This paper presents a comprehensive design approach to load-independent radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers. We project the zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) and zero-voltage-derivative-switching (ZVDS) load impedances onto a Smith chart, and find that their loci exhibit geodesic arcs. We exploit a two-port reactive network to convert the geodesic locus into another geodesic. This is named geodesic-to-geodesic (G2G) impedance conversion, and the power amplifier that employs G2G conversion is called class-G2G amplifier. We comprehensively explore the possible circuit topologies, and find that there are twenty G2G networks to create class-G2G amplifiers. We also find out that the class-G2G amplifier behaves like a transformer or a gyrator converting from dc to RF. The G2G design theory is verified via a circuit simulation. We also verified the theory through an experiment employing a prototype 100 W amplifier at 6.78 MHz. We conclude that the presented design approach is quite comprehensive and useful for the future development of high-efficiency RF power amplifiers.

This article describes the idea of utilizing Attested Execution Secure Processors (AESPs) that fit into building a secure Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) system satisfying Sybil-resistance under permissionless blockchains. Today’s circumstances requiring people to be more online have encouraged us to address digital identity preserving privacy. There is a momentum of research addressing SSI, and many researchers approach blockchain technology as a foundation. SSI brings natural persons various benefits such as owning controls; on the other side, digital identity systems in the real world require Sybil-resistance to comply with Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) and other needs. The main idea in our proposal is to utilize AESPs for three reasons: first is the use of attested execution capability along with tamper-resistance, which is a strong assumption; second is powerfulness and flexibility, allowing various open-source programs to be executed within a secure enclave, and the third is that equipping hardware-assisted security in mobile devices has become a norm. Rafael Pass et al.’s formal abstraction of AESPs and the ideal functionality $\color{brown}{\mathcal{G}_\mathtt{att}}$ enable us to formulate how hardware-assisted security works for secure digital identity systems preserving privacy under permissionless blockchains mathematically. Our proposal of the AESP-based SSI architecture and system protocols, $\color{blue}{\Pi^{\mathcal{G}_\mathtt{att}}}$, demonstrates the advantages of building a proper SSI system that satisfies the Sybil-resistant requirement. The protocols may eliminate the online distributed committee assumed in other research, such as CanDID, because of assuming AESPs; thus, $\color{blue}{\Pi^{\mathcal{G}_\mathtt{att}}}$ allows not to rely on multi-party computation (MPC), bringing drastic flexibility and efficiency compared with the existing SSI systems.

The design of automobile lamps requires accurate estimation of heat distribution to prevent overheating and deformation of the product. Traditional heat resistant analysis using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is time-consuming and requires expertise in thermofluid mechanics, making real-time temperature analysis less accessible to lamp designers. We propose a machine learning-based temperature prediction system for automobile lamp design. We trained our machine learning models using CFD results of various lamp designs, providing lamp designers real-time Heat-Resistant Analysis. Comprehensive tests on real lamp products demonstrate that our prediction model accurately estimates heat distribution comparable to CFD analysis within a minute. Our system visualizes the estimated heat distribution of car lamp design supporting quick decision-making by lamp designer. It is expected to shorten the product design process, improving the market competitiveness.

Simple and quick tests at medical clinics have become increasingly important. Magnetic sensing techniques have been developed to detect biomarkers using magnetic nanoparticles in liquid-phase assays. We developed a biomarker assay that involves using an alternating current (AC) susceptibility measurement system that uses functional magnetic particles and magnetic sensing technology. We also developed compact biomarker measuring equipment to enable quick testing. Our assay is a one-step homogeneous assay that involves simply mixing a sample with a reagent, shortening testing time and simplifying processing. Using our compact measuring equipment, which includes anisotropic magneto resistance (AMR) sensors, we conducted high-sensitivity measurements of extremely small amounts of two biomarkers (C-reactive protein, CRP and α-Fetoprotein, AFP) used for diagnosing arteriosclerosis and malignant tumors. The results indicate that an extremely small amount of CRP and AFP could be detected within 15 min, which demonstrated the possibility of a simple and quick high-sensitivity immunoassay that involves using an AC-susceptibility measurement system.

