In the conventional PSOLA method, the extracted spectrum envelope using a Hanning window with two-pitch-period length had no reliable information in the band of frequencies lower than the original F0. This problem causes sound degradation of the F0 modified speech when the F0 is shifted downward. In the proposed method, the low-band spectrum envelope was properly modified according to the F0 modification rate. The amplitude of the F0 harmonic components in the low-band were reproduced based on the spectral tilt of the spectrum envelope. Subjective listening tests suggest the proposed method yields improved sound quality than the conventional TD-PSOLA method when the downward modification rate exceeds 0.4 octave.