Systematic Width-and-Length Dependent CMOS Transistor Mismatch Characterization and Simulation

This paper presents a methodology for characterizing the random component of transistor mismatch in CMOS technologies. The methodology is based on the design of a special purpose chip which allows automatic characterization of arrays of NMOS and PMOS transistors of different sizes. Up to 30 different transistor sizes were implemented in the same chip, with varying transistors width W and length L. A simple strong inversion large signal transistor model is considered, and a new five parameters MOS mismatch model is introduced. The current mismatch between two identical transistors is characterized by the mismatch in their respective current gain factors /, V _TO threshold voltages , bulk threshold parameters , and two components for the mobility degradation parameter mismatch ₀ and _e. These two components modulate the mismatch contribution differently, depending on whether the transistors are biased in ohmic or in saturation region. Using this five parameter mismatch model, an extraordinary fit between experimental and computed mismatch is obtained, including minimum length (1 m) transistors for both ohmic and saturation regions. Standard deviations for these five parameters are obtained as well as their respective correlation coefficients, and are fitted to two dimensional surfaces f(W, L) so that their values can be predicted as a function of transistor sizes. These functions are used in an electrical circuit simulator (Hspice) to predict transistor mismatch. Measured and simulated data are in excellent agreement.     

Pervasive Home Environments

For decades, technologists have been promising the intelligent house. The vision is usually portrayed as a house filled with technology which will do the dweller's bidding and take all domestic drudgery out of their lives. The truly intelligent house is still some way off, but the emergence of broadband, availability of faster, smaller and ever cheaper computing equipment and a variety of wired and wireless network technologies are enabling technologies that bring this vision closer to reality. These technology trends lead to the concept that computing and other smart devices will become pervasive, fully networked and disappear into the infrastructure of the home. People will carry out their tasks unaware of the complexity of the infrastructure that supports their activities in much the same way as people today use mains electricity.This paper introduces these concepts and discusses the technological challenges to be overcome. We present our vision of the pervasive home environment where inhabitants can focus on tasks rather than the technology: I need to create X and send it to Y rather than I need to use this computer and this application which needs access to service A and resource B. Although this sounds simple, the environment needs to understand who I is, and who or what Y is. Appropriate permissions must be in place and resources allocated, if available. The most appropriate interface for the task and user must be determined.The pervasive, intelligent home will make available new ways to access and share information. It will herald new services, such as care and support of people in the home, entertainment, educational and security services. The final part of the paper discusses the commercial opportunities and challenges which must be met, not least the need for industry to agree on open standards and interfaces.     

Gaussian radial basis functions and inner product spaces

An approximation result is given concerning Gaussian radial basis functions in a general inner product space. Applications are described concerning the classification of the elements of disjoint sets of signals, and also the approximation of continuous real functions defined on all of ⁿ using radial basis function (RBF) networks. More specifically, it is shown that an important large class of classification problems involving signals can be solved using a structure consisting of only a generalized RBF network followed by a quantizer. It is also shown that Gaussian radial basis functions defined on ⁿ can uniformly approximate arbitrarily well over all of ⁿ any continuous real functionalf on ⁿ that meets the condition that |f(x)|0 as x.     

BT Middleware — software as infrastructure

BT Middleware has been in production use since 1987. Every working day a user population of 60 000 people execute 25 million transactions on systems that generate in excess of 70% of BTs revenues. BT Middleware is installed on 32 production mainframe instances.BT Middleware provides both a development and run-time environment for applications that is controlled and manageable. Application standards can be enforced providing reuse of common code as well as common look and feel user interfaces. The use of BT Middleware has allowed the rapid implementation of leading edge solutions to pressing business requirements and Middleware is evolving to allow BTs operational support systems (OSS) to participate seamlessly in complex distributed architectures.The future for BTs OSS lies in their ability to integrate with new applications developed on open systems platforms. BT Middleware has been evolving to provide the required interconnection capabilities and now supports numerous batch and on-line interfaces via strategic infrastructure products. This paper describes the major Middleware infrastructure components developed and supported by BTs London Software Engineering Centre that allow the companys huge investment in OSS to be exploited in todays environment.     