The magnetic field resolution of the tunnel magneto-resistive (TMR) sensors has been improving and it reaches below 1.0 pT/Hz0.5 at low frequency. The real-time measurement of the magnetocardiography (MCG) and the measurement of the magnetoencephalography (MEG) have been demonstrated by developed TMR sensors. Although the MCG and MEG have been applied to diagnosis of diseases, the conventional MCG/MEG system using superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) cannot measure the signal by touching the body, the body must be fixed, and maintenance costs are huge. The MCG/MEG system with TMR sensors operating at room temperature have the potential to solve these problems. In addition, it has the great advantage that it does not require a special magnetic shielded room. Further developments are expected to progress to maximize these unique features of TMR sensors.

We have proposed and demonstrated a device fabrication process of physically defined quantum dots utilizing electron beam lithography employing a negative-tone resist toward high-density integration of silicon quantum bits (qubits). The electrical characterization at 3.8K exhibited so-called Coulomb diamonds, which indicates successful device operation as single-electron transistors. The proposed device fabrication process will be useful due to its high compatibility with the large-scale integration process.

To understand the radiation mechanism of an electrically small spherical helix antenna, we develop a theory on the radiation characteristics of the antenna. An analytical model of the antenna presuming a current on the wire to be sinusoidally distributed is proposed and analyzed with the spherical wave expansion. The radiation efficiency, radiation resistance, and radiation patterns are obtained in closed-form expression. The radiation efficiency evidently varies with the surface area of the wire and the radiation resistance depends on the square of the length of the wire. The obtained result for the radiation pattern illustrates the tilt of the pattern caused by the modes asymmetric to the z-axis. The radiation efficiency formula indicates a good agreement between the simulation and measurement result. In addition, the radiation resistance of the theoretical and simulation results exhibits good agreement. Considering the effect of the feeding structure of the fabricated antenna, the radiation resistance of the analytical model can be treated as a reasonable result. The result of radiation pattern also shows good agreement between the simulation and measurement results excluding a small contribution from the feeding cable acting as a scatterer.

A static timing analysis (STA) tool for a 28nm atom-switch FPGA (AS-FPGA) is introduced to validate the signal delay of an application circuit before implementation. High accuracy of the STA tool is confirmed by implementing a practical application circuit on the 28nm AS-FPGA. Moreover, dramatic improvement of delay and power is demonstrated in comparison with a previous 40nm AS-FPGA.

In response to fast charging systems, Silicon Carbide (SiC) power semiconductor devices are of great interest of the automotive power electronics applications as the next generation of fast charging systems require high voltage batteries. For high voltage battery EVs (Electric Vehicles) over 800V, SiC power semiconductor devices are suitable for 3-phase inverters, battery chargers, and isolated DC-DC converters due to their high voltage rating and high efficiency performance. However, SiC-MOSFETs have two characteristics that interfere with high-speed switching and high efficiency performance operations for SiC MOS-FET applications in automotive power electronics systems. One characteristic is the low voltage rating of the gate-source terminal, and the other is the large internal gate-resistance of SiC MOS-FET. The purpose of this work was to evaluate a proposed hybrid gate drive circuit that could ignore the internal gate-resistance and maintain the gate-source terminal stability of the SiC-MOSFET applications. It has been found that the proposed hybrid gate drive circuit can achieve faster and lower loss switching performance than conventional gate drive circuits by using the current source gate drive characteristics. In addition, the proposed gate drive circuit can use the voltage source gate drive characteristics to protect the gate-source terminals despite the low voltage rating of the SiC MOS-FET gate-source terminals.

