Organic static induction transistor (OSIT) is a promising driving device for the displays, since it shows high-speed, high-power and low-voltage operation. In this study, the OSIT with fine gate electrode patterned by electron beam exposure were fabricated. We investigated the basic electrical characteristics of copper phthalocyanine OSIT and compared with the calculation results obtained by two-dimensional (2D) device simulator. The experimental results show that the gate modulation improved by reducing the electrode gap and on/off current ratio depends on the gate gap.

In many different bioelectronic applications silicon field-effect devices such as transistors or nanowires are used. Usually native or thermally grown silicon oxides serve as interfacing layer to the liquid. For an effective voltage to current conversion of the devices, the main demands for interface layers are low leakage current, low defect density, and high input capacitance. In this article we describe the fabrication and characterization of ultra-thin silicon oxide/high-κ material stacks for bioelectronics. A combination of ultra-thin silicon oxide and DyScO3 revealed the best results. This material stack is particularly interesting for future fabrication of field-effect devices for bioelectronic applications.

This article presents a new design concept of a glucose oxidase (GOD) electrode as an anode for a biofuel cell based on plasma-polymerized thin film (PPF) of dimethylaminomethylferrocene (DMAMF), which plays a role as an electron transfer mediator between the active site of the enzyme and anodic electrode. The configuration of the anode is a multilayer mixture of DMAMF-PPF and GOD, in which a nano-thin DMAMF-PPF containing a redox mediator was plasma-deposited directly onto a GOD-physisorbed electrode. The optimized biofuel cell with bioanode, in a 20 mM phosphate buffer solution of pH 7.4 containing 10 mM glucose, exhibited a maximum power density of 2.7 µW/cm2 at 20. The film deposition was performed using microfabrication-compatible organic plasma, which therefore suggests this fabrication process has significant potential for enabling high throughput production of micro biofuel cells.

We developed new principle of electronic paper that is one side (for 2D image) or double side (for stereoscopic 3D image) light printable rewritable matter with polarization dependent gray scale. It consists of one or two liquid crystal displays based on Optical Rewritable (ORW) technology, which is the development of rotation azo-dye photoalignment. Each ORW display uses bare plastic or polarizers as substrates. The conductor is not required, as the image is formed by rewritable states of azimuthal direction, which results in 2D pattern of the liquid crystal twist angle. Continuous grey image maintains proper performance even when the device is bent. Simple construction provides durability and low cost, thin substrates minimize parallax for 3D image. Fluorescent dye dopant of liquid crystal partly absorbs light in blue and re-emit in green specter range improving photopic reflection and enhancing color of the ORW e-paper.

The damage to the organic layer of aluminum (III) bis(2-methyl-8-quninolinato)-4-phenylphenolate (BAlq) film was investigated on the basis of the change in photoluminescence (PL) intensity. To suppress the bombardment of the substrate with high-energy particles such as γ-electrons and negative oxygen ions, we used a facing-target sputtering (FTS) system. A marked reduction, however, of the PL intensity of the organic layer was still observed upon the deposition of an indium tin oxide (ITO) film on the organic film. To reduce this reduction, we proposed the insertion of a sector-shaped metal shield near the target electrode, and we showed its effectiveness in reducing the damage. This reduction of the damage is thought to be caused by the elimination of γ-electrons incident to the organic film surface escaping from the target area near the substrate side. We confirmed that high-energy electron bombardment leads to a significant reduction of PL intensity of the organic layer. This indicates that high-energy electrons incident to the organic film surface play a key role in the damage of the organic layer during the sputtering process.

The properties of the surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) are mainly decided by the surface-conduction electron emitters (SCE), which are normally made from the expensive metal Pd. In this study, we propose to use metal Zn instead of Pd as the emitter material. Both the device electrode and ZnO thin film are deposited by a sputter, and the electron emitters (SCE) are formed by the electro-forming process. The electron emission characteristic is obtained and the luminescence is observed.

This paper will review the development of SiC power devices especially SiC power junction field-effect transistors (JFETs). Rationale and different approaches to the development of SiC power JFETs will be presented, focusing on normally-OFF power JFETs that can provide the highly desired fail-save feature for reliable power switching applications. New results for the first demonstration of SiC Power ICs will be presented and the potential for distributed DC-DC power converters at frequencies higher than 35 MHz will be discussed.

