Fault Leveling Techniques for Yield and Reliability Enhancement of NAND Flash Memories

Novel fault leveling techniques based on address remapping (AR) are proposed in this paper. We can change the logical-to-physical address mapping of the page buffer such that faulty cells within a flash page can be evenly distributed into different codewords. Therefore, the adopted ECC scheme can correct them effectively. Based on the production test or on-line BIST results, the fault bitmap can be used for executing the heuristic fault leveling analysis (FLA) algorithm and evaluating control words used to steer fault leveling. A new page buffer architecture suitable for address remapping is also proposed. According to experimental results, repair rate, yield, and reliability can be improved significantly with negligible hardware overhead.     

Influence of overhead on LTE downlink performance: a comprehensive model

Overhead resource elements (REs) in Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks are used for some control, signaling and synchronization tasks at both the Physical level and Media Access Control sub-level. Accurately computing all the overhead REs is necessary to achieve an efficient system design, which is difficult because LTE is a complex standard that contains a large number of implementation flexibilities and system configurations. The number of such REs depends on both the system configurations and services demanded. Aiming at exploring the influence of overhead on LTE downlink performance, we first parametrize each system configuration—including parameters corresponding to enhancement techniques such as Adaptive Modulation and Coding and Multi-Antenna Transmissions techniques—and those of the resource allocation mechanisms (which depend on users’ services). Second, using such parametrization, we model all overheads for synchronization, controlling and signaling operations in LTE Physical Downlink Shared/Control Channels. This allows for dynamically computing the useful REs (by subtracting the overhead REs from the total ones), both per Transmission Time Interval (TTI) and per frame (and hence, the corresponding bit rates). Our data rate-based performance model is able to accurately compute: (1) the real, exact system data rate or “throughput” (instead of approximations); and (2) the maximum number of simultaneous multi-service users per TTI that is able to support (called here “capacity”). Aiming at understanding the impact of each overhead mechanism, we have carried out a variety of simulations, including different service provision scenarios, such as multi-user with multi-application. The simulation results prove our starting hypothesis that the influence of overhead on LTE performance should not be neglected. The parametrized and dynamic model quantifies to what extent throughput and capacity are modified by overhead—under a combination of system configurations and services, and may provide these performance metrics, throughput and capacity, as inputs to planning, dimensioning and optimization specialized tools.     

A Fast Built-in Redundancy Analysis for Memories With Optimal Repair Rate Using a Line-Based Search Tree

With the growth of memory capacity and density, test cost and yield improvement are becoming more important. In the case of embedded memories for systems-on-a-chip (SOC), built-in redundancy analysis (BIRA) is widely used as a solution to solve quality and yield issues by replacing faulty cells with extra good cells. However, previous BIRA approaches focused mainly on embedded memories rather than commodity memories. Many BIRA approaches require extra hardware overhead to achieve the optimal repair rate, which means that 100% of solution detection is guaranteed for intrinsically repairable dies, or they suffer a loss of repair rate to minimize the hardware overhead. In order to achieve both low area overhead and optimal repair rate, a novel BIRA approach is proposed and it builds a line-based searching tree. The proposed BIRA minimizes the storage capacity requirements to store faulty address information by dropping all unnecessary faulty addresses for inherently repairable die. The proposed BIRA analyzes redundancies quickly and efficiently with optimal repair rate by using a selected fail count comparison algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed BIRA achieves optimal repair rate, fast analysis speed, and nearly optimal repair solutions with a relatively small area overhead.      