The discrete Einstein relation

In this paper the connection between massM, resistance and commute time for random walks on graphs is further explored, and the relation=2M · is proved. An extension of the result is made to multigraphs, which are an extension of the graph concept where a black box is treated like an edge.     

The prime and generalized nullspaces of right regular pencils

The classical notion of the -generalized nullspace, defined on a matrixA R ^n×n,where is an eigenvalue, is extended to the case of ordered pairs of matrices(F, G), F, G R ^m×nwhere the associated pencilsF – G is right regular. It is shown that for every C {} generalized eigenvalue of (F, G), an ascending nested sequence of spaces {P ⁱ ,i=1, 2,...} and a descending nested sequence of spaces {ie495-02 i=1, 2,...} are defined from the -Toeplitz matrices of (F, G); the first sequence has a maximal elementM ^* , the -generalized nullspace of (F, G), which is the element of the sequence corresponding to the index , the -index of annihilation of (F, G), whereas the second sequence has the first elementP ^* as its maximal element, the -prime space of (F, G). The geometric properties of the {M ⁱ ,i=1, 2,..., and {P ⁱ ,i=1, 2,...sets, as well as their interrelations are investigated and are shown to be intimately related to the existence of nested basis matrices of the nullspaces of the -Toeplitz matrices of (F, G). These nested basis matrices characterize completely the geometry ofM ^* and provide a systematic procedure for the selection of maximal length linearly independent vector chains characterizing the-Segre characteristic of (F, G).     

Symmetry relations in multidimensional Fourier transform pairs

A relation between the types of symmetries that exist in signal and Fourier transform domain representations is derived for continuous as well as discrete domain signals. The symmetry is expressed by a set of parameters, and the relations derived in this paper will help to find the parameters of a symmetry in the signal or transform domain resulting from a given symmetry in the transform or signal domain respectively. A duality among the relations governing the conversion of the parameters of symmetry in the two domains is also brought to light. The application of the relations is illustrated by a number of two-dimensional examples.Notation R the set of real numbers - R ^m R × R × ... × R m-dimensional real vector space - continuous domain real vector - L {¦ – _i , i = 1,2,..., m} - m-dimensional frequency vector - W { – _i ,i=1,2,..., m} - m-dimensional normalized frequency vector - _P {¦ – _i , i=1,2,...,m} - g(ol) g (₁,₂,..., _m ) continuous domain signal - () ( _{1 2},..., _m )=G (j ₁,j ₂,..., j _m ) Fourier transform ofg (ol) - (A,b,,,) parameters ofT- symmetry - N the set of integers - N ^m N × N × ... × N m-dimensional integer vector spacem-dimensional lattice - h(n) h (n ₁,.,n _m ) discrete domain signal - H() Fourier transform ofh (n) - v ₁,v ₂,..., v_m m sample-direction and interval vectors - V (v ₁ v ₂ ...v _m ) sampling basis matrix - [x]^* complex conjugate ofx - detA determinant ofA - X {x¦ – x _i , i=1,2,..., m} - A ^–t [A ^–1] ^t ,t stands for transpose This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada under Grant A-7739 to M. N. S. Swamy and in part by Tennessee Technological University under its Faculty Research support program to P. K. Rajan.     

Quality Determination for Gate Delay Fault Tests Considering Three-State Elements

Most industrial digital circuits contain three-state elements besides pure logic gates. This paper presents a gate delay fault simulator for combinational circuits that can handle three-state elements like bus drivers, transmission gates and pulled busses. The well known delay faults--slow-to-rise and slow-to-fall--are considered as well as delayed transitions from isolating signal state high impedance to binary states 0 and 1 and vice versa. The presented parallel delay fault simulator distinguishes between non-robust, robust and hazard free tests and determines the quality of a test. Experimental results for ISCAS85/89 benchmark circuits are presented as well as results for industrial circuits containing three-state elements.     