This paper presents a simulation study on the printing behavior of three different EUV resist systems. Stochastic models for negative metal-based resist and conventional chemically amplified resist (CAR) were calibrated and then validated. As for negative-tone development (NTD) CAR, we commenced from a positive-tone development (PTD) CAR calibrated (material) and NTD development models, since state-of-the-art measurements are not available. A conceptual study between PTD CAR and NTD CAR shows that the stochastic inhibitor fluctuation differs for PTD CAR: the inhibitor level exhibits small fluctuation (Mack development). For NTD CAR, the inhibitor fluctuation depends on the NTD type, which is defined by categorizing the difference between the NTD and PTD development thresholds. Respective NTD types have different inhibitor concentration level. Moreover, contact hole printing between negative metal-based and NTD CAR was compared to clarify the stochastic process window (PW) for tone reversed mask. For latter comparison, the aerial image (AI) and secondary electron effect are comparable. Finally, the local CD uniformity (LCDU) for the same 20 nm size, 40 nm pitch contact hole was compared among the three different resists. Dose-dependent behavior of LCDU and stochastic PW for NTD were different for the PTD CAR and metal-based resist. For NTD CAR, small inhibitor level and large inhibitor fluctuation around the development threshold were observed, causing LCDU increase, which is specific to the inverse Mack development resist.

It is found that the electrical resistance-length characteristic in an electroactive supercoiled polymer artificial muscle strongly depends on the temperature. This may come from the thermal expansion of coils in the artificial muscle, which increases the contact area of neighboring coils and results in a lower electrical resistance at a higher temperature. On the other hand, the electrical resistance-length characteristic collected during electrical driving seriously deviates from those collected at constant temperatures. Inhomogeneous heating during electrical driving seems to be a key for the deviation.

Electrical connectors are the basic components of the electric system in automobiles, aircrafts and ships to realize the current and electrical signal transmission. In the aviation electrical system, the electrical connectors are indispensable supporting devices accessories, which play important roles in connecting electrical system, monitoring and controlling equipment, and provide a guarantee for the reliable transmission of electrical signals between the aviation equipment and system. Whether aviation electrical connectors work reliably directly affects the safety and reliability of the entire aircraft aviation system. The random vibration of aircraft caused by turbulence during flight is one of the main factors affecting the contact performance of the electrical connectors. In this paper, the contacts of the circular four-slot three-pin electrical connectors were chosen as the research specimens. The theoretical model of the contact force for contacts of electrical connectors was established. The test method for contact force measurement was determined. According to the test scheme, the detecting device for the contact force and contact resistance of the electrical connectors was designed, and the turbulence test of the electrical connectors was carried out. Through the analysis of the test data, the influence rule of the turbulence degree, flight speed and flight height on the contact force and contact resistance of the aviation electrical connectors was obtained.

In this paper, a compact microwave push-push oscillator based on a resonant tunneling diode (RTD) has been fabricated and demonstrated. A symmetrical spiral inductor structure has been used in order to reduce a chip area. The designed symmetric inductor is integrated into the InP-based RTD monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology. The circuit occupies a compact active area of 0.088 mm2 by employing symmetric inductor. The fabricated RTD oscillator shows an extremely low DC power consumption of 87 µW at an applied voltage of 0.47 V with good figure-of-merit (FOM) of -191 dBc/Hz at an oscillation frequency of 27 GHz. This is the first implementation as the RTD push-push oscillator with the symmetrical spiral inductor.

This paper presents a comparative loss analysis performed between an LLC converter and a phase-shift converter under the same size conditions using a power supply manufactured for information communications equipment. It is also shown herein that the LLC converter has a much higher ratio of transformer loss to total loss than the phase-shift converter and that the cause is the difference in the number of transformer turns between the two converters. Further, the ON-resistance of the secondary-side rectifier element and the number of transformer primary turns are shown to determine which of the two converters is superior in terms of low loss.

