10‐Bit 200‐MS/s Current‐Steering DAC Using Data‐Dependant Current‐Cell Clock‐Gating

This letter proposes a low‐power current‐steering digital‐to‐analog converter (DAC). The proposed DAC reduces the clock power by cutting the clock signal to the current‐source cells in which the data will not be changed. The 10‐bit DAC is implemented using a 0.13‐μm CMOS process with V_DD=1.2 V. Its area is 0.21 mm². It consumes 4.46 mW at a 1‐MHz signal frequency and 200‐MHz sampling rate. The clock power is reduced to 30.9% and 36.2% of a conventional DAC at 1.25‐MHz and 10‐MHz signal frequencies, respectively. The measured spurious free dynamic ranges are 72.8 dB and 56.1 dB at 1‐MHz and 50‐MHz signal frequencies, respectively.     

Peak‐to‐Average Power Ratio Reduction Using N‐tuple Selective Mapping Method for MC‐CDMA

The multi‐carrier transmission signal in Multi‐Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC‐CDMA) has a high peak‐to‐average power ratio (PAPR), which results in nonlinear distortion and deteriorative system performance. An n‐tuple selective mapping method is proposed to reduce the PAPR, in this paper. This method generates 2ⁿ sequences of an original data sequence by adding n‐tuple of n PAPR control bits to it followed by an interleaver and error‐control code (ECC) to reduce its PAPR. The convolutional, Golay, and Hamming codes are used as ECCs in the proposed scheme. The proposed method uses different numbers of the n PAPR control bits to accomplish a noteworthy PAPR reduction and also avoids the need for a side‐information transmission. The simulation results authenticate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

A CMOS 5.4/3.24‐Gbps Dual‐Rate CDR with Enhanced Quarter‐Rate Linear Phase Detector

This paper presents a clock and data recovery circuit that supports dual data rates of 5.4 Gbps and 3.24 Gbps for DisplayPort v1.2 sink device. A quarter‐rate linear phase detector (PD) is used in order to mitigate high speed circuit design effort. The proposed linear PD results in better jitter performance by increasing up and down pulse widths of the PD and removes dead‐zone problem of charge pump circuit. A voltage‐controlled oscillator is designed with a ‘Mode’ switching control for frequency selection. The measured RMS jitter of recovered clock signal is 2.92 ps, and the peak‐to‐peak jitter is 24.89 ps under 231–1 bit‐long pseudo‐random bit sequence at the bitrate of 5.4 Gbps. The chip area is 1.0 mm×1.3 mm, and the power consumption is 117 mW from a 1.8 V supply using 0.18 μm CMOS process.     

A 40 Gb/s Clock and Data Recovery Module with Improved Phase‐Locked Loop Circuits

A 40 Gb/s clock and data recovery (CDR) module for a fiber‐optic receiver with improved phase‐locked loop (PLL) circuits has been successfully implemented. The PLL of the CDR module employs an improved D‐type flip‐flop frequency acquisition circuit, which helps to stabilize the CDR performance, to obtain faster frequency acquisition, and to reduce the time of recovering the lock state in the event of losing the lock state. The measured RMS jitter of the clock signal recovered from 40 Gb/s pseudo‐random binary sequence (2³¹‐1) data by the improved PLL clock recovery module is 210 fs. The CDR module also integrates a 40 Gb/s D‐FF decision circuit, demonstrating that it can produce clean retimed data using the recovered clock.     

Efficient programmable power‐of‐two scaler for the three‐moduli set {2n+p, 2n − 1, 2n+1 − 1}

Scaling is an important operation because of the iterative nature of arithmetic processes in digital signal processors (DSPs). In residue number system (RNS)–based DSPs, scaling represents a performance bottleneck based on the complexity of inter‐modulo operations. To design an efficient RNS scaler for special moduli sets, a body of literature has been dedicated to the study of the well‐known moduli sets {2ⁿ ? 1, 2ⁿ, 2ⁿ + 1} and {2ⁿ, 2ⁿ ? 1, 2ⁿ⁺¹ ? 1}, and their extension in vertical or horizontal forms. In this study, we propose an efficient programmable RNS scaler for the arithmetic‐friendly moduli set {2^n+p, 2ⁿ ? 1, 2ⁿ⁺¹ ? 1}. The proposed algorithm yields high speed and energy‐efficient realization of an RNS programmable scaler based on the effective exploitation of the mixed‐radix representation, parallelism, and a hardware sharing technique. Experimental results obtained for a 130 nm CMOS ASIC technology demonstrate the superiority of the proposed programmable scaler compared to the only available and highly effective hybrid programmable scaler for an identical moduli set. The proposed scaler provides 43.28% less power consumption, 33.27% faster execution, and 28.55% more area saving on average compared to the hybrid programmable scaler.     