Input-output systems whose transmission operators furnish nearly best approximations to a given map

Let {S(A):A A}, whereA is a subset of an infinite-dimensional normed linear spaceL, be a class of general nonlinear input-output systems that are governed by operator equations relating the input, state, and output, all of which are in extended spaces. IfQ is a given operator from a specified set ¯D _i, of inputs into the space of outputs ¯H ₀, the problem we consider is to find, for a given >0, a parameterA A such that the transmission operatorR(A ) ofS(A ) furnishes a nearly best (or -best) approximation toQ from allR(A),A A. Here the distance betweenQ andR(A) is defined as the supremum of distances betweenQz andR(A)z taken over allz ¯D _i. In Theorems 2 through 5 we show that ifS(A) is normal (Definition 2),A satisfies some mild requirement andL contains a fundamental sequence, then establishingA A reduces to minimizing a certain continuous functional on a compact subset ofR ⁿ, and thus can be carried out by conventional methods. The applications of results are illustrated by the example of a model-matching problem for a nonlinear system, and of optimal tracking.     

On the distribution of characteristics in bijective mappings

Differential cryptanalysis is a method of attacking iterated mappings based on differences known as characteristics. The probability of a given characteristic is derived from the XOR tables associated with the iterated mapping. If is a mapping : Z ₂ ^m , then for each , X, Y Z ₂ ^m the XOR table for gives the number of input pairs of difference X=X+X for which gp(X)+(X)=Y.The complexity of a differential attack depends upon two properties of the XOR tables: the density of zero entries in the table, and the size of the largest entry in the table. In this paper we present the first results on the expected values of these properties for a general class of mappings . We prove that if : Z ₂ ^m Z ₂ ^m is a bijective mapping, then the expected size of the largest entry in the XOR table for is bounded by 2m, while the fraction of the XOR table that is zero approaches e ^–1/2=0.60653. We are then able to demonstrate that there are easily constructed classes of iterated mappings for which the probability of a differential-like attack succeeding is very small.The author is presently employed by the Distributed System Technology Center, Brisbane, Australia.     

Editorial

Future integrated microsystems will benefit significantlyfrom progress in the VLSI field. Two key elements will boostthe implementation of new micro-integrated architectures: progressin batch-manufactured silicon sensors and the introduction ofnew circuit techniques for designing interface circuits. Thesetwo factors will be essential in favoring the transition fromthe present research driven speculations to customer drivenactivities. This paper discusses the key issues in realizingmicrosensors and the most suitable circuit techniques for interfacingand processing their output signals. A number of examples ofintegrated structures will illustrate present problems and possiblesolutions.     

A VLSI decoder for a new type of constellations adapted to the Rayleigh Fading Channel

Diversity is the key solution to obtain efficient channel coding in wireless communications, where the signal is subject to fading (Rayleigh Fading Channel). For high spectral efficiency, the best solutions used nowadays are based on QAM constellations of 1-order diversity, associated with a binary code or a trellis coded modulation to increase the overall diversity. It has been shown that a new class of d-dimensional non-QAM constellations, named -constellations, can bring a d-order diversity without the addition of redundancy. Combined with classical coding techniques, -constellations are very efficient. However, the decoding algorithm is far more complicated for -constellations than for QAM-constellations. A sub-optimal algorithm that allows the decoding of -constellations is proposed. An example of an application for a 4 bits/Hz/s spectral efficiency with a 4-D -constellation is given. The VLSI architecture of the decoder is described. The implementation leads to 72 K gates, a binary rate of 32 Mbits/s and a BER of 10^-3 for a SNR of 14 dB.     

