We propose an accurate and efficient model of having an unbalanced differential line structure, where mode-conversion and frequency dependent loss effects are considered in above the GHz frequency range. To extract model parameters of the proposed unbalanced differential line model, we measured s-parameters of test patterns using a 2-port VNA and defined a new type of mixed-mode s-parameter. The model parameters were obtained and are described for various types of the unbalanced differential line structures. Finally, the validity of the proposed model and the model parameters were successfully confirmed by a series of time-domain measurements and a lattice diagram analysis.

In this paper we present a 3D adaptive nonlinear filter, namely the 3D adaptive CPWLN, based on the Canonical Piece Wise-Linear Network with an LMS L-filter type of adaptation. This filter is used to equalize nonlinear channel effect and remove impulsive/or mixed impulsive and Additive White Gaussian noise from video sequences. First, motion compensation is performed by a robust estimator. Then, a 3-D CPWLN LMS L-filter is applied. The overall combination is able to adequately remove undesired effects of communication channel and noise. Computer simulations on real-world image sequences are included. The algorithm yields promising results in terms of both objective and subjective quality of the restored sequence.

In order to provide an efficient test method for PLL which is a mixed-signal circuit widely used in most of SoCs, a novel BIST method is developed. The new BIST uses the change of phase differences generated by selectively alternating the feedback frequency. It provides an efficient structural test, reduces an area overhead and improves the test accessibility.

This CMOS transceiver IC exploits the superheterodyne architecture to implement a low-cost RF front-end with only 6.25 mm2 die area for IEEE 802.11b standard. The transceiver is implemented in 0.25 µm CMOS process with 2.7 V supply voltage, and achieves a -86 dBm 11 Mb/s receive sensitivity and a 2 dBm transmit output power.

This paper proposes a method for estimating the complex permittivity of a small quantity of a sample such as a biological membrane. The feature of this method is that a material with an unknown complex permittivity is mixed with a material with a known complex permittivity in a number of volume ratios. The unknown complex permittivity is estimated by measuring the effective permittivity of the mixtures and by using the mixing formula, which is applied to the composite material. The validity of this estimation method is evaluated using a phospholipid, which is the primary constituent of a biological membrane, in the frequency range from 0.8 GHz to 6 GHz. We confirm that the measured effective permittivity of the phospholipid mixtures, which comprise the phospholipid and Ringer's solution in a number of volume ratios, corresponds to that of the Lichtenecker formula. Additionally, by preparing a number of samples with varying volume ratios the estimation error can be decreased. This estimation method is considered to be effective in the measurement of the complex permittivity for a biological membrane.

Modern telecom and signal relays have been optimized to carry and switch low signals and to withstand high dielectric strength. Recent designs have extremely small physical dimensions and are comparatively cheap. Small size and low cost also make this type of relay very attractive for industrial and automotive applications. For industrial and automotive applications performance characteristics other than low and stable contact resistance values are of importance. While, for industrial applications, safety aspects and inductive load switching characteristics are of major importance, in automotive applications, high switching currents, inductive and lamp loads and high ambient temperatures are essential. Tests were carried out in order to determine the limitations of small size relays. The results obtained clearly show the unexpectedly high load range which signal relays are able to cover. Despite their small size, these relays can handle switching loads up to several hundred volts and currents up to 5 A. On top of the high switching current there is high excess current capability, and relays can work at extreme ambient temperatures between -55 and more than +105 degrees C.

A mutated adder architecture utilizing a mixture of carry propagation schemes is proposed to design a delay-area efficient adder which were not available in an ordinary design space. Further, we develop an optimization method based on integer linear programming to search the expanded design space of the mutated adder.

