A benchmark suite for substrate analysis

With a relatively small number of components, analog ICs are much more vulnerable to piracy, and especially reverse engineering, than many digital ICs. However, analog IC security has received much less research attention than digital ICs. We introduce a combinational locking technique using configurable current mirror for analog IC protection. The locking circuit is designed by applying Satisfiability Modulo Theories. With the locking system, only a single key value can make analog IC operate properly while the other key values result in significant performance degradation or malfunction. Moreover, circuit output is not monotone function with respect to key values and thus systematic attack is difficult to be effective. Experimental results demonstrate that this technique can largely thwart analog IC piracy with limited overhead.

A dynamic synchronization method to realize soft defect localization applied on digital and mixed-mode analog ICs in failure analysis

This study focuses on the design and analysis of Junctionless (JL) NSFETs, with an emphasis on the influence of spacer materials and temperature variations. A different number of materials such as Air, SiO2, Si3N4, HfO2, and TiO2 are examined for sidewall spacer compatibility in the JL-NSFET. The same materials are used for dual material spacers with combinations of: Air+HfO2, Air+TiO2, SiO2+HfO2, and SiO2+TiO2. The investigations revealed that the usage of TiO2 material gives better digital and analog performance with reduced leakage currents and subthreshold swing (SS), higher on/off ratio, voltage gain of ∼79.7 dB. Exploring the dual-k spacers produced better analog performance, gate control and reduced leakages for SiO2+TiO2 owing to the usage of higher dielectric material towards the gate. Further, the reduction of temperature from 400 K to 250 K for all the single-k and dual-k spacer materials revealed that the designed JL-NSFET is a suitable candidate at lower temperatures to improve the digital and analog performance whereas not recommended for RF performance improvement. Moreover, the SiO2+HfO2 spacer-based CMOS inverter is noticed to have better gain (∼15 V/V), noise margin, and lower delays (∼5.1 ps) when compared to TiO2 spacer-based complementary metal oxide semiconductor inverter making it suitable for digital IC applications.

High-speed ICs for 20-40-Gbit/s time-division multiplexing (TDM) optical transmission systems have been designed and fabricated by using InP/InGaAs heterojunction-bipolar-transistor (HBT) technology. This paper describes four analog ICs and four digital ICs: a five-section cascode distributed amplifier with a gain of 9.5 dB and a bandwidth of 50 GHz, a three-section single-end-to-differential converter with a bandwidth of 40 GHz, a cascode differential amplifier with a gain of 10.5 dB and a bandwidth of 64 GHz, a preamplifier with a gain of 41.9 dB/spl Omega/ and a bandwidth of 39 GHz, a modulator driver with an output voltage swing of 3.2 V peak-to-peak and rise and fall times of 16 and 15 ps, a 40-Gbit/s selector, a 20-Gbit/s D-type flip-flop, and a static frequency divider with an operating range of 2.0-44.0 GHz. All the ICs were measured with on-wafer RF probes.

Modeling and analysis of vertical noise coupling in TSV-based 3D mixed-signal integration

In this paper a new method of design of CMOS decoder circuit was proposed. To minimize power consumption and increase the performance of the design the following design solutions have been combined: mixed-logic design method, combining transmission gate logic, dual-value logic pass-gate transistor and CMOS logic. Two new schematics are presented in the paper according which 2–4 decoders were designed. In the first solution a 14-FET based circuit was designed which can be used to minimize the area and power consumption of digital VLSI ICs. The 15-FET based circuit was also proposed to increase the performance of digital ICs while consuming more power than in 14-FET based solution. Using the above-mentioned cells, the following more complex digital decoders have been designed: inverting 14-FET based decoder, inverting 15-FET based decoder, noninverting and inverting 4–16 decoders. All the above proposed solutions have shown better performances, lower power consumptions and less required area of silicon compared to the ones currently used in digital designs. The proposed solutions have been analyzed by SPICE simulations and for 14-nm technology node shown better.