Some properties of order-Statistics filters

LetX ₁,X ₂,... be a stationary sequence of random variables with Pr{X _t, x}=F(x),t=1, 2,... Also let _i ^n,(t) ,i=1,...,n, denote the ith order statistic (OS) in the moving sample (X _t–N ,...,X _t,...,X _t+N) of odd sizen=2N+1. ThenY _t=a _i X _i ^n(t) with a _i=1 is an order-statistics filter. In practicea _i0,i=1,...,n. Fort>N, the sequence {Y _t} is also stationary. IfX ₁ X ₂, ... are independent, the autocorrelation function (r)=corr(Y _t,Y _t+r) is zero forr >n – 1 and forr n – 1 can be evaluated directly in terms of the means, variances, and covariances of the OS in random samples of sizen +r fromF(x).In special cases several authors have observed that the spectral density functionf() of {Y _t} is initially decreasing for > 0. This result is made more precise and shown to hold generally under white noise. The effect of outliers (impulses) is also discussed.This research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office.     

1 V All-MOS ΣΔ A/D Converters in the Log-domain

This paper presents novel low-voltage all-MOS analog circuit techniques for the synthesis of oversampling A/D converters. The new approach exploits the possibilities of Log-domain processing by using the MOSFET in subthreshold operation. Based on this strategy, a complete set of very low-voltage (down to 1 V) low-power (below 100 W) all-MOS basic building blocks is proposed. The resulting analog circuit techniques allow the integration of A/D converters for low-frequency (below 100 KHz) applications in digital CMOS technologies. Examples are given for a standard 0.35 m VLSI process.     

Distance of a complex coefficient stable polynomial from the boundary of the stability set

In this paper, the distance in the 1 2p norm from a complex coefficient polynomial to the border of its Hurwitz region is analyzed. Simplified expressions for 2p=1, 2, are also obtained.This work was supported in part by Comisión Investigaciones Cientificas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (CIC) and Comisión Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Técnicas (CONICET).     

Higher-order terms in asymptotic expansion for information loss in quantized random processes

Uniform quantization of random vectors onto -grids ⁿ is considered. Higherorder terms in asymptotic expansions for the entropy of the -quantized random vector and for the loss of the mutual information between two random vectors under such quantization as 0+are obtained. The coefficients in these asymptotics are explicitly calculated for Gaussian distributed vectors. Taken for initial segments of stationary Gaussian sequences, these factors have limit average values per unit of time. For such sequences governed by state-space equations, computation of these average values is reduced to solutions of algebraic matrix Riccati and Lyapunov equations.Work supported by the Australian Research Council grant A 4970 2246.     

On the structure of the privacy hierarchy

An N argument function f(x ₁,...,x _N ) is called t-private if a protocol for computing f exists so that no coalition of at most t parties can infer any additional information from the execution, other than the value of the function. The motivation of this work is to understand what levels of privacy are attainable. So far, only two levels of privacy are known for N argument functions which are defined over finite domains: functions that are N-private and functions that are (N – 1)/2-private but not N/2-private.In this work we show that the privacy hierarchy for N-argument functions which are defined over finite domains, has exactly (N + 1)/2 levels. We prove this by constructing, for any N/2 t N – 2, an N-argument function which is t-private but not (t + 1)-private.This research was supported by US-Israel Binational Science Foundation Grant 88-00282.     