Efficient Techniques for Fault Detection and Correction of Reversible Circuits

It is very important to detect and correct faults for ensuring the validity and reliability of reversible circuits. Test vectors play an important role to detect as well as correct the faults in the circuits. The optimum number of test vector implies the more capabilities for detecting several types of faults in the circuits. In this paper, we have proposed an algorithm for generating optimum test vectors. We have shown that the proposed algorithm generates optimum test vectors with the least complexity of time as compared to existing methods, i.e., we have proved that the proposed algorithm requires O(log ₂ N) time, whereas the best known existing method requires O(N. log ₂ N) time, where N is the number of inputs. We have also proposed another algorithm for detecting faults using the generated test vectors. This proposed method can detect more faults than existing ones. We have proved that the proposed fault detection algorithm requires least time complexity as compared to the best known existing methods, i.e., the proposed algorithm requires O(d. 1/N) time, whereas the best known existing methods require O(d. N) time, where N is the number of inputs and d is the number of gates in a reversible circuit. Finally, we have proposed another algorithm for correcting the detected faults. We have also proved that the proposed methods require the least time complexity as compared to the best known existing methods. In addition, the experimental results using benchmark circuits show the efficiency of the proposed methods.     

Census: fast,scalable and robust data aggregation in MANETs

This paper describes Census, a protocol for data aggregation and statistical counting in MANETs. Census operates by circulating a set of tokens in the network using biased random walks such that each node is visited by at least one token. The protocol is structure-free so as to avoid high messaging overhead for maintaining structure in the presence of node mobility. It biases the random walks of tokens so as to achieve fast cover time; the bias involves short albeit multi-hop gradients that guide the tokens towards hitherto unvisited nodes. Census thus achieves a cover time of O(N) and message overhead of \(O(N\,log(N))\) where N is the number of nodes. Notably, it enjoys scalability and robustness, which we demonstrate via simulations in networks ranging from 100 to 4000 nodes under different network densities and mobility models. We also observe a speedup by a factor of k when k different tokens are used (\(1 \le k \le \sqrt{N}\)).     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">U</Emphasis> peak in the DLTS spectra of <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-GaAs irradiated with fast neutrons and 65-MeV protons

The origin of a broad U band in spectra obtained using deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) of n-GaAs irradiated with fast neutrons and 65-MeV protons was investigated. It is believed that this band is presumably a superposition of two peaks related to two defects P2 and P3 which have been well documented in GaAs and reside within defect clusters. The DLTS spectra were calculated taking into account the nonuniform distribution of these defects in a sample and the built-in electric fields induced by corresponding inhomogeneities.     

Efficient Multicast Association to Improve the Throughput in IEEE 802.11 WLAN

This paper deals with the problem of optimal association of stations (S T A s) to access points (A P s) for mulicast services in IEEE 802.11 WLAN. In a multicast session, all the subscribed S T A s receive the multicast data packet at the same data rate (R _{m i n} ) from their respective serving A P s. A higher value of R _{m i n} improves the multicast throughput by completing the ongoing multicast session in lesser time. This also improves the unicast throughput as the cycle duration is shared by the unicast and multicast sessions. To provide multicast services to the S T A s, we need to select a minimum cardinality subset of A P s as the system message overhead depends on this cardinality. However, such a minimum cardinality subset of A P s may not be possible to activate simultaneously due to the limited number of available orthogonal frequency channels. In this paper, we develop a combined greedy algorithm that selects a subset of A P s with minimum cardinality for which a conflict-free frequency assignment exists and finds an association between the S T A s and the selected A P s that maximizes the R _{m i n} value. Through simulation we have shown that the proposed algorithm selects significantly less number of A P s for different R _{m i n} values in comparison to the well-known metrics for multicast association like RSSI, minimum hop-distance, normalized-cost and in-range STA number.     

Large-magnitude spin polarization of electrons in an InAs-based diode structure

In studying circular-polarized photoluminescence, a high degree of spin orientation of electrons is observed in the n-type region of an InAs-based diode structure in a magnetic field in the Faraday geometric lay-out of the experiment. The degree of polarization is as high as 90% in the field of 2 T. In contrast, the degree of polarization in conventional InAs layers without a p-n junction is not higher than 20% in fields as high as 4 T. This effect is attributed to the built-in field of the p-n junction: the built-in field prevents localization of non-equilibrium electrons at shallow donor centers and, thus, allows orientation of electron spins due to Zeeman splitting in the conduction band.     