A novel low‐complexity transmission power adaptation in MC‐CDMA systems with a‐MRC receiver over Nakagami‐m fading channels

In this paper, we propose a novel low‐complexity transmission power adaptation with good bit error rate (BER) performance for multicarrier code‐division multiple‐access (MC‐CDMA) systems over Nakagami‐m fading channels. We first propose a new receiver called ath‐order‐maximal‐ratio‐combining (a‐MRC) receiver with which the receiver power gain for the nth subcarrier is the ath (a?1) power of the corresponding channel gain. Incorporating the a‐MRC receiver, we then propose a new transmission power adaptation scheme where the transmission power is allocated over all the N subcarriers according to the subchannel gains and the transmitter adapts its power to maintain a constant signal‐to‐interference‐plus‐noise (SINR) at the receiver. The proposed scheme has a significant performance gain over the nonadaptive transmission scheme over both independent and correlated fading channels. Moreover, the proposed scheme keeps good BER performance while it is much simpler than the previous power control/adaptation schemes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Orientation Regulation of Tin‐Based Reduced‐Dimensional Perovskites for Highly Efficient and Stable Photovoltaics

Tin‐based perovskites have exhibited high potential for efficient photovoltaics application due to their outstanding optoelectrical properties. However, the extremely undesired instabilities significantly hinders their development and further commercialization process. A novel tin‐based reduced‐dimensional (quasi‐2D) perovskites is reported here by using 5‐ammoniumvaleric acid (5‐AVA⁺) as the organic spacer. It is demonstrated that by introducing appropriate amount of ammonium chloride (NH₄Cl) as additive, highly vertically oriented tin‐based quasi‐2D perovskite films are obtained, which is proved through the grazing incidence wide‐angle X‐ray scattering characterization. In particular, this approach is confirmed to be a universal method to deliver highly vertically oriented tin‐based quasi‐2D perovskites with various spacers. The highly ordered vertically oriented perovskite films significantly improve the charge collection efficiency between two electrodes. With the optimized NH₄Cl concentration, the solar cells employing quasi‐2D perovskite, AVA₂FA_n?1Sn_nI_3n+1 (<n> = 5), as light absorbers deliver a power conversion efficiency up to 8.71%. The work paves the way for further employing highly vertically oriented tin‐based quasi‐2D perovskite films for highly efficient and stable photovoltaics.     

A Hybrid Audio ΔΣ Modulator with dB‐Linear Gain Control Function

A hybrid ΔΣ modulator for audio applications is presented in this paper. The pulse generator for digital‐to‐analog converter alleviates the requirement of the external clock jitter and calibrates the coefficient variation due to a process shift and temperature changes. The input resistor network in the first integrator offers a gain control function in a dB‐linear fashion. Also, careful chopper stabilization implementation using return‐to‐zero scheme in the first continuous‐time integrator minimizes both the influence of flicker noise and inflow noise due to chopping. The chip is implemented in a 0.13 μm CMOS technology (I/O devices) and occupies an active area of 0.37 mm². The ΔΣ modulator achieves a dynamic range (A‐weighted) of 97.8 dB and a peak signal‐to‐noise‐plus‐distortion ratio of 90.0 dB over an audio bandwidth of 20 kHz with a 4.4 mW power consumption from 3.3 V. Also, the gain of the modulator is controlled from –9.5 dB to 8.5 dB, and the performance of the modulator is maintained up to 5 ns_RMS external clock jitter.     

Self‐Additive Low‐Dimensional Ruddlesden–Popper Perovskite by the Incorporation of Glycine Hydrochloride for High‐Performance and Stable Solar Cells

The recent rise of low‐dimensional Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) perovskites is notable for superior humidity stability, however they suffer from low power conversion efficiency (PCE). Suitable organic spacer cations with special properties display a critical effect on the performance and stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, a new strategy of designing self‐additive low‐dimensional RP perovskites is first proposed by employing a glycine salt (Gly⁺) with outstanding additive effect to improve the photovoltaic performance. Due to the strong interaction between C?O and Pb²⁺, the Gly⁺ can become a nucleation center and be beneficial to uniform and fast growth of the Gly‐based RP perovskites with larger grain sizes, leading to reduced grain boundary and increased carrier transport. As a result, the Gly‐based self‐additive low‐dimensional RP perovskites exhibit remarkable photoelectric properties, yielding the highest PCE of 18.06% for Gly (n = 8) devices and 15.61% for Gly (n = 4) devices with negligible hysteresis. Furthermore, the Gly‐based devices without encapsulation show excellent long‐term stability against humidity, heat, and UV light in comparison to BA‐based low‐dimensional PSCs. This approach provides a feasible design strategy of new‐type low‐dimensional RP perovskites to obtain highly efficient and stable devices for next‐generation photovoltaic applications.     