It is very important to guarantee the quality of the industrial products by means of visual inspection. In order to reduce the soldering defect with terminal deformation and terminal burr in the manufacturing process, this paper proposes a 3D visual inspection system based on a stereo vision with single camera. It is technically noted that the base line of this single camera stereo was precisely calibrated by the image processing procedure. Also to extract the measuring point coordinates for computing disparity; the error is reduced with original algorithm. Comparing its performance with that of human inspection using industrial microscope, the proposed 3D inspection could be an alternative in precision and in processing cost. Since the practical specification in 3D precision is less than 1 pixel and the experimental performance was around the same, it was demonstrated by the proposed system that the soldering defect with terminal deformation and terminal burr in inspection, especially in 3D inspection, was decreased. In order to realize the inline inspection, this paper will suggest how the human inspection of the products could be modeled and be implemented by the computer system especially in manufacturing process.

The surface amino groups of plasma-polymerized films prepared from various nitrogen-containing monomers were quantitatively characterized for bioelectronic and biomedical applications. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements were conducted on two kinds of surfaces: pristine surfaces of plasma-polymerized film prepared using various nitrogen-containing monomers, and theirs surfaces whose amino groups had been derivatized by a primary-amine-selective reagent carrying an XPS label. The XPS data showed that the maximum surface density of amino groups for this film was 8.41013 cm-2. Amino groups constituted 14-64% of all surface nitrogen atoms (NH/N), depending on the monomer used.

This paper presents an asynchronous design technique, an enabler for the emerging technology of flexible microelectronics that feature low-temperature processed polysilicon (LTPS) thin-film transistors (TFT) and surface-free technology by laser annealing/ablation (SUFTLA®). The first design instance chosen is an 8-bit microprocessor. LTPS TFTs are good for realizing displays having integrated VLSI circuit at lower costs. However, LTPS TFTs have drawbacks, including substantial deviations in characteristics and the self-heating phenomenon. To solve these problems, the authors adopted the asynchronous circuit design technique and developed an asynchronous design language called Verilog+, which is based on a subset of Verilog HDL® and includes minimal primitives used for describing the communications between modules, and the dedicated tools including a translator called xlator and a synthesizer called ctrlsyn. The flexible 8-bit microprocessor stably operates at 500 kHz, drawing 180 µA from a 5 V power source. The microprocessor's electromagnetic emissions are 21 dB less than those of the synchronous counterpart.

Despite the extensive literature on current conveyor-based universal (namely, low-pass, band-pass, high-pass, notch, and all-pass) biquads with three inputs and one output, no filter circuits have been reported to date which simultaneously achieve the following seven important features: (i) employment of only two current conveyors, (ii) employment of only grounded capacitors, (iii) employment of only grounded resistors, (iv) high-input and low-output impedance, (v) no need to employ inverting type input signals, (vi) no need to impose component choice conditions to realize specific filtering functions, and (vii) low active and passive sensitivity performances. This letter describes a new voltage-mode biquad circuit that satisfies all the above features simultaneously, and without trade-offs.

A design methodology optimizing constant-charge-injection programming (CCIP) for assist-gate (AG)-AND flash memories is proposed. Transient circuit simulations using an array-level model including lucky electron model (LEM) current source describing hot electron physics enables a concept design over the whole memory-string in advance of wafer manufacturing. The dynamic programming behaviors of various CCIP sequences, obtained by circuit simulations using the model is verified with the measurement results of 90-nm AG-AND flash memory, and we confirmed that the simulation results sufficiently agree with the measurement, considering the simulation results give optimum bias AG voltage approximately within 0.2 V error. Then, we have applied the model to a conceptual design and have obtained optimum bit line capacitance value and CCIP sequence those are the most important issues involved in high-throughput programming for an AG-AND array.

The photo-mask cost of standard-cell-based ASICs has been increased so prohibitively that low-volume production LSIs are difficult to fabricate due to high non-recurring engineering (NRE) cost including mask cost. Recently, user-programmable devices, such as FPGAs are started to be used for low-volume consumer products. However, FPGAs cannot be replaced for general purpose because of its lower speed-performance and higher power consumption. In this paper, we propose the user-programmable architecture called VPEX (Via Programmable logic device using EXclusive-or array), in which the hardware logic can be programmed by changing layout patterns on 2 via-layers. The logic element (LE) of VPEX consists of complex-gate-type EXclusive OR (EXOR) and Inverter (NOT) gates. The single LE can output 12 logics which include NOT, Buffer (BUF), all 2-inputs logic functions, 3-inputs AOI21 and inverted-output multiplexer (MUXI) by changing via-1 layout pattern. Furthermore, via-1 layout is optimized for high-throughput EB direct writing, so mask-less programming will be realized in VPEX. We compared the performance of area, speed, and power consumption of VPEX with that of standard-cell-based ASICs and FPGAs. As a result, the speed performance of VPEX was much better than FPGAs and about 1.3-1.6 times worse than standard-cells. We believe that the combination of VPEX architecture and EB direct writing is the best solution for low-volume production LSIs.

