A 0.25-μm CMOS 1.9-GHz PHS RF Transceiver With a 150-kHz Low-IF Architecture

We present a 1.9-GHz Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) transceiver, fully integrated and fabricated in 0.25-mum CMOS technology. The receiver is based on a 150-kHz low-IF architecture and meets the fast channel switching and DC-offset cancellation requirements of PHS. It includes a low-noise amplifier (LNA), a downconversion mixer, a complex filter, and a programmable gain amplifier. A fractional-N frequency synthesizer achieves seamless handover with a 25 mus channel switching time and a phase noise of -121 dBc/Hz at a 600-kHz offset frequency, with compliant ACS performance. The receiver provides -105 dBm sensitivity and 55 dBc ACS at a 600-kHz frequency offset. The transmitter is based on the direct modulation architecture and consists of an upconversion mixer and a pre-driver stage. The gain of the pre-driver is digitally controllable to suit any type of commercial power amplifier. The transmitter shows a 3% EVM and a 65 dBc ACPR at a 600-kHz offset frequency. The whole transceiver occupies 15.2 mm² and dissipates 70 mA in RX and 44 mA in TX, with a 2.8-V supply     

A quad-rotor system for driving and flying missions by tilting mechanism of rotors: From design to control

This article presents the hybrid design and control of a quad-rotor system called Flymobile. Flymobile is a combined system of a mobile robot and a quad-rotor system aimed to perform both flying and driving tasks. Flymobile performs flying tasks in the same way as conventional quad-rotor systems while the tilting mechanism of each rotor allows Flymobile to navigate in its terrain for a driving task. The body frame with rotors is implemented by a calibration process through a test-bed equipped with a force sensor. The triangular wheel frame is designed to mimic motions of a mobile robot with three passive wheels. Sensor data of a gyro and an accelerometer are filtered and used for controlling the attitude of the system. Focusing on a practical approach of implementing a hybrid system, a non model-based approach is applied to control Flymobile. Experimental studies are demonstrated to show the feasibility of performing both driving and flying missions.     

A double-gate-type static-induction thyristor

A double-gate-type static-induction thyristor (DG-SIThy) with a high blocking voltage and a high current rating has been fabricated. In this paper, a basic operational mechanism, a fabrication procedure, and the electrical characteristics of the DG-SIThy are described. In the DG-SIThy, both electron injection and hole injection are controlled by signals applied to two gale regions so that the DG-SIThy is capable of higher frequency operations than a single-gate SIThy. In the DG-SIThy, described here, both a cathode and a gate (first gate) regions have been fabricated on one side of a semiconductor wafer and both an anode and gate.(second gate) regions on another side. For realizing the DG-SIThy with a high blocking voltage and a high current rating, we have tried attentively to form a p-n junction on one side of the wafer without influencing the p-n junction on the other side, and have developed a new counter-doping technique for epitaxial growth and an improved package structure for a compression-mounted device. The DG-SIThy fabricated with these techniques has shown a for-Ward blocking voltage of 1000 V, an average current rating of 100 A, and a forward voltage drop of 1.44 V at the rated anode current. A turn-on time of 0.95 its and a turn-off time of 0.48 µs have been observed at the rated anode current and at anode voltages of 650 and 550 V, respectively. As already speculated, the DG-SIThy shows a higher switching speed and a lower forward drop than the single-gate SIThy.     

Equivalent transformations for the mixed lumped Brune-type sectionand uniform transmission line

As an analytical method for nonuniform transmission lines (NTLs) equivalent transformations are extended to a more general case, namely a mixed lumped Brune-type section and a uniform transmission line (unit element, UE). Circuits consisting of a cascade connection of a lumped Brune section and a UE are equivalent to one consisting of a cascade connection of a nonuniform transmission line whose characteristic impedance distribution is expressed with a trigonometric function and a lumped Brune section. This equivalent transformation method is easily applied to a circuit consisting of a lumped C section and a UE. The equivalent circuit is a circuit consisting of an NTL and a lumped C section. In this case, the characteristic impedance distribution of the NTL may be expressed in terms of a hyperbolic function. Exact network functions of the NTLs are easily obtained from the equivalent circuits without solving the telegrapher's equation. By considering the limiting case of these equivalent transformations, equivalent transformations for circuits consisting of a cascade connection of a lumped resonance circuit and a circuit and a uniform transmission line are derived     