This paper focuses on the underdetermined blind source separation (BSS) of three speech signals mixed in a real environment from measurements provided by two sensors. To date, solutions to the underdetermined BSS problem have mainly been based on the assumption that the speech signals are sufficiently sparse. They involve designing binary masks that extract signals at time-frequency points where only one signal was assumed to exist. The major issue encountered in previous work relates to the occurrence of distortion, which affects a separated signal with loud musical noise. To overcome this problem, we propose combining sparseness with the use of an estimated mixing matrix. First, we use a geometrical approach to detect when only one source is active and to perform a preliminary separation with a time-frequency mask. This information is then used to estimate the mixing matrix, which allows us to improve our separation. Experimental results show that this combination of time-frequency mask and mixing matrix estimation provides separated signals of better quality (less distortion, less musical noise) than those extracted without using the estimated mixing matrix in reverberant conditions where the reverberant time (TR) was 130 ms and 200 ms. Furthermore, informal listening tests clearly show that musical noise is deeply lowered by the proposed method comparatively to the classical approaches.

Beam control using active antenna arrays with self-oscillating harmonic mixers has been investigated. The active antenna is composed of a patch antenna receiving RF signal and a parallel feedback type oscillator which operates as the self-oscillating harmonic mixer, and down-converts the received RF signal into IF signal. The mixer has two ports for local oscillating (LO) signal. One is an output port extracting the LO signal. The other is an input port for an injection signal to synchronize the local oscillation. The mixers can be coupled unilaterally without other nonreciprocal components by connecting the output port to the input port in the next mixer. In the unilaterally coupled array, the phase differences of the LO signals between the adjacent mixers can be varied without phase shifters in injection locking state by changing the local free-running frequencies of the self-oscillating mixers. The receiving pattern can be controlled by combining the IF signals from the individual active antennas, which have phases associated with the LO signals. The IF is difference between the RF and double of the LO frequency so that arbitrary phase differences from 0 to 2π radian can be provided to the output IF signals. The experiments using the two- and three-element arrays demonstrated beam control capability.

This paper overviews a total solution for frequency-domain blind source separation (BSS) of convolutive mixtures of audio signals, especially speech. Frequency-domain BSS performs independent component analysis (ICA) in each frequency bin, and this is more efficient than time-domain BSS. We describe a sophisticated total solution for frequency-domain BSS, including permutation, scaling, circularity, and complex activation function solutions. Experimental results of 22, 33, 44, 68, and 22 (moving sources), (#sources#microphones) in a room are promising.

A DC offset caused by self-mixing is a serious problem for direct-conversion receivers. Local oscillation (LO) leakage via quadrature demodulators (QDEMOD) must be suppressed in order to achieve a low DC offset. An LO buffer which drives QDEMOD mainly causes the LO leakage. We proposed an LO buffer which has a high-pass frequency response with small occupied area and low current consumption. A QDEMOD using the proposed LO buffer is fabricated using a SiGe BiCMOS process. Measured low LO leakage of -70 dBm is achieved, which is 10 dB lower than that of a QDEMOD with a conventional LO buffer. This measured result indicates that the proposed LO buffer is suitable for QDEMODs for direct-conversion receivers.

This paper presents a dual-band mixer equipped with a dual-band load using current combine technique to minimize chip area by sharing inductors for each frequency band. A systematic design methodology for the current combine load based on parasitic effect considerations is also developed. By following the proposed design procedure, the load inductance and combine capacitance for the dual-band mixer can be easily determined. A 2.4/5.2-GHz CMOS mixer design has been implemented to demonstrate the feasibility of the design technique.

An even-harmonic mixer using a bipolar differential pair (bipolar harmonic mixer;BHMIX) is theoretically analyzed from the direct conversion point of view; i.e, conversion gain, third-order input intercept point (IIP3), self-mixing induced dc offset level, and second-order input intercept point (IIP2). Also, noise are analyzed based on nonlinear large-signal model, and numerical results are given. Noises are treated as cyclostationary noises, thus all the folding effects are taken into account. Factors determining IIP3, IIP2, dc offset, and noise are identified and estimation procedures for these characteristics are obtained. For example, design guidelines for the optimal noise performance are given. Measured results support all the analysis results, and they are very useful in the practical BHMIX design.