Matching circuits using LC elements are widely applied to high-frequency circuits such as power amplifier (PA) and low-noise amplifier (LNA). For determining matching condition of multi-stage matching circuits, this paper shows that any multi-stage LC-Ladder matching circuit with resistive termination can be decomposed to the extended L-type matching circuits with resistive termination containing negative elements where the analytical solution exists. The matching conditions of each extended L-type matching circuit are obtained easily from the termination resistances and the design frequency. By synthesizing these simple analysis solutions, it is possible to systematically determine the solution even in a large number of stages (high order) matching circuits.

S-shaped nonlinearity is found in the electrical resistance-length relationship in an electroactive supercoiled polymer artificial muscle. The modulation of the electrical resistance is mainly caused by the change in the contact condition of coils in the artificial muscle upon deformation. A mathematical model based on logistic function fairly reproduces the experimental data of electrical resistance-length relationship.

In this paper, we have investigated the etching selectivity of HfN encapsulating layer for high quality PtHf-alloy silicide (PtHfSi) formation with low contact resistivity on Si(100). The HfN(10 nm)/PtHf(20 nm)/p-Si(100) stacked layer was in-situ deposited by RF-magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Then, silicidation was carried out at 500°C/20 min in N2/4.9%H2 ambient. Next, the HfN encapsulating layer was etched for 1-10 min by buffered-HF (BHF) followed by the unreacted PtHf metal etching. We have found that the etching duration of the 10-nm-thick HfN encapsulating layer should be shorter than 6 min to maintain the PtHfSi crystallinity. This is probably because the PtHf-alloy silicide was gradually etched by BHF especially for the Hf atoms after the HfN was completely removed. The optimized etching process realized the ultra-low contact resistivity of PtHfSi to p+/n-Si(100) and n+/p-Si(100) such as 9.4×10-9Ωcm2 and 4.8×10-9Ωcm2, respectively, utilizing the dopant segregation process. The control of etching duration of HfN encapsulating layer is important to realize the high quality PtHfSi formation with low contact resistivity.

ICT development progresses, and many cryptographic algorithms are used. The most of cryptographic algorithms require assumptions to guarantee their security, but it is sometimes not clearly written. This causes many problems. This paper shows previous cases, and suggests to concede cryptographers and system developer each other from an industrial cryptographers viewpoint.

MDC-4 is the enhanced version of MDC-2, which is a well-known hash mode of block ciphers. However, it does not guarantee sufficient securities required for a cryptographic hash function. In the ideal cipher model, the MDC-4 compression function has the collision security bound close to 25n/8 and the preimage security bound close to 25n/4, where the underlying block cipher has the block size of n bits. We have studied how to improve MDC-4 with simple modification to strengthen its security. It is meaningful work because users often want to improve their familiar systems with low cost. In this paper, we achieve it by proposing MDC-4+, which is a light variation of MDC-4. We prove that MDC-4+ is much more secure than MDC-4 by showing that it has the collision security bound close to optimal 2n and the preimage security bound close to 24n/3. We also discuss its efficiency by comparing existing hash modes.

In this paper, we have investigated the PdEr-silicide formation utilizing a developed PdEr-alloy target for sputtering, and evaluated the contact resistivity of PdEr-silicide layer formed on n-Si(100) by dopant segregation process for the first time. Pd2Si and ErSi2 have same hexagonal structure, while the Schottky barrier height for electron (Φbn) is different as 0.75 eV and 0.28 eV, respectively. A 20 nm-thick PdEr-alloy layer was deposited on the n-Si(100) substrates utilizing a developed PdEr-alloy target by the RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Then, 10 nm-thick TiN encapsulating layer was in-situ deposited at room temperature. Next, silicidation was carried out by the RTA at 500 for 5 min in N2/4.9%H2 followed by the selective etching. From the J-V characteristics of fabricated Schottky diode, qΦbn was reduced from 0.75 eV of Pd2Si to 0.43 eV of PdEr-silicide. Furthermore, 4.0x10-8Ωcm2 was extracted for the PdEr-silicide to n-Si(100) by the dopant segregation process.