A miniaturized bandpass filter (BPF) using defected ground structure (DGS) resonator with the characteristic of harmonic rejection is developed in this paper. The second and third harmonics of the proposed BPF are rejected by the characteristic of stepped-impedance DGS resonator. Moreover, open stubs are established so that two adjustable transmission zeros can independently be created to extend the stopband and improve the rejection level. Finally, a second-order BPF, centered at 1.62 GHz with a stopband extended up to 5.6 GHz and a rejection level better than 20 dB, is designed and implemented for GPS application. A good agreement between simulation and measurement verifies the validity of this design methodology.

A new approach for the design of an active comb filter is proposed to remove the selected frequencies of various signals. The proposed filter is based on only OTAs and capacitors, hence suitable for monolithic integrated circuit implementation. The workability of the circuit is tested using PSPICE for test signals of 60, 180, 300, and 420 Hz as in ECG signal. The results are given in the paper and found to agree well with theory.

In a preceding paper Carlos E. Saavedra, 2005, established that frequency division can be achieved with the use of inverter rings and transmission gates. In this paper, we suggest three modified circuits which obtain the similar function, namely, using Current Sink Inverter, Current Source Inverter, and Modified Current Source Inverter. The performances of the proposed circuits are examined using Cadence and the model parameters of a 45 nm CMOS process. The simulation results of the three circuits are presented and are compared. We also present the results of a simple but effective novel technique to reduce clock skew between real and complementary clock signals and the corresponding improvement achieved in maximum frequency of operation. One of the proposed circuits can operate at up to 8.2 GHz input while performing a divide-by-4 operation.

This paper presents a millimeter-wave, 60 GHz frequency band planar diplexer based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology. Diplexer consists of a pair of 5th-order SIW bandpass channel filters with center frequencies at 59.8 GHz and 62.2 GHz providing 1.67% and 1.6% relative bandwidths, respectively. SIW-to-microstrip transitions at diplexer ports enable integration in a millimeter-wave transceiver front end. Measurements are in good agreement with electromagnetic simulation, reporting very good channel isolation, small return losses, and moderate insertion losses in the passbands. The proposed SIW planar diplexer is integrated into a millimeter-wave transceiver front end for 60 GHz point-to-point multigigabit wireless backhaul applications, providing high isolation between transmit and receive channels.

A new low-voltage MOS current mode logic (MCML) topology for D-latch is proposed. The new topology employs a triple-tail cell to lower the supply voltage requirement in comparison to traditional MCML D-latch. The design of the proposed MCML D-latch is carried out through analytical modeling of its static parameters. The delay is expressed in terms of the bias current and the voltage swing so that it can be traded off with the power consumption. The proposed low-voltage MCML D-latch is analyzed for the two design cases, namely, high-speed and power-efficient, and the performance is compared with the traditional MCML D-latch for each design case. The theoretical propositions are validated through extensive SPICE simulations using TSMC 0.18 µm CMOS technology parameters.

1 Department of Electronic Engineering, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung 840, Taiwan 2Department of Electronic Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan 3Department of Electrical Engineering, Institute of Microelectronics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan 4Department of Electrical Engineering, National Central University, Taoyuan 320, Taiwan 5Department of Physical Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan

Copper phthalocyanine-based organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) with zirconium oxide (ZrO2) as gate dielectric have been fabricated on glass substrates. The gate dielectric is annealed in N2at different durations (5, 15, 40, and 60 min) to investigate the effects of annealing time on the electrical properties of the OTFTs. Experimental results show that the longer the annealing time for the OTFT, the better the performance. Among the devices studied, OTFTs with gate dielectric annealed at 350°C in N2for 60 min exhibit the best device performance. They have a small threshold voltage of −0.58 V, a low subthreshold slope of 0.8 V/decade, and a low off-state current of 0.73 nA. These characteristics demonstrate that the fabricated device is suitable for low-voltage and low-power operations. When compared with the TFT samples annealed for 5 min, the ones annealed for 60 min have 20% higher mobility and nearly two times smaller the subthreshold slope and off-state current. The extended annealing can effectively reduce the defects in the high-k film and produces a better insulator/organic interface. This results in lower amount of carrier scattering and larger CuPc grains for carrier transport.

Remotely empowered wireless sensor networks use different energy resources including photovoltaic solar cells, wireless power transmission, and batteries. As another option the electromagnetic energy available in the ambient can be harvested to power these remote sensors. This is particularly valuable if it is desirable to harvest the ambient energy available in the wide range of electromagnetic spectrum. This has motivated the research for developing energy harvesting devices which can absorb this energy and produce a DC voltage. Rectenna, an antenna coupled with a rectifier, is the main component used for absorbing electromagnetic radiation at GHz and THz frequencies. Rectifying MIM tunnel diodes are able to operate at tens and hundreds of GHz frequency. As the preliminary steps towards development of high-frequency rectifiers, this paper presents fabrication and DC characterization of two new MIM diodes, Ti-TiO2-Al and Ti-TiO2-Pt.G-Vanalysis of the fabricated diodes verifies tunneling. Brinkman-Dynes-Rowell model is used to extract oxide thickness of which the derived value is around 9 nm. Ti-TiO2-Pt diode exhibits rectification ratio of 15 at 0.495 V, which is more than rectification ratio reported in earlier works.

In recent years, many articles came out where one could find the analysis of oscillatory systems of electric sinusoid signals generators with amplifiers called CFOA—current feedback operational amplifiers. As a rule, the analysis of such systems is made by applying mathematical modeling methods on the basis of the amplifier linear model, which does not allow estimating advantages and disadvantages of the systems realized with those amplifiers in comparison with classical systems. A nonlinear model of a current feedback operational amplifier (CFOA) is introduced in the paper; nonlinearity of “current mirror” is reflected in the form of current double limiting. The analysis of two known oscillatory systems has been carried out with the use of this non-linear model. Dependence between current limiting level, output voltage amplitude, and maximum oscillation frequency has been obtained. The paper shows that output current limiting under current output connection of capacitive load reduces frequency range and output voltage amplitude considerably and increases harmonic distortions in comparison with classical oscillatory systems. The research done has found that the application of new amplifiers does not give considerable advantages to the oscillatory systems with CFOA.

The rising complexity of electronic systems, the reduction of components size, and the increment of working frequencies demand every time more accurate and stable integrated circuits, which require more precise simulation programs during the design process. PSPICE, widely used to simulate the general behavior of integrated circuits, does not consider many of the physical effects that can be found in real devices. Compact models, HICUM and MEXTRAM, have been developed over recent decades, in order to eliminate this deficiency. This paper presents some of the physical aspects that have not been studied so far, such as the expression of base-emitter voltage, including the emitter emission coefficient effect (n), physical explanation and simulation procedure, as well as a new extraction method for the diffusion potentialVDE(T), based on the forward biased base-emitter capacitance, showing excellent agreement between experimental and theoretical results.