New explicit current/voltage equation for p‐i‐n solar cells including interface potential drops and drift/diffusion transport

Analytical modeling of p‐i‐n solar cells constitutes a practical tool to extract material and device parameters from fits to experimental data, and to establish optimization criteria. This paper proposes a model for p‐i‐n solar cells based on a new approximation, which estimates the electric field taking into account interface potential drops at the intrinsic‐to‐doped interfaces. This leads to a closed‐form current/voltage equation that shows very good agreement with device simulations, revealing that the inclusion of the interface potential drops constitutes a major correction to the classical uniform‐field approach. Furthermore, the model is able to fit experimental current/voltage curves of efficient nanocrystalline Si and microcrystalline Si p‐i‐n solar cells under illumination and in the dark, obtaining material parameters such as mobility‐lifetime product, built‐in voltage, or surface recombination velocity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enabling Stable Cycling of 4.2 V High‐Voltage All‐Solid‐State Batteries with PEO‐Based Solid Electrolyte

Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO)‐based solid electrolytes are expected to be exploited in solid‐state batteries with high safety. Its narrow electrochemical window, however, limits the potential for high voltage and high energy density applications. Herein the electrochemical oxidation behavior of PEO and the failure mechanisms of LiCoO₂‐PEO solid‐state batteries are studied. It is found that although for pure PEO it starts to oxidize at a voltage of above 3.9 V versus Li/Li⁺, the decomposition products have appropriate Li⁺ conductivity that unexpectedly form a relatively stable cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) layer at the PEO and electrode interface. The performance degradation of the LiCoO₂‐PEO battery originates from the strong oxidizing ability of LiCoO₂ after delithiation at high voltages, which accelerates the decomposition of PEO and drives the self‐oxygen‐release of LiCoO₂, leading to the unceasing growth of CEI and the destruction of the LiCoO₂ surface. When LiCoO₂ is well coated or a stable cathode LiMn_0.7Fe_0.3PO₄ is used, a substantially improved electrochemical performance can be achieved, with 88.6% capacity retention after 50 cycles for Li_1.4Al_0.4Ti_1.6(PO₄)₃ coated LiCoO₂ and 90.3% capacity retention after 100 cycles for LiMn_0.7Fe_0.3PO₄. The results suggest that, when paired with stable cathodes, the PEO‐based solid polymer electrolytes could be compatible with high voltage operation.     

Oxygen‐Deficient Homo‐Interface toward Exciting Boost of Pseudocapacitance

Pseudocapacitors hold great promise as charge storage systems that combine battery‐level energy density and capacitor‐level power density. The utilization of pseudocapacitive material, however, is usually restricted to the surface due to poor electrode kinetics, leading to less accessible charge storage sites and limited capacitance. Here, tin oxide is successfully endowed with outstanding pseudocapacitance and fast electrode kinetics in a negative potential window by engineering oxygen‐deficient homo‐interfaces. The as‐prepared SnO_2?x@SnO_2?x electrode yields a specific capacitance of 376.6 F g^?1 at the current density of 2.5 A g^?1 and retains 327 F g^?1 at a high current density of 80 A g^?1. The theoretical calculation reveals that the oxygen defects are more favorable at homo‐interfaces than at the surface due to the lower defect formation energy. Meanwhile, as compared with the surface, the homo‐interface possesses more stable Li⁺ storage sites that are readily accessed by Li⁺ due to the occurrence of oxygen vacancies, enabling outstanding pseudocapacitance as well as high rate capability. This oxygen‐deficient homo‐interface design opens up new opportunities to develop high‐energy and power pseudocapacitors.     

MolCom system with downlink/uplink biocyber interface for Internet of Bio‐NanoThings

Inspired by wireless communication systems, we propose a feasible downlink/uplink biocyber interface for the expected targeted drug delivery system based on Internet of Biological NanoThing (IoBNT) paradigm. The downlink/uplink biocyber interface of IoBNT comprises Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) and Molecular Communication (MolCom) technology. On the downlink (from Internet to targeted nanonetwork), the biocyber interface transduces electromagnetic (EM) signal to biochemical signals, and thus with the help of mobile MolCom system based on FRET nanocommunication, the drug information delivers to the diseased cell within the targeted intrabody nanonetwork. On the uplink, the MolCom system consists of embedded sensor/actuator nanonetwork to detect the biochemical changes in the targeted cell, and hence biocyber interface transduces the biochemical signal to EM signal. As a result, the paradigm of IoBNT responses by proper functions to these changes according to the decision of medical health care. The performance analysis of the proposed IoBNT system is numerically investigated through MolCom system‐based FRET, while the performance evaluation is evaluated by employing spreading epidemic scheme in terms of successful probability of drug delivery, channel capacity, average drug‐delivery time, and throughput. The simulation results show that the proposed IoBNT is a promising paradigm for smart drug delivery system, and its performance is mainly based on the nanostructure and the characteristic of molecular nanomachines in the targeted nanonetwork.     

