The self-formatting barrier characteristics of Cu–Mg/SiO2 and Cu–Ru/SiO2 films for Cu interconnects

To substitute or to supplement diffusion barrier as reducing lateral dimension of interconnects, the alloying Mg and Ru to Cu was investigated as a self-formatting barrier in terms of their resistivity, adhesion, and barrier characteristics After annealing at 400 °C for 30 min, the resistivities of the Cu–0.7 at%Mg alloy and Cu–2.2 at%Ru alloy were 2.0 μΩ cm and 2.5 μΩ cm, respectively, which are comparable to that of Cu films. The adhesion was investigated by means of a sandwiched structure using the four point bending test. The interfacial debonding energy, which represents the adhesion, of Cu–Mg/SiO₂ was over 5.0 J/m², while those of the Cu–Ru/SiO₂ and Cu/SiO₂ interfaces were 2.2 J/m² and 2.4 J/m², respectively. The barrier characteristics of the alloy films were also investigated by the time-dependent dielectric breakdown test, using a metal–oxide–semiconductor structure, under bias-temperature stress. It was shown that the alloying of Mg made the lifetime seven times longer, as opposed to the alloying of Ru which made it shorter.     

A BiCMOS continuous-time filter for video signal processingapplications

A fully integrated BiCMOS continuous-time filter for video signal processing applications is presented. It incorporates an input clamping circuit, a third-order equalizer, a fifth-order elliptic filter with sinx/x correction, and a 75-Ω driver. The architectures of the input and output amplifiers as well as the filter and the equalizer are chosen based on the extensive study of circuit structures and Monte Carlo simulation to meet the linearity requirement for the broadcast-quality video system. The complete chip achieves a low-pass filter response with a 5.5-MHz cutoff frequency (f_cc), 0.3-dB passband ripple, 20-ns group delay variation up to 0.9 f_c, and 43-dB attenuation at 1.45 f_c. With a nominal 2-Vpp signal at the output, measured results show 0.2% differential gain, 0.38° differential phase, and 1.7-mV rms noise demonstrating 10-bit linearity in a 1.5-μm 4-GHz BiCMOS process technology. The filter active area is 8 mm² and it dissipates 350 mW in a single 5-V power supply     

Automatic design of space steel frame using practical nonlinear analysis

An automatic design method of steel frames using practical nonlinear analysis is developed. The geometric nonlinearity is considered by the use of stability functions. The transverse shear deformation effect in a beam–column is accounted for. A direct search method is used as an automatic design technique. The unit value of each member is evaluated by using LRFD interaction equation. The member with the largest unit value is replaced one by one with an adjacent larger member selected in the database. The weight of the steel frame is taken as an objective function. Load-carrying capacities, deflections, interstory drifts, and ductility requirement are used as constraint functions. Case studies of the planar portal frame and the space two-story frame are carried out.     

Robust and secure routing scheme for wireless multihop network

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is an appealing technology that has attracted lots of research efforts. On-demand routing protocol such as AODV may suffer from frequent topological changes. Due to frequent communication failures, multipath MANET is preferred than single-path MANET in many applications as former is used for achieving robustness and load balancing and improving reliability. Although multipath MANET is attractive solution, there are still some major flaws that prevent commercial growth. Security is one of these main barriers; MANETs are known to be particularly vulnerable to security attack. The paper presents a design of robust and secure framework for multipath MANET. In this paper, we propose not only a robust multipath routing protocol but also an extended security scheme. We discuss security analysis for proposed security scheme. And we also conduct simulation to evaluate such a framework through different performance metrics. Results show that the proposed routing protocol achieves better performance in terms of various metrics than other protocols.     