Superconductivity and superconducting electronics have quite a prominent place in the European research environment and can look back onto a successful history. In recent years the European Framework programs helped to enhance the interaction between the different national research institutions, universities and industry. For applications of superconductivity this was accomplished by the European Network of Excellence SCENET and its sister organization ESAS. In this context a virtual European foundry network was established (Fluxonics), which forms a platform for the superconducting electronics activities in Europe and realizes support for the design and the fabrication of superconducting circuits for research laboratories and industry. Lately quite some development on the digital side and the cooling of superconducting electronics devices has taken place in Europe; most of it within the Fluxonics network. Some of these advances will be reported in this overview article.

This paper reviews recent world-wide progress in silicon-based photonics-and-optoelectronics in order to provide a context for the papers in this special section of the IEICE Transactions. The impact of present and potential applications is discussed.

A method for measuring the luminance distribution of an electron beam spot was described, which is fundamental to evaluate the resolution of a color display tube. First, to achieve high sensitivity and wide dynamic range identical to those of visual inspection, we proposed the use of an ICCD camera for imaging and two levels of sensitivity. With that method, we were able to measure the luminance distribution of an electron beam spot over a range of currents that extends from the extremely weak cathode current region to large current that correspond to the peak luminance. Specifically, we were able to measure the entire distribution shape from the base to the peak for beam spots in the cathode current range from 20 µA to 300 µA, while compensating the absolute luminance level. Second, a reconstruction algorithm of entire beam distribution from the shape of the masked part of the beam was also proposed, in which shift error is compensated to reduce the variance in measurement results caused by jitter noise in the conventional image processing method. That algorithm improves the reproducibility of repeated measurements. Specifically, a function for estimating the actual shift from the first-order moment of the image was incorporated into the spot shape reconstruction algorithm, resulting in a reduction of the standard deviation for repeated measurements of the horizontal beam spot diameter at 5% intensity from 0.02 mm to 0.005 mm.

This paper presents media processor architectures for automotive applications. Media processing applications with their requirements for LSI implementations are first described for vision based driver assistance as well as graphical user interface for car navigation using 3D graphics. Then, parallel processing architectures for vision and graphics in these applications are reviewed with their performance and cost. After that, future trends of automotive media processing such as integration of vision and 3D graphics functions are shown with their applications and the required performance. Moreover, parallel processing architectures are discussed for the integration of vision and graphics. Finally, an prospect of a next-generation media processing LSI for automotives is provided.

Despite the extensive literature on current conveyor-based voltage-mode universal biquads with single input and multiple outputs, no filter circuits have been reported to date which simultaneously achieve all of the advantageous features: (i) employment of only one differential difference current conveyor (DDCC), (ii) employment of only two grounded capacitors, (iii) employment of only three resistors, (iv) simultaneous realization of voltage-mode low-pass, band-pass, and high-pass filter signals from the three output terminals, respectively, (v) no need to employ inverting type input signals, and (vi) no need to impose component choice.

A press-fit connection is a solderless electrical connection technology, which utilizes the mechanical contact force generated between through-holes on a printed circuit board (PCB) and terminals with a width slightly larger than the through-hole diameter. This technology has been widely noted recently as a measure against the "Lead Free Requirement" of materials comprising electric/electronic devices, especially in the area of automobile connector. For the application of this technology to automobile connectors, we have to take into account the severe requirement, such as (1) the adaptation to wider through-hole diameter tolerance range and (2) the establishment of connection reliability for the various PCB surface treatments. As a result, we have determined the minimum and maximum contact forces satisfying the long term connection reliability and designed the terminal shape, which has been refined the N-shape cross section developed before, by using three dimensional finite element methods (FEM). Furthermore, we have developed a new type of hard tin plating on terminals, thus preventing the scraping-off of tin during the insertion process, that could result in a short-circuit on the PCB, for the Organic Solderability Preservative (OSP) treated PCB. The press-fit connector for the automobile airbag Electronic Control Units (ECUs) we developed has been able to transfer to the mass-production phase successfully from August 2005.

In this research, the performance degradation of the digital electronic equipment under electromagnetic (EM) disturbance was studied in order to investigate the interference of intra-equipment. To develop the evaluation method of the performance degradation, some communication indexes were measured under EM disturbance. From some experimental results, it is known that the performance degradation of the electronic equipment was estimated by the degradation of "through-put," one of the communication performance indexes. For further investigation of the interference of intra-equipment, the near EM field from a PCB of the electronic equipment and its performance degradation under EM disturbance were measured and compared. From the measured results, the relationship between near field measurement and performance degradation could be obtained in some extent. These facts enable us that the weak area under the EM disturbance application on PCB can be foreseen by measuring the near field emission from the equipment and vise versa.