Weighted dominating set based routing for ad hoc communications in emergency and rescue scenarios

Disasters create emergency situations and the services provided must be coordinated quickly via a communication network. Mobile adhoc networks (MANETs) are suited for ubiquitous communication during emergency rescue operations, since they do not rely on infrastructure. The route discovery process of on-demand routing protocols consumes too much bandwidth due to high routing overhead. Frequent route changes also results in frequent route computation process. Energy efficiency, quick response time, and scalability are equally important for routing in emergency MANETs. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient reactive protocol named Weighted-CDSR for routing in such situations. This protocol selects a subset of network nodes named Maximum Weighted Minimum Connected Dominating Set (MWMCDS) based on weight, which consists of link stability, mobility and energy. The MWMCDS provides the overall network control and data forwarding support. In this protocol, for every two nodes u and v in the network there exists a path between u and v such that all intermediate nodes belong to MWMCDS. Incorporating route stability into routing reduces the frequency of route failures and sustains network operations over an extended period of time. With fewer nodes providing overall network control and data forwarding support, the proposed protocol creates less interference and consumes less energy. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol is superior to other protocols in terms of packet delivery ratio, control message overhead, transmission delay and energy consumption.     

Computationally Efficient Motion Estimation Algorithm for HEVC

In this paper, we present a novel computationally efficient motion estimation (ME) algorithm for high-efficiency video coding (HEVC). The proposed algorithm searches in the hexagonal pattern with a fixed number of search points at each grid. It utilizes the correlation between contiguous pixels within the frame. In order to reduce the computational complexity, the proposed algorithm utilizes pixel truncation, adaptive search range, sub-sampling and avoids some of the asymmetrical prediction unit techniques. Simulation results are obtained by using the reference software HM (e n c o d e r_l o w d e l a y_P_m a i n and e n c o d e r_r a n d o m a c c e s s_m a i n profile) and shows 55.49% improvement on search points with approximately the same PSNR and around 1% increment in bit rate as compared to the Test Zonal Search (TZS) ME algorithm. By utilizing the proposed algorithm, the BD-PSNR loss for the video sequences like B a s k e t b a l l P a s s_416 × 240@50 and J o h n n y_1280 × 720@60 is 0.0804 dB and 0.0392 dB respectively as compared to the HM reference software with the e n c o d e r_l o w d e l a y_P_m a i n profile.     

Structural and Electrical Properties of Ag/<Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-Si/Al Heterostructure Fabricated by Pulsed Laser Deposition Technique

We have investigated the structural and electrical characteristics of the Ag/n-TiO₂/p-Si/Al heterostructure. Thin films of pure TiO₂ were deposited on p-type silicon (100) by optimized pulsed laser ablation with a KrF-excimer laser in an oxygen-controlled environment. X-ray diffraction analysis showed the formation of crystalline TiO₂ film having a tetragonal texture with a strong (210) plane as the preferred direction. High purity aluminium and silver metals were deposited to obtain ohmic contacts on p-Si and n-TiO₂, respectively. The current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of the fabricated heterostructure were studied by using thermionic emission diffusion mechanism over the temperature range of 80–300 K. Parameters such as barrier height and ideality factor were derived from the measured I–V data of the heterostructure. The detailed analysis of I–V measurements revealed good rectifying behavior in the inhomogeneous Ag/n-TiO₂/p-Si(100)/Al heterostructure. The variations of barrier height and ideality factor with temperature and the non-linearity of the activation energy plot confirmed that barrier heights at the interface follow Gaussian distributions. The value of Richardson’s constant was found to be 6.73 × 10⁵ Am^?2 K^?2, which is of the order of the theoretical value 3.2 × 10⁵ Am^?2 K^?2. The capacitance–voltage (C–V) measurements of the heterostructure were investigated as a function of temperature. The frequency dependence (Mott–Schottky plot) of the C–V characteristics was also studied. These measurements indicate the occurrence of a built-in barrier and impurity concentration in TiO₂ film. The optical studies were also performed using a UV–Vis spectrophotometer. The optical band gap energy of TiO₂ films was found to be 3.60 eV.     