Unknown Attack Detection: Combining Relabeling and Hybrid Intrusion Detection

Detection of unknown attacks like a zero-day attack is a research field that has long been studied. Recently, advances in Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have led to the emergence of many kinds of attack-generation tools developed using these technologies to evade detection skillfully. Anomaly detection and misuse detection are the most commonly used techniques for detecting intrusion by unknown attacks. Although anomaly detection is adequate for detecting unknown attacks, its disadvantage is the possibility of high false alarms. Misuse detection has low false alarms; its limitation is that it can detect only known attacks. To overcome such limitations, many researchers have proposed a hybrid intrusion detection that integrates these two detection techniques. This method can overcome the limitations of conventional methods and works better in detecting unknown attacks. However, this method does not accurately classify attacks like similar to normal or known attacks. Therefore, we proposed a hybrid intrusion detection to detect unknown attacks similar to normal and known attacks. In anomaly detection, the model was designed to perform normal detection using Fuzzy c-means (FCM) and identify attacks hidden in normal predicted data using relabeling. In misuse detection, the model was designed to detect previously known attacks using Classification and Regression Trees (CART) and apply Isolation Forest (iForest) to classify unknown attacks hidden in known attacks. As an experiment result, the application of relabeling improved attack detection accuracy in anomaly detection by approximately 11% and enhanced the performance of unknown attack detection in misuse detection by approximately 10%.     

Genetic algorithm for effective open port selection for a web filter

As cyber security is a major challenge in the widespread deployment of the latest technologies, the importance of selecting the open ports for a given web filter cannot be overemphasized. A network administrator would want to select a combination of ports that would be most beneficial to the users and these ports would be treated as least vulnerable. However, this is not a trivial task and can be very time-consuming, O(n!), if brute force or other naïve approaches are used to select a given number of ports from 65,536 ports available. As genetic algorithms (GAs) are commonly used to obtain near-optimal solution for complex and time-consuming tasks, this paper proposes a GA for the selection of open ports for a web filter. The gene value for each port is based on the malicious issues associated with the port and the importance of the port to the client using the web filter. The proposed algorithm is implemented in Java, and the simulation results show that GA is very accurate in identifying open ports for a given web filter.     

In-cell adaptive touch technology for a flexible e-paper display

In-cell adaptive touch technology for use in an electrophoretic display (EPD) has been developed and implemented in 11.5 in. UXGA flexible electronic paper display. Here, two types of a-Si:H photo-sensor arrays fabricated on a stainless steel substrate at the process temperature of 250 °C have been used along with an overall capacitive sensor formed on top of the flexible panel. Thus, we can resolve the sensing issue of normal photo-sensor array as well as maintain the feature of low power consumption in the EPD. Moreover, new touch algorithm adapted depending upon the amount of light intensity has been applied to enhance touch sensitivity regardless of environmental light conditions.     

A GHS-Based Intelligent Management Platform with IP-Camera Security System

We have described an e-platform, with an IP camera for managing toxic and hazardous chemicals within an organization. The system allows: (1) a worker to understand the globally harmonized system (GHS) of classification and labeling of chemicals and printout the GHS-based safety data sheets with 16 sections of listed information, according to the GHS, (2) a director of a chemical laboratory to inventory hazardous chemicals and to track the education training history of workers, and (3) an organization safety manager to review the inventory and apply for government licenses. And, the system has an emergency system connected to IP-cameras. It provides online image of storage environments of hazardous chemicals. With this intelligent information system with several automatic functions, a safer environment for storage and usage of hazardous chemicals can be implemented in an organization.     

Investigation of nonionic diazo dye-doped polymer dispersed liquid crystal film

Sudan black B (SBB) was used to investigate as the nonionic diazo dye-doped in polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) display, by polymerization-induced phase separation (PIPS) method. The maximum absorbance, contrast ratio, dichroic ratio and the order parameter of nonionic diazo dye in nemetic host (TL203) were investigated using UV?CVis polarized spectroscopy. The orientation of the dye molecules was controlled by electric field, which enabled the contrast ratio of the dye to be obtained by electrically switching. The change occurring on droplet morphologies and electro-optical properties of PDLC film with the change in contents of Sudan black dye and liquid crystals (LC) contents was investigated. We found an increase in LC droplet sizes with the increase of diazo dye and LC contents. Moreover the addition of small amount of nonionic diazo dye reduced the threshold voltage (V $_{\boldsymbol{\rm th}})$ , increased off-state transmittance, enhanced the contrast ratio and decreased the response time of dye-doped PDLC. Additionally the change in transition temperature of LC and changes in LC droplet morphologies with the addition of dye were also observed. Such changes were observed with the images taken by polarized optical microscope (POM). The detail discussions on such behaviours were also made.