Biocompatible Poly(2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate)‐b‐poly(L‐histidine) Hybrid Materials for pH‐Sensitive Intracellular Anticancer Drug Delivery

A series of synthetic polymer bioconjugate hybrid materials consisting of poly(2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (p(HEMA)) and poly(l‐ histidine) (p(His)) are synthesized by combining atom transfer radical polymerization of HEMA with ring opening polymerization of benzyl‐N‐carboxy‐L ‐histidine anhydride. The resulting biocompatible and membranolytic p(HEMA)₂₅‐b‐p(His)_n (n = 15, 25, 35, and 45) polymers are investigated for their use as pH‐sensitive drug‐carrier for tumor targeting. Doxorubicin (Dox) is encapsulated in nanosized micelles fabricated by a self‐assembly process and delivered under different pH conditions. Micelle size is characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations. Dox release is investigated according to pH, demonstrating the release is sensitive to pH. Antitumor activity of the released Dox is assessed using the HCT 116 human colon carcinoma cell line. Dox released from the p(HEMA)‐b‐p(His) micelles remains biologically active and has the dose‐dependent capability to kill cancer cells at acidic pH. The p(HEMA)‐b‐p(His) hybrid materials are capable of self‐assembling into nanomicelles and effectively encapsulating the chemotherapeutic agent Dox, which allows them to serve as suitable carriers of drug molecules for tumor targeting.     

Adaptive Channel‐Matched Extended Alamouti Space‐Time Code Exploiting Partial Feedback

Since the publication of Alamouti's famous space‐time block code, various quasi‐orthogonal space‐time block codes (QSTBC) for multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) fading channels for more than two transmit antennas have been proposed. It has been shown that these codes cannot achieve full diversity at full rate. In this paper, we present a simple feedback scheme for rich scattering (flat Rayleigh fading) MIMO channels that improves the coding gain and diversity of a QSTBC for 2ⁿ (n = 3, 4,…) transmit antennas. The relevant channel state information is sent back from the receiver to the transmitter quantized to one or two bits per code block. In this way, signal transmission with an improved coding gain and diversity near to the maximum diversity order is achieved. Such high diversity can be exploited with either a maximum‐likelihood receiver or low‐complexity zero‐forcing receiver.     

Power allocation scheme based on sum capacity maximization for signal‐to‐leakage‐and‐noise ratio precoded multiuser multiple‐input single‐output downlink

This paper proposes a power allocation scheme to maximize the sum capacity of all users for signal‐to‐leakage‐and‐noise ratio (SLNR) precoded multiuser multiple‐input single‐output downlink. The designed scheme tries to explore the effect of the power allocation for the SLNR precoded multiuser multiple‐input single‐output system on sum capacity performance. This power allocation problem can be formulated as an optimization problem. With high signal‐to‐interference‐plus‐noise ratio assumption, it can be converted into a convex optimization problem through the geometric programming and hence can be solved efficiently. Because the assumption of high signal‐to‐interference‐plus‐noise ratio cannot be always satisfied in practice, we design a globally optimal solution algorithm based on a combination of branch and bound framework and convex relaxation techniques. Theoretically, the proposed scheme can provide optimal power allocation in sum capacity maximization. Then, we further propose a judgement‐decision algorithm to achieve a trade‐off between the optimality and computational complexity. The simulation results also show that, with the proposed scheme, the sum capacity of all the users can be improved compared with three existing power allocation schemes. Meanwhile, some meaningful conclusions about the effect of the further power allocation based on the SLNR precoding have been also acquired. The performance improvement of the maximum sum capacity power allocation scheme relates to the transmit antenna number and embodies different variation trends in allusion to the different equipped transmit antenna number as the signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) changes.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

p‐CuO/n‐Si heterojunction solar cells with high open circuit voltage and photocurrent through interfacial engineering