A feedforward-based active shielding technique for digital noise suppression is more preferred for its capability of reducing the noise on the entire area inside the guard ring. In order to compensate for the variation of substrate parameters, an automatic control scheme to tune the gain of the active shield circuit is proposed. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed system in reducing the digital noise regardless of circuit layout. Simulation results also show that noise suppression improvement from passive guard ring to active shield with tuning is 20 dB or one tenth while that from active shield without tuning to active shield with tuning is 12 dB.

This paper demonstrates a small compact 5.7 GHz upconversion Gilbert micromixer using 0.35 µm SiGe HBT technology. A micromixer has a broadband matched single-ended input port. A passive LC current combiner is used to convert micromixer differential output into a single-ended output and doubles the output current for single-ended-input and single-ended-output applications. Thus, a truly balanced operation of a Gilbert upconversion mixer with a single-ended input and a single-ended output is achieved in this paper. The fully matched upconversion micromixer has conversion gain of -4 dB, OP1 dB of -9 dBm and OIP3 of 4 dBm when input IF=0.3 GHz, LO=5.4 GHz and output RF=5.7 GHz. The IF input return loss is better than 18 dB for frequencies up to 20 GHz while RF output return loss is 25 dB at 5.7 GHz. The supply voltage is 3.3 V and the current consumption is 4.6 mA. The die size is 0.90.9 mm2 with 3 integrated on-chip inductors.

A RF front-end chip for a dual-band Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver for L1 and L2 bands is designed using 0.25 µm CMOS technology. All function blocks of the GPS front-end are integrated onto one chip. The low noise amplifier has input matching over a wide frequency range to handle the L1 and L2 bands. This receiver uses a dual-band image-reject mixer with the quadrature mixer sharing a transconductor stage. This configuration enables the RF blocks to be shared with the L1 and L2 bands. The receiver has a chip area of 3.16 mm3.16 mm, and consumes 35 mA at 2.5 V.

In this paper, a new Mixed Integer Linear Programming algorithm is proposed to resolve the light-tree routing and wavelength assignment with wavelength continuity constraints. The node in our system is limited branching and power-efficient multicast capable OXC. Numerical results are given and discussed to show the efficiency of our algorithm.

This paper describes a high-speed D/A converter design for mixed-mode systems. Capacitive coupling induced by inter-chip interconnects and time-variant clock skew between ICs should be considered for mixed-mode systems, and on-chip interconnects should be treated as transmission lines in the circuit simulation as operating speed reaches GHz range. A robust FIFO built in the D/A converter can absorb input data timing variance due to the capacitive coupling and the clock timing skew, the worst-case margin of which is 1.5TCLK. Distributed RLC transmission line models for on-chip interconnects produce accurate simulation results at 1 GHz clock frequency over lumped models. For optimized D/A converter design, behavioral modeling methodology is also presented in this paper. Measurement results verify the accuracy of the on-chip interconnect and behavioral models.

In this paper we describe a mixed reality-supported interactive viewing enhancement museum display system: Visual-dimension Interact System (VIS). With a transparent interactive interface, the museum visitor is able to see, manipulate, and interact with the physical exhibit and its virtual information, which are overlapped on one other. Furthermore, this system provides the possibility for visitor to experience the creation process in an environment as close as possible to the real process. This has the function of assisting the viewer in understanding the exhibit and most importantly, gaining a so-to-speak hands-on experience of the creation process itself leading to a deeper understanding of it.

Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) has been widely used in the industrial control. Inherently, the PLC-based system is a class of Hybrid Dynamical System (HDS) in which continuous state of the plant is controlled by the discrete logic-based controller. This paper firstly presents the formal algebraic model of the PLC-based control systems which enable the designer to formulate the various kinds of optimization problem. Secondly, the optimization problem of the 'sensor parameters,' such as the location of the limit switch in the material handling system, the threshold temperature of the thermostat in the temperature control system, is addressed. Finally, we formulate this problem as Mixed Logical Dynamical Systems (MLDS) form which enables us to optimize the sensor parameters by applying the Mixed Integer Programming.