Overcoming Test Setup Limitations by Applying Model-Based Testing to High-Precision ADCs

Test setup limitations, such as noise and parasitics, increasingly impede repeatable and accurate linearity measurements in high-volume production testing of high-precision data converters. Model-based testing has been shown to reduce the adverse effects of noise [14].In this work, we present two enhancements of the linear model-based approach: one is a change of the modeling strategy in order to account for measurement errors induced, for example, by parasitics associated with the device contactor, and another is a Design-for-Test feature that significantly improves the models ability to reduce the effect of measurement noise on the accuracy of the test outcome.The authors acknowledge the support by Analog Devices B.V., Limerick, Ireland and Enterprise Ireland under the Strategic Research Grant ST/00/26.Carsten Wegener has been awarded the academic degree of a Diplom-Ingenieur in Electronic Circuits and Systems by the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, in 1997. During a period of two years, 1996 through 1998, he attended the lecture series for the Vordiplom in Mathematics at Humboldt-University at Berlin, Germany.In Spring 1998, he moved permanently to Ireland, where he started to work with the Test Department of Analog Devices B.V. in Limerick. In Autumn of the same year he took up his PhD-studies with Dr M.P. Kennedy in the area of model-based testing of mixed-signal integrated circuits. He has been awarded the PhD degree by the National University of Ireland in December 2003.He has contributed to numerous conferences, publishing works in areas of nonlinear oscillator dynamics and mixed-signal testing. In Ireland, he has taught MATLAB courses to design and test engineers at Analog Devices B.V., and graduate courses on Digital Design-for-Test and Mixed-signal Test and Testability at the Department of Microelectronic Engineering, University College Cork.Michael Peter Kennedy received the B.E. degree in electronics from the National University of Ireland in 1984, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in 1987 and 1991, respectively, for his contributions to the study of neural networks and nonlinear dynamics.He worked as a Design Engineer with Philips Electronics, a Postdoctoral Research Engineer with the Electronics Research Laboratory, UC Berkeley, and as a Professeur Invité with the EPFL, Switzerland. He returned to University College Dublin in 1992 as a College Lecturer in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. He was appointed Professor of Microelectronic Engineering at University College Cork in 2000.He has published 200 articles in the area of nonlinear circuits and systems and has taught courses on nonlinear dynamics and chaos. His research interests are nonlinear circuits and systems for applications in communications and signal processing. Since 1995 he has been active in research into algorithms for mixed-signal testing. Since 1994, he has led international basic and applied research projects on chaotic communications valued at over USD 2M.Dr. Kennedy was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 1998. He received the Third Millenium Medal from the IEEE in 2000, the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Golden Jubilee Medal, and the inaugural Parsons Award for excellence in Engineering Sciences from the Royal Irish Academy in 2001.     

SMART — improving customer service

The quality and consistency of customer service offered by telecommunications providers is now a key differentiator in the residential market-place. BT has introduced the SMART customer handling system to provide competitive advantage through worldclass levels of customer service. A large-scale, three-tier client/server system, SMART exploits the existing functionality, data and security mechanisms of an established mainframe system and adds ease-of-use, reduced error rates and a focus on service and selling. The development and deployment experiences of the SMART programme provide lessons in the delivery of large-scale distributed systems in a business-critical environment. The key issues of security, performance, resilience and operability are discussed and the solutions implemented for SMART are presented.     

Routing with multiple QoS requirements for supporting multimedia applications

Distributed multimedia applications usually require multiple QoS performance guarantees. However, in general, searching such a route in the network, to support multimedia applications, is known to be NPcomplete. In this paper, we propose a new heuristic QoS routing algorithm, called QoSR_DKS, for supporting multimedia applications in highspeed networks. QoSR_DKS is a modification of rulebased Fallback routing and Dijkstra algorithms. It can search a unicast route that would have enough network resources so that multiple QoS requirements (bandwidth, delay, and delay jitter) of the requested flow could be guaranteed. Its worst case computation time complexity is the same as that of the Dijkstra algorithm, i.e., O(V²), where V is the number of nodes in the network. Extensive simulations were done with various network sizes, upto 500 nodes networks, where each node uses Weighted Fair Queueing (WFQ) service discipline. Results show that QoSR_DKS is very efficient. It could always find the QoS satisfying route, whenever there exists one (success rate is optimal), and its average computation time is near to simple shortest path Dijkstra algorithm.