Heterojunction solar cells of p‐type cupric oxide (CuO) and n‐type silicon (Si), p‐CuO/n‐Si, have been fabricated using conventional sputter and rapid thermal annealing techniques. Photovoltaic properties with an open‐circuit voltage (V_oc) of 380 mV, short circuit current (J_sc) of 1.2 mA/cm², and a photocurrent of 2.9 mA/cm² were observed for the solar cell annealed at 300 °C for 1 min. When the annealing duration was increased, the photocurrent increased, but the V_oc was found to reduce because of the degradation of interface quality. An improvement in the V_oc resulting to a record value of 509 mV and J_sc of 4 mA/cm² with a high photocurrent of ~12 mA/cm² was achieved through interface engineering and controlling the phase transformation of CuO film. X‐ray diffraction, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis have been used to investigate the interface properties and crystal quality of sputter‐deposited CuO thin film. The improvement in V_oc is mainly due to the enhancement of crystal quality of CuO thin film and interface properties between p‐CuO and n‐Si substrate. The enhancement of photocurrent is found to be due to the reduction of carrier recombination rate as revealed by transient photovoltage spectroscopy analysis. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A low‐complexity MSK‐based M‐ary cyclic‐shift keying transceiver for direct sequence spread spectrum system over multipath fading channels

In this paper, a low‐complexity spread spectrum system with M‐ary cyclic‐shift keying (MCSK) symbol spreading is proposed. In addition, by using the minimum‐shift‐keying (MSK) as the chip‐level modulation, we obtain a high‐rate QPSK‐MCSK transceiver scheme which not only provides a constant‐envelop and continuous‐phase transmitted signal, but can also achieve a better performance than the conventional direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) system. At the transmitter, the data stream is first mapped into QPSK‐MCSK symbols in terms of orthogonal Gold code sequences, then followed by the cyclic prefix (CP) insertion for combating the interblock interference, and finally applying the MSK scheme to maintain the constant‐envelope property. The receiver first performs MSK demodulation, then CP removal, and finally the channel‐included MCSK despreading and symbol demapping. Furthermore, the single input single output (SISO) QPSK‐MCSK transceiver can be easily extended to the multiple input single output (MISO) case by incorporating the space–time block coding for high‐link quality. Simulation results show that the proposed SISO and MISO QPSK‐MCSK systems significantly outperform the conventional DSSS counterparts under the AWGN channel, and attain a more robust performance under the multipath fading channel. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance analysis of hybrid transmit antenna selection/maximal‐ratio transmission in Nakagami‐m fading channels

Hybrid diversity systems have been of great importance because they provide better diversity orders and robustness to the fading effects of wireless communication systems. This paper focuses on the performance analysis of multiple‐input gle‐output systems that employ combined transmit antenna selection (TAS)/maximal‐ratio transmission (MRT) techniques (i.e., hybrid TAS/MRT). The probability density function, the moment generating function and the n ^th order moments of the output signal‐to‐noise ratio of the investigated diversity scheme are derived for independent identically distributed flat Nakagami‐m fading channels. The system capacity of the hybrid TAS/MRT scheme is examined from the outage probability perspective. Exact bit/symbol error rate (BER/SER) expressions for binary frequency shift keying, M‐ary phase shift keying and square M‐ary quadrature amplitude modulation signals are derived by using the moment generating function‐based analysis method. By deriving the upper bounds for BER/SER expressions, it is also shown that the investigated systems achieve full diversity orders at high signal‐to‐noise ratios. Also, by Monte Carlo simulations, analytical performance results are validated and the effect of feedback delay, channel estimation error and feedback quantization error on BER/SER performances are examined. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Skin‐Like Oxide Thin‐Film Transistors for Transparent Displays

Flexible transparent display is a promising candidate to visually communicate with each other in the future Internet of Things era. The flexible oxide thin‐film transistors (TFTs) have attracted attention as a component for transparent display by its high performance and high transparency. The critical issue of flexible oxide TFTs for practical display applications, however, is the realization on transparent and flexible substrate without any damage and characteristic degradation. Here, the ultrathin, flexible, and transparent oxide TFTs for skin‐like displays are demonstrated on an ultrathin flexible substrate using an inorganic‐based laser liftoff process. In this way, skin‐like ultrathin oxide TFTs are conformally attached onto various fabrics and human skin surface without any structural damage. Ultrathin flexible transparent oxide TFTs show high optical transparency of 83% and mobility of 40 cm² V^?1 s^?1. The skin‐like oxide TFTs show reliable performance under the electrical/optical stress tests and mechanical bending tests due to advanced device materials and systematic mechanical designs. Moreover, skin‐like oxide logic inverter circuits composed of n‐channel metal oxide semiconductor TFTs on ultrathin, transparent polyethylene terephthalate film have been realized.