Long-term occupational exposure to whole-body vibration increases the risk of disc degeneration and the consequent back pain [1]. The pathogenesis of vibration induced disorders is still not completely clear and there is no effective treatment. Although the potential effects of vibrational stress on extracellular matrix (ECM) assembly and degradation are particularly relevant to the clinical findings of the vibration induced disorders, the effects of vibrational loads on disc cells are largely unknown. It has been shown that hydrostatic pressure directly affects the synthesis of collagen and proteoglycan by the intervertebral disc cells [2–5]. However, these studies investigated only the extent of the effect of quasi-static hydrostatic loads. During daily occupational activities intervertebral disc is exposed to dynamic oscillatory hydrostatic loads, characterized by wide frequency spectrum and variable amplitude. In this case, a physiologic level of amplitude and frequency of hydrostatic pressure may be essential for maintaining the matrix of the disc, while an abnormal amplitude and frequency of hydrostatic pressure may accelerate disc degeneration. The ranges of good and bad loading frequencies and amplitudes still need to be discovered. The objective of this study was to find which of loading frequency and loading amplitude has more influence in affecting disc cell response to vibration. To address this issue we developed a mechanically-active culture system capable of delivering a wide range of loading frequency and amplitude of hydrostatic pressure to cultures of nucleus pulposus cells. We used nucleus cells, which are exposed mainly to hydrostatic loading in vivo.

Non-invasive and radiation free medical imaging modalities for breast screening is increasingly in demand as the health care industry is taking a paradigm shift from the traditional “treating the sick” to “keeping people healthy” model. To address this need, we are developing a Nano Electrode Array based Electro Impedance Tomography (EIT) device.The objective of this device is to become the leading solution for accurate and cost-effective non-invasive and radiation free early breast cancer detection medical imaging modality.This will be the first medical imaging device to use nano-electrode array embedded in flexible textile as sensors (fabricated via MEMS processes) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6], scan across a wide frequency spectrum and allow scanning of both breasts simultaneously. In addition, it is also the first device that simultaneously allows the scanning of lymph nodes located under the arm, a feature which is of value to oncologists tracking progression and treatment of cancers.

This research focuses on improving the performance of ZigBee-based wireless communications in high impulsive noise environments such as those found in power utility and manufacturing facilities. Previous research has shown the physical layer used by the ZigBee standard to be vulnerable to impulsive noise due to its wide frequency spectrum and high energy content. Hence, our goal is to develop a novel protection scheme that limits the effects of impulsive noise on the ZigBee communication link. In this regard, a conventional Reed-Solomon encoder in combination with a novel composite comparison value filter is employed to manage impulsive noise. Our results indicate the ZigBee transmission performance is improved by our proposed approach.

Testing and verifying wireless systems in a real world environments is a challenging but an important problem. This is particular true for the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) where the modulation techniques are optimized towards environments that are difficult to reproduce (e.g., ship to plane, plane to satellite communications). Such cases necessitate a wireless channel emulator to facilitate testing in the laboratory as the protocols are being developed. Furthermore, the increasing complexity of communications protocols and highly variable network scenarios force the channel emulator to support an accurate and complicated channel model that can scale to handle a large number of radios that operate across a wide frequency spectrum. We developed a unique channel impairment emulator prototype to meet these requirements. It maximizes the scalability and performance, operating in a frequency range of 2 MHz to 2 GHz. Moreover, our emulator design accommodates radio operation that use unknown frequency hopping techniques, which is increasingly common in JTRS systems. This key feature to this system is a high throughput channel tracker module that handles high bandwidth intermediate frequency (IF) signals while providing the scalability to handle a large number of channels.

Ultrawideband wireless technology transmits data at very high rates over a wide frequency spectrum, at low power, making it suitable for the industrial environment. We discuss the benefits and challenges of using wireless communication in the industrial environment, and we explain why UWB is a suitable wireless solution for addressing these challenges. We also consider some unresolved system-level and operational issues for incorporating UWB technology in industrial environments

Since the introduction of partial discharge (PD) detection, the majority of conventional electrical measurement of PD has been performed with detectors operating in narrow bandwidths from 10 kHz to 1 MHz for several decades. In the past decade, advances in electronic instrumentation have permitted the measurement of PD with bandwidths up to 1 GHz. Since PD pulses are fundamentally events with duration as low as a few nanoseconds which have a very wide frequency spectrum, comparing with narrow band PD detection, PD measurement with such ultra-wideband (UWB) detection methods can provide more information on the deterioration of stator winding insulation subjected to combined stresses. A UWB PD measuring technique with bandwidths from 20 kHz to 1 GHz is presented, and some waveforms of UWB PD signals of stator bar specimens in different aging periods both in time domain and frequency domain are given in this paper. It has been found that the ultra high frequency components contained in PD pulse increase and the rise-time of the pulse decrease gradually with aging time. It would be suggested that the ultra high components of PD pulse may be used to characterize the aging degree of stator winding insulation.