Simultaneous compression and amplification of ultrashort pulses atMHz repetition rates

The authors report simultaneous compression and chirped pulse amplification at megahertz repetition rates of ultrashort pulses using a cavity-dumped dye laser with a pumping argon ion laser as the amplifier. In a single stage, the pulse is compressed by a factor of 25 and the energy per pulse is simultaneously increased by a factor of 2, without reducing the repetition rate. Starting with a pulse that has a duration of 4.3 ps and a peak power of 5.8 kW, a pulse with a duration of 170 fs and a peak power of 294 kW is obtained. A second stage of pulse compression is used to obtain a broadband pulse with a duration >~50 fs and a peak power of ~100 kW at 2 MHz     

Virtual impedance control for a regional dynamic voltage restorer

A dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) can be installed in a middle-voltage (MV) power grid, to concurrently protect a cluster of sensitive loads from voltage sags. To further improve its efficiency and reduce the difficulty in its implementation, a novel control strategy for operating such a DVR as a virtual impedance in series with sensitive loads is proposed in this paper. In addition to its usual function of compensating for voltage sags, such a DVR can also operate as a virtual inductance, to function as a fault current limiter (FCL) during a downstream fault, or a virtual capacitance, to function as a series compensator (SC) to compensate the voltage loss along the feeder line during heavy load. Based on a dual-loop control design, strategies for operating a DVR as a series virtual inductance and a virtual capacitance are proposed, and methods for tuning the parameter values and a stability analysis of the whole system are presented. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by simulations using the PSCAD software, and experimental results obtained using a prototype DVR are presented.     

Ultra-Low-Power Interface Chip for Autonomous Capacitive Sensor Systems

Traditionally, most of the sensor interfaces must be tailored towards a specific application. This approach results in a high recurrent design cost and time to market. On the other hand, generic sensor interface design reduces the costs and offers a handy solution for multisensor applications. This paper presents a generic sensor interface chip (GSIC), which can read out a broad range of capacitive sensors. It contains capacitance-to-voltage converters, a switched-capacitor amplifier, an analog-to-digital converter, oscillators, clock generation circuits and a reference circuit. The system combines a very low-power design with a smart energy management, which adapts the current consumption according to the accuracy and speed requirements of the application. The GSIC is used in a pressure and an acceleration monitoring system. The pressure monitoring system achieves a current drain of 2.3 muA for a 10-Hz sample frequency and an 8-bit accuracy. In the acceleration monitoring system, we measured a current of 3.3 muA for a sample frequency of 10 Hz and an accuracy of 9 bits     

Analysis of a strip in a waveguide

An analysis and an experimental study of a strip in a transverse plane of a rectangular waveguide below cutoff are presented. This work is a preliminary step in analyzing a stripline-fed slot antenna array in which each stripline feed is enclosed in a rectangular waveguide below cutoff. A numerical method is developed to solve a “pseudo” mixed-potential integral equation for the current on the strip excited by a delta-gap source at some point along the strip. The Green's function for dipole sources in the rectangular waveguide is used in the spectral and spatial representations and Shanks' transform is employed to speed up the convergence of the doubly infinite series. Numerical and experimental results are presented for a monopole fed at one wall of a rectangular waveguide and for a bottom-fed and bottom-loaded strip in a rectangular waveguide     

A Note on Loaded Line Synthesis (Correspondence)

The purpose of this note is to present an alternate derivation of a formula for the synthesis of a loaded line. The problem is to determine the values of the normalized susceptances a and c mounted an exact quarter-wavelength apart along a uniform line. These are arranged in the order a, c, c,. . .c, a to achieve a loaded line with a given phase shift and perfect match. In order to analyze a particular line design for standing-wave ratio and phase shift over a band of frequencies on a digital computer, it is worthwhile to know the values of the susceptances to many more decimal places than one would achieve from a simple graph.     

