A. Chatterjee et al. proposed tests with linearity property for gate delay faults to determine, at a required clock speed, whether a circuit under test is a marginal chip or not. The latest transition time at the primary output is changed linearly with the size of the gate delay fault when the proposed test is applied to the circuit under test. To authors' knowledge, no reports on an algorithmic method for generating tests with linearity property have been presented before. In this paper, we propose a method for generating tests with linearity property for gate delay faults. The proposed method introduces a new extended timed calculus to calculate the size of a given gate delay fault that can be propagated to the primary output. The method has been applied to ISCAS benchmark circuits under the unit delay model.

A neuron MOS transistor has a floating gate and multiple input gates which are capacitively coupling with the floating gate. Dramatic reduction in the number of transistors and interconnections was achieved by employing the neuron MOS in circuit designs. Since the neuron MOS gate electrode is electrically floating, it is not necessarily easy to calculate the floating gate potential using circuit simulator SPICE. In order to simulate floating gate neuron MOS circuits, a macromodel which calculates the floating gate potential combining resistances and dependent voltage and current sources has been proposed. Eight kinds of neuron MOS circuits were designed and fabricated by a double polysilicon two level metal 1.2 µ m CMOS process. Utilizing SPICE, all the neuron MOS circuits were confirmed to operate correctly. The apparent threshold voltage as seen from the input gate in the 2-input n-channel neuron MOS transistor is arbitrarily changed by a control gate signal. Multi-input neuron MOS inverters and neuron MOS full adder circuits have been successfully simulated. Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposed macromodel has been experimentally verified by fabricated circuit measurements. Measured results confirmed that 3-input neuron MOS inverter outputs the low level when the number of input gates to which a high level is applied is more than half of all input gates.

This paper presents two types of two-variable analog filters with maximally flat magnitude-squared attenuation response in the two-dimensional pass region. These are applied in order to obtain five types for the distribution of two-dimensional pass regions with respect to the design of microwave band pass filters consisting of a cascade of commensurate-line filter and lumped LC filter or a cascade of two commensurate-line filters in different propagation times.

We propose a new technique that is able to extract the small-signal equivalent-circuit elements of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) without causing any gate degradation. For the determination of extrinsic resistance values, unlike other conventional techniques, the proposed technique does not require an additional relationship for the resistances. For the extraction of extrinsic inductance values, the technique uses the R-estimate, which is known to be more robust relative to the measurement errors than the commonly used least-squares regression. Additionally, we suggest an improved cold HEMT model that seems to be more general than conventional cold HEMT models. With the use of the improved cold HEMT model, the proposed technique extracts the extrinsic resistance and inductance values.

This paper describes a novel layout optimization technique using electromagnetic (EM) simulation. Simple equivalent circuits fitted to EM simulation results are employed in this method, to present a modification guide for a layout pattern. Fitting errors are also investigated with some layout patterns in order to clarify the applicable range of the method, because the errors restrict the range. The method has been successfully adopted to an X-band low noise MMIC amplifier (LNA). The layout pattern of the amplifier was optimized in only two days and the amplifier has achieved target performances--a 35 dB gain and a 1.7 dB noise figure--in one development cycle. The effective chip area has been miniaturized to 4.8 mm2. The area could be smaller than 70% in comparison with a conventional layout MMIC.

Silicon-based monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) present an interesting option for low-cost consumer wireless systems. SiGe/Si heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) are a major driving force behind Si-based MMICs, because they offer excellent microwave performance without aggressive lateral scaling. This article reviews opportunities for receiver frontend components (low-noise amplifiers and mixers) using SiGe HBTs.

This paper describes an IC implementation of current-mode chaotic neuron circuit for the chaotic neural network. The chaotic neuron circuit which composes of a first generation switched-current integrator and a conventional current amplifier is fabricated in a standard 0.8 µ m CMOS technology. Experimental results of the chaotic neuron circuit reproduce the dynamical behavior of the chaotic neuron model.