In this study, we have investigated the toxic effects of tobacco smoke obtained from cigarettes treated in pulsed electromagnetic field in the rat. The treatment of cigarettes was accomplished before the initiation of animal studies after exposure of standard cigarettes to pulsed electromagnetic irradiation of low power (>10-7W) and wide frequency spectrum (30 Hz to 300 GHz) during 24 h according to the technology described in patents WO 01/26493, EP 1092354, US 2004/0206366A1 and AU2933700 entitled “Method for the Qualitative Improvement of the Products of Tobacco Plant”. Rats of both sexes were exposed to tobacco smoke obtained after burning 16 or 32 cigarettes per day during 90 days. The toxicity was assessed on the basis of clinical appearance, changes in behavior, biomarkers of exposure to tobacco smoke (carboxyhemoglobin in blood and thiocyanates in serum) and histopathological and morphological analysis of the lungs of all animals included in the study. The results obtained have shown that, the smoke generated from treated cigarettes formed significantly lower amount of carboxyhemoglobin in rats of both sexes when compared to standard nontreated cigarettes and the effect was dose-dependent. Tobacco smoke obtained from standard nontreated cigarettes induced significant dose-dependent increase of thiocyanate concentration in serum. However, in rats exposed to the smoke of treated cigarettes, there were no differences in thiocynate concentration when compared to controls not exposed to tobacco smoke. The results of morphometrical analysis in the rats exposed to tobacco smoke generated from standard nontreated cigarettes have shown statistically significant and dose-dependent decrease in participation of the lung parenchima in total lung surface up to 34% in male rats and up to 18% in female rats exposed to the higher dose of nontreated cigarette smoke. In addition, in these rats the mean alveolar circumference was incresed for about 17%. In rats exposed to the smoke of treated cigarettes there were no histopathological changes and differences in morphometrical parameters when compared to control animals. In conclusion, the results of this study have shown that, after treatment of cigarettes in pulsed electromagnetic field, the cigarettes produced tobaco smoke that was much less toxic in rats of both sexes exposed by inhalation route during 90 days when compared to the same cigarettes that were not treated in electromagnetic field. Key words: Tobacco smoke, carboxyhemoglobin, thiocyanates, pulsed electromagnetic field.

A frequency compensation scheme based on an active-feedback current buffer (AFCB) is presented in this paper. With an active-feedback mechanism, the proposed AFCB offers quite low input impedance across wide frequency spectrum, which greatly reduces the power consumption of AFCB amplifiers employing the AFCB as frequency compensation. The bandwidth and slew rate of the AFCB amplifier are also improved due to the much smaller compensation capacitors. Moreover, the presence of a left-half-plane zero in the AFCB amplifier enhances the stability and settling behavior of the amplifier. A three-stage AFCB amplifier is implemented by a standard 0.5-mum CMOS process. When driving a 120-pF capacitive load, the AFCB amplifier achieves over 100-dB DC gain, 4-MHz gain-bandwidth product (GBW), 65deg phase margin, and 1.9-V/mus average slew rate with total 3.5-pF compensation capacitances, while only dissipating 160-muW power at a 2.5-Vsupply

Inter-area oscillations are, by far, the most detrimental to the synchronous integrity of interconnected power systems. This detriment comes from their wide frequency spectrum and the large numbers of the participant generators. The inherent poor damping associated with the inter-area oscillations leaves open wide probabilities for irrevocable widespread blackouts with the consequent eventual devastating outcomes measured in terms of the huge economic casualties and the possible human fatalities. This article explores the influences of the Interval Type-2 fuzzy logic-based strategized dynamic braking interventions of dual brake models, namely Thyristor Controlled Braking Resistors (TCBRs), for neutralizing the jeopardy of negatively damped inter-area power oscillations in Kundur’s two-area test system, using MATLAB™/Simulink environment. The relative inner generator's speed deviation is employed in this work as a control signal to the proposed controller. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is authenticated by considering four case studies with different severity degrees. By analyzing the performance repercussions due to four disturbances, without the implementation of the proposed scheme, the unstable nature of the system responses is clearly noticed. With the implementation of the proposed scheme, the system oscillatory behavior is stabilized in an appropriate manner. The performed comparative non-linear time-domain simulation results emphasize the great potential of the proposed scheme in mitigation of inter-area power oscillations according to the considered disturbances. The proposed scheme is simple yet effective in treating the inter-area oscillations appropriately under the considered case studies.