Power Reflection and Transmission Coefficients for Meander‐Line Polarizers with a Chiral Slab

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of power reflection and transmission coefficients for a meander‐line polarizer placed periodically on a chiral slab. It is assumed that a linearly polarized transverse magnetic wave is incident on a chiral slab from the air region. In the analysis, we derive the electric and magnetic fields in the modal form in the air and chiral regions. We obtain power reflection and transmission coefficients in a straightforward manner after matching the tangential components of the electric and magnetic fields at the boundaries. We present numerical results for the power reflection and transmission coefficients versus frequency and incident angle for different values of the chirality admittance. A meander‐line polarizer placed on a dielectric slab can convert a linearly polarized wave to a circularly polarized wave. The design parameters for a meander‐line polarizer are the dimensions of the meander‐line and the values of the dielectric slab. Replacing a dielectric slab with a chiral slab introduces a new independent parameter which controls the wave polarization.     

Human cooperative wheelchair for haptic interaction based on dual compliance control

A human and a robot will carry out a task which is not attainable by themselves. In particular, a human recognizes environment and plans his trajectory without collision with obstacles. On the other hand, a robot generates a controlled force more than a human. In this paper, the best combination of human ability and robot capacity is considered. Based on force commands from a human, a robot supports it A reaction torque observer is implemented in a robot to observe an environmental disturbance. Environmental disturbance is classified into translational and rotational direction modes. As a result, adaptive force control in each mode is attained. Dual compliance control is applied to a wheelchair. A wheelchair that has the abilities of power-assist and relaxation of contact force is developed in this paper. As a result, operationality and stability are improved. The numerical and experimental results show the viability of the proposed method.     

Optical pulse sequence transmission through single-mode fibers:interference signal analysis

The transmission of a pulse sequence through a single-mode fiber is considered under first- and second-order dispersion. An expression is given for the output power signal envelope in terms of the Fourier transform of a spectral function. The output envelope is composed of two terms: a linear one which is a distorted replica of the information sequence, and a nonlinear interference term. The latter is expressed in a more meaningful way and analyzed. The results allow a characterization and a classification of the interference pulses in terms of physically intuitive parameters     

Yield challenges in wafer stacking technology

Wafer stacking technology offers a higher performance in a smaller size with a lower cost option for microelectronic industries. However, it suffers from a compound yield loss which becomes a key challenge and a limiting factor in this technology. A compound yield loss in wafer stacking has been analyzed and yield challenges have been presented. Assuming a random defect density per wafer and no yield fallout from stacking processes, the compound yield of a bonded wafer pair has been estimated with the most commonly used yield model. As a result, it is proposed that a die area reduction for wafer stacking is needed in order to offer a great yield advantage. Both wafer testing and wafer size are also proven to influence significantly a die yield in a bonded wafer pair.     

A Small-Scale Distributed Microprocessor System Using Shared Memory Technique

A simple technique for arranging interprocessor communication through a shared random access memory (RAM) in a small-scale distributed microprocessor system is presented. An arbiter which employs a simple hardware and requires no external clock is proposed. The arbiter consists of a controller and a scanner. The controller receives a shared memory request from a microprocessor and sends a GRANT or WAIT signal back to the microprocessor according to a command from the scanner. The scanner schedules the shared memory accessing for each microprocessor. The technique can be used for interprocessor communication at a rate of less than 87 kbytes/s with 4 Z-80 microprocessors working at a 2-MHz clock signal. The microprocessors in the system need not be identical, but are required to have a WAIT state and a FETCH state indicator. The system can be increased up to 6 microprocessors and is good for a small-to-medium scale real-time control application. A front-end communication system using the proposed system is also presented as an application.     