Weighted summation (W-SUM) operation of multi-input signals plays an important role in signal processing, image compression and communication systems. Conventional digital LSI implementation for the massive high-speed W-SUM operations usually consumes a lot of power, and the power dissipation linearly increases with the operational frequencies. Analog or digital-analog mixed technology may provide a solution to this problem, but the large scale integration for analog circuits especially for digital-analog mixed circuits faces some difficulties in terms of circuit design, mixed-simulation, physical layout and anti-noises. To practically integrate large scale analog or digital-analog mixed circuits, the simplicity of the analog circuits are usually required. In this paper, we present a solution to realize the parallel W-SUM operations of multi-input analog signals based on our developed digital-controlled analog operational circuits. The major features of the proposed circuits include the simplicity in the circuitry architecture and the advantage in the dissipation power, which make it easy to be designed and to be integrated in large scale. To improve the design efficiency, a Top-Down design approach for mixed LSI implementation is proposed. The proposed W-SUM circuits and the Top-Down design approach have been practically used in the LSI implementation for a series of programmable finite impulse response (FIR) filters and matched filters applied in adaptive signal processing and the mobile communication systems based on the wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA) technology.

A semi-synchronous circuit is a circuit in which every register is ticked by a clock periodically, but not necessarily simultaneously. In a semi-synchronous circuit, the minimum delay between registers may be critical with respect to the clock period of the circuit, while it does not affect the clock period of an ordinary synchronous circuit. In this paper, we discuss a delay insertion method which makes such a semi-synchronous circuit faster. The maximum delay-to-register ratio over the cycles in the circuit gives a lower bound of the clock period. We show that this bound is achieved in the semi-synchronous framework by the proposing gate-level delay insertion method.

A new flip-flop configuration for half-swing clocking is proposed to save total clocking power. In the proposed scheme, only NMOS's are clocked with the half-swing clock in order to make it operate without level converters or any additional logics which were used in the earlier half-swing clocking schemes. Vcc is supplied to the random logic circuits and flip-flops while Vcc/2 is supplied to the clock network and some parts of the flip-flop to reduce the power consumed in the clock network. Compared to the conventional scheme, the proposed flip-flop configuration can save the clocking power by 40%.

It is known that the clock-period can be shorter than the maximum of signal-delays between registers if the clock arrival time to each register is properly scheduled. The algorithm to design an optimal clock-schedule was given. In this paper, we propose a clock-tree routing algorithm that realizes a given clock-schedule using the Elmore-delay model. Following the deferred-merge-embedding (DME) framework, the algorithm generates a topology of the clock-tree and simultaneously determines the locations and sizes of intermediate buffers. The experimental results showed that this method constructs a clock-tree with moderate wire length for a random layout of scheduled registers. Notably, the required wire length for a gentle layout of scheduled registers was shown to be almost equal to that of zero-skew clock-trees.

Miniaturized millimeter-wave HMIC amplifiers have been developed by using capacitively-coupled matching circuits (CCMC) and FETs with resistive source-stubs. CCMC includes FET's parasitic reactances, and is able to reduce the size of a matching circuit in a HMIC amplifier to about 1/3 of a conventional matching circuit using an open-circuited stub for matching and a quarter-wavelength coupled-line for d. c. blocking. The resistive source-stubs, which consist of two open-circuited stubs and a resistor, can improve the gain and stability of FETs at millimeter-wave frequencies. In this paper, design procedures of CCMC and the resistive source-stubs are described, and their usefulness has been confirmed experimentally through measurements of prototype V-band high-power HMIC amplifiers.

This paper proposes a fully balanced circuit structure with a zero common-mode gain. The common-mode gain of the proposed structure becomes theoretically zero with a perfect device matching. Even if a perfect device matching is not achieved, the common-mode signal can be sufficiently suppressed by the feedback loops provided with the structure. Based on this concept, an integrator is composed. Furthermore the concept can be directly applied to a filter design. The application results in reduced chip area. A design example of a second-order filter and simulation results verify the theoretical expectation.