HHT-Based Security Enhancement Approach with Low Overhead for Coding-Based Reprogramming Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

Coding-based reprogramming protocols can effectively and remotely disseminate a new code image to all sensor nodes via wireless channels in wireless sensor networks. However, security service is crucial to these protocols when sensor nodes are deployed in adversarial environments. Existing security schemes can resist Pollution Attack, but the overheads are excessive. In this paper, a security enhancement approach with low overhead based on Hierarchical Hash Tree is proposed to enhance the security of the protocols. Our scheme is composed of two layers of Merkle Tree based on the ideas of hierarchy and aggregation. Then, the security of proposed approach is proven and the overheads of that are analyzed. Furthermore, our scheme is used to implement page authentication of Sreluge protocol, which is a representative reprogramming protocol based on random linear codes. Experimental results show that our scheme can cut authentication overhead by at least 43 % that of Merkle Tree and other overheads have been reduced markedly with the size of code image growing.     

Surface roughness and magnetic properties of Co/SiO<Subscript>2</Subscript>/Si(100) polycrystalline films deposited via DC magnetron sputtering

For polycrystalline films of cobalt that have the thickness t ≈ 1.3–133 nm and that are deposited via DC magnetron sputtering on SiO₂(0.1 μm)/Si(100) substrates, surface-roughness root-mean-square amplitude σ and surface correlation length ξ, which characterize the roughness of film surfaces, as well as saturation magnetization 4πM ₀, width of ferromagnetic-resonance line ΔH, coercitivity H _C, and saturation fields H _S, are studied as functions of film thickness t. It is shown that the behavior of dependences H _C(t) and H _S(t) coincides with the behavior of dependence σ(t)/t, whereas the behavior of 4πM ₀(t) depends on ratio t/σ(t). The dependence of the FMR line width on the film thickness, ΔH(t), is characterized by a minimum of ΔH ≈ 60 Oe present in the region of thicknesses of 30 to 60 nm. The behavior of dependence ΔH(t) is determined by ratio σ(t)/t at small thicknesses t ≤ 5 nm and by the behavior of σ(t) at t ≥ 5 nm.     

Special features of the Fourier spectra of magnetoresistance oscillations in a heavily doped heterostructure

The Fourier spectra of oscillations of magnetoresistance in the heavily doped Al _x Ga_{1 ? x} As:Si/GaAs heterostructure, with filling of the two size-quantization subbands, the ground subband E _m and the excited subband E _p , are studied. In the concept of the probabilities of intrasubband and intersubband transitions involving the Landau levels, the origin of harmonics at the frequencies F _m ± F _p in the oscillations of magnetoresistance are interpreted. The ratio between the peak amplitudes A _m and A _p at the frequencies F _m and F _p of the harmonics is close to unity, with equal probabilities of the relations A _m /A _p > 1 and A _m /A _p < 1. At A _m /A _p > 1, the damping of the Landau quantization is controlled by the Coulomb potential, whereas at A _m /A _p < 1 it is controlled by relaxation of two-dimensional electrons due to the heterointerfacial roughness.     

Electron transport in unipolar heterostructure transistors with quantum dots in strong electric fields

A model for the explaining specific features of the electron transport in strong electric fields in the quantum-dot unipolar heterostructure transistor (AlGaAs/GaAs/InAs/GaAs/InAs) is presented. It is shown that the two-step shape of the output current-voltage characteristic I _D (V _D ) and the anomalous dependence of the drain current I _D on the gate voltage V _G are caused by the ionization of quantum dots in the strong electric field at the drain gate edge. The ionization of quantum dots sets in at the drain voltage V _D that exceeds the V_D1 value, at which the I _D (V _D ) dependence is saturated (the first step of the I-V characteristic). With the subsequent increase in V _D , i.e., for V _D >V_D1, the I _D (V _D ) dependence has a second abrupt rise due to the ionization of quantum dots, and then, for V _D =V_D2>V_D1, the current I _D is saturated for the second time (the second step in the current-voltage characteristic). It is suggested to use this phenomenon for the determining the population of quantum dots with electrons. The model presented also describes the twice-repeated variation in the sign of transconductance g _m =dI _D /dV _G as a function of V _G .     