Focusing characteristics of a wide-striped laser diode integratedwith a microlens

We developed a wide-striped laser diode integrated with a microlens that provides good focusing characteristics through a small focusing spot. We calculated and demonstrated that a 60-μm-wide core and a 1.9-μm-high ridge is the best structure for fundamental index-guiding mode oscillation of a wide-striped laser diode. We integrated a wide-striped laser diode with the developed microlens in the Fresnel diffraction held, and demonstrated that a device with a 60-μm-wide core has a minimum focusing spot width of 2.0 μm in the horizontal direction. Also, we estimated the wavefront in the Fresnel diffraction field from the working distance error of a lens designed for a collimated incident beam, and showed that the working distance error, focusing spot width, and sidelobe can be improved by this estimated wavefront     

Modeling the flow-level performance of hierarchical modulation in?OFDMA-based networks

Hierarchical Modulation (HM) is a means to enhance the spectral efficiency of a system by superposing, in terms of modulation, an additional stream for a given user with good radio conditions on a basic stream of a user with worse radio conditions. This, in turn, increases the throughput of the former user and hence the overall performance of the whole system. We consider, in this work, such a performance at the flow level, for a realistic dynamic setting where users come to the system and leave it after a finite duration corresponding, for instance, to the completion of a file transfer. We specifically model and quantify, both analytically and via simulations, the gain thus achieved and propose two extensions to the basic HM algorithm: a first one in which a user with bad radio conditions is also superposed on one with better radio conditions and a second one in which a user of one type is further superposed on a user of the same type as well.     

Plane wave propagation in a uniaxial bianisotropic medium with an application to a polarization transformer

Uniaxial bianisotropic medium is a generalization of the well-studied bi-isotropic and chiral media. It is obtained, for example, when microscopic helices with parallel axes are positioned in a host dielectric in random locations. Plane wave propagation in such a medium is studied and a simple solution for the dispersion equation and for the eigenwaves are found. As a numerical example, polarization properties of a transverse wave propagating in a uniaxial bianisotropic medium is considered. The results give a simple possibility to construct a polarization transformer with a transversely uniaxial chiral medium for changing the polarization of a propagating plane wave.     

Numerical and experimental analysis of circular-end wire bow-tie antennas over a lossy ground

This paper presents a numerical and experimental analysis of a wire bow-tie antenna situated horizontally near a lossy ground. The antenna is basically an array of identical wire dipoles having a common feed point and equal angular separation between two neighboring wires. This antenna is particularly suitable for ultrawide-band applications as it possesses a wideband property and allows a simple realization of resistive loading. It also provides a possibility to easily vary the antenna flare angle for the purpose of antenna matching or to adjust its footprint. In this work a theoretical model of the antenna is developed and verified experimentally. The wires are modeled as a tape-like structure by triangular patches and the antenna is analyzed using a mixed-potential integral equation formulation. Moreover, time-domain solutions are computed using the Fourier transformation, and a time-window technique is employed to calculate the antenna characteristic impedance. Using the model a comprehensive analysis of the antenna performance is carried out.     

High-speed driving method using bipolar scan waveform in AC plasma display panel

This paper proposes a new high-speed driving method using the bipolar scan waveform with a scan width of 1 /spl mu/s in an ac-plasma display panel. The bipolar scan waveform in an address period consists of a two-step pulse with two different polarities, i.e., a forward scan pulse with a negative polarity and reverse scan pulse with a positive polarity, which can produce two address discharges, including a primary address discharge for generating wall charges and secondary address discharge for accumulating wall charges. To produce the fast address discharge stably using the bipolar scan pulse during an address period, a new reset waveform is designed based on a V/sub t/ close curve analysis, and the address discharge characteristics examined under various reset and address waveforms. As a result of adopting the proposed driving method, a high-speed address with a scan width of 1 /spl mu/s is successfully obtained when using a checkered pattern on a 4-in test panel.