In this paper we study the evolution of the resonance zones that appear in connection with a Hopf-pitchfork bifurcation exhibited by a Z2-symmetric electronic circuit. These regions, bounded by curves of folds (saddle-node bifurcations) may be closed or open depending on the values of the parameters. An angular degeneracy on the torus bifurcation curve originates the banana shape of Arnold's tongues. The presence of homoclinic bifurcations is also pointed out.

Using Hopfield-type neural network model, we present an algorithm for reconstructing 3D mesh processor arrays using single-track switches where spare processors are laid on the six surfaces of a 3D array and show its effectiveness in terms of reconstruction rate and computing time by computer simulation. Next, we show how the algorithm can be realized by a digital neural circuit. It consists of subcircuits for finding candidate compensation paths, deciding whether the neural system reaches a stable state and at the time the system energy is minimum, and subcircuits for neurons. The subcircuit for each neuron including the other subcircuits can only be made with 16 gates and two flip-flops. Since the state transitions are done in parallel, the circuit will be able to find a set of compensation paths for a fault pattern very quickly within a time less than 1 µs. Furthermore, the hardware implementation of the algorithm leads to making a self-reconfigurable system without the aid of a host computer.

A compact residue arithmetic multiplier based on the radix-4 signed-digit arithmetic is presented. Conventional residue arithmetic circuits have been designed using binary number arithmetic system, but the carry propagation arises which limits the speed of arithmetic operations in residue modules. In this paper, two radix-4 signed-digit (SD) number representations, {-2,-1,0,1,2} and {-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3}, are introduced. The former is used for the input and output, and the later for the inner arithmetic circuit of the presented multiplier. Integers 4p and 4p 1 are used as moduli of residue number system (RNS), where p is a positive integer and both circuits for partial product generation and sum of the partial products can be efficiently constructed by using the multiple-valued current-mode circuits. The modulo m addition, m=4p or m=4p 1, can be performed by an SD adder or an end-around-carry SD adder with the multiple-valued circuits and the addition time is independent of the word length of operands. The modulo m multiplier can be compactly constructed using a binary tree of the multiple-valued modulo m SD adders, and consequently the modulo m multiplication is performed in O(log p) time. The number of MOS transistors required in the presented residue arithmetic multiplier is about 86p2 + 66p.

A switched-current integrated circuit, which realizes the chaotic neuron model, is presented. The circuit mainly consists of CMOS inverters that are used as transconductance amplifiers and nonlinear elements. The chip was fabricated using a 1.2 µm HP CMOS process. A single neuron cell occupies only 0.0076 mm2, which represents an area smaller than the one occupied by a standard bonding pad. The circuit operation was tested at a clock frequency of 2 MHz.

We consider a circuit composed of linear capacitors, nonlinear resistors, and dc voltage sources and show the possibility that the total energy dissipated at resistors in the above circuit is smaller than the energy stored at capacitors. Linear passive circuits cannot possess such a property.

A family of nonlinear resistor circuits with Λ and V-type I-V characteristics is proposed by using capacitively coupled multi-input MOSFETs. Their I-V characteristics can be easily altered by external control voltages. Moreover, the proposed circuits are fully compatible with a standard CMOS semiconductor process because only enhancement-type MOSFETs are necessary. Furthermore, nonlinear capacitors can be used for the capacitively coupled multi-input MOSFETs in the proposed circuits, so that a simple digital CMOS process with nonlinear capacitors can be used to fabricate the proposed circuits. Simple equations for a numerical simulation of the circuits are derived. Moreover, results from numerical simulations and experiments with discrete elements are demonstrated.

An evolutionary algorithm is used to evolve a digital circuit which computes a simple hash function mapping a 16-bit address space into an 8-bit one. The target technology is FPGA, where the search space of the algorithm is made of the combinational functions computed by cells and of the interconnections among cells. The evolutionary technique has been applied to five different interconnection topologies, specified by neighbourhood graphs. This circuit is readily applicable to the design of set-associative cache memories. Possible use of the evolutionary approach presented in the paper for on-line tuning of the function during cache operation is also discussed.