Integer quantum Hall effect and correlated disorder

The effect of the form of the random potential of impurities and defects on the longitudinal σ _xx and Hall σ _xy components of conductivity in the mode of the integer quantum Hall effect is theoretically investigated. It is shown that the width of the Hall conductivity plateau as well as the peak values of the longitudinal conductivity heavily depend on the ratio λ/a _H between the random potential correlation length and the magnetic length. For the first time, it is established that in the case of the short-wavelength potential λ ? a _H, the peak values of σ _xx ^(N) are directly proportional to the Landau level number N ≥ 1, σ _xx = 0.5Ne ²/h, whereas the peak values of σ _xx ^(N) are independent of the Landau level number in the case of the long-wavelength potential λ ? a _H, and their magnitude is much lower than 0.5e ²/h. The obtained results are in good agreement with the available experimental data.     

On Measurements of the Electrons and Holes Impact-Ionization Coefficients in 4<Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis>–SiC

All published results of measurements (at 300 K) of the impact ionization coefficients for electrons α_n and holes α_p in 4H–SiC are analyzed. It is shown that the most plausible approximations of dependences of α_{n, p} on electric-field strength E have the usual form α_{n, p} = a_{n, p} exp(–E_{n, p}/E) at fitting-parameter values of a_n = 38.6 × 106 cm^–1, E_n = 25.6 MV/cm, a_p = 5.31 × 106 cm^–1, and E_p = 13.1 MV/cm. These dependences α_{n, p}(E) are used to calculate the highest field strength E_b and thickness w_b of the space-charge region at the breakdown voltage U_b. A number of new formulas for calculating α_{n, p}(E) are obtained from the results of measuring the avalanche-multiplication coefficients and the excess-noise factors under the single-sided illumination of photodiodes with stepped doping.     

A HW/SW Cross-Layer Approach for Determining Application-Redundant Hardware Faults in Embedded Systems

Hardware devices of recent technology nodes are intrinsically more susceptible to faults than previous devices. This demands further improvements of error detection methods. However, any attempt to cover all errors for all theoretically possible scenarios that a system might be used in can easily lead to excessive costs. Instead, an application-dependent approach should be taken, i.e., strategies for test and error resilience must target only those errors that can actually have an effect in the situations in which the hardware is being used. In this paper, we propose a method to inject faults into hardware (HW) and to formally analyze their effects on the software (SW) behavior. We describe how this analysis can be implemented based on a recently proposed HW-dependent software model called program netlist (PN). We show how program netlists can be extended to formally model the behavior of a program in the event of one or more hardware faults. Then, it is demonstrated how the results of the PN-based analysis can be exploited by a standard ATPG tool to determine hardware faults at the gate level that are “application-redundant”. Our experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed approach.     

Improvement in the accuracy of determining impurity compensation in pure weakly compensated germanium from breakdown-field strength

It is shown that measurement of the electric-breakdown field E _br in a classically high magnetic field (H) at T = 4.2 K makes it possible to determine the value of the degree of compensation K in pure germanium with K < 50% much more precisely than at H = 0. The parameter S = E _br/H is introduced and its dependence S = f(K) is calculated; the obtained curve makes it possible to determine K if H and E _br are known. To decrease the resistance of the samples, it is recommended that measurements be carried out under “impurity” illumination. It is shown that the value of E _br is invariable at low intensities of such excitation.     

How to Achieve Perfect Simulation and a Complete Problem for Non-interactive Perfect Zero-Knowledge

This paper studies perfect zero-knowledge proofs. Such proofs do not allow any simulation errors, and therefore techniques from the study of statistical zero-knowledge (where a small error is allowed) do not apply to them. We introduce a new error shifting technique for building perfect simulators. Using this technique we give the first complete problem for the class of problems admitting non-interactive perfect zero-knowledge (NIPZK) proofs, a hard problem for the class of problems admitting public-coin PZK proofs, and other applications.