面向照相手机的小型低成本集成视频放大器

在电视屏幕上显示照片是当今照相手机中一项越来越重要的功能,因为它能让您比以往更令人满意地与朋友及家人一起观看您拍摄的照片.电视输出功能可以相对较少的成本增加至照相手机中,并为手机厂商提供重要的增收机会.     

Bipolar switching characteristics of low-power Geo resistive memory

We reported an ultra low-power resistive random access memory (RRAM) combining a low-cost Ni electrode and covalent-bond GeO_x dielectric. This cost-effective Ni/GeO_x/TaN RRAM device has very small set power of 2 μW, ultra-low reset power of 130 pW, greater than 1 order of magnitude resistance window, and stable retention at 85 °C. The current flow at low-resistance state is governed by Poole-Frenkel conduction with electrons hopping via defect traps, which is quite different from the filament conduction in metal-oxide RRAM.     

CMOS射频集成电路ESD保护的挑战

随着集成电路(IC)T艺进入深亚微米水平,以及射频(Radi0.Frequency,RF)IC工作频率向数千兆赫兹频段迈进,片上防静电泄放(ESD)保护设计越来越成为RF IC设计的挑战.产生这一挑战的关键原因在于ESD保护电路和被保护的RF IC核电路之间存在着不可避免的复杂交互影响效应.本文讨论了RF ESD保护的研究和设计领域的最新动态,总结了所出现的新挑战、新的设计方法和最新的RF ESD保护解决方案.     

Magneto‐Thermal Metrics Can Mirror the Long‐Term Intracellular Fate of Magneto‐Plasmonic Nanohybrids and Reveal the Remarkable Shielding Effect of Gold

Multifunctional nanoparticles such as magneto‐plasmonic nanohybrids are rising theranostic agents. However, little is yet known of their fate within the cellular environment. In order to reach an understanding of their biotransformations, reliable metrics for tracking and quantification of such materials properties during their intracellular journey are needed. In this study, their long‐term (one month) intracellular fate is followed within stem‐cell spheroids used as tissue replicas. A set of magnetic (magnetization) and thermal (magnetic hyperthermia, photothermia) metrics is implemented to provide reliable insightsinto the intracellular status. It shows that biodegradation is modulated by the morphology and thickness of the gold shell. First a massive dissolution of the iron oxide core (nanoflower‐like) is observed, starting with dissociation of the multigrain structure. Second, it is demonstrated that an uninterrupted gold shell can preserve the magnetic core and properties (particularly magnetic hyperthermia). In addition to the magnetic and thermal metrics, intracellular high‐resolution chemical nanocartography evidences the gradual degradation of the magnetic cores. It also shows different transformation scenarios, from the release of small gold seeds when the magnetic core is dissolved (interesting for long‐term elimination) to the protection of the magnetic core (interesting for long‐term therapeutic applicability).     

A PARALLEL COUPLED-LINE FILTER USING VLSI BACKEND INTERCONNECT WITH HIGH RESISTIVITY SUBSTRATE

This paper reports our progress in developing parallel coupled-line filters based on Si-based VLSI backend interconnects for millimeter-wave applications. The resonant frequency of this coupled-line filter increases with increasing spacing-gap and with increasing IDM thickness. By using high resistivity substrate, the parallel coupled-line band-pass filter is extremely effective in reducing substrate loss, and also provides very low insertion loss, even at the millimeter-wave regime. In addition, the parallel coupled-line filter suitable for advanced system-on-a-chips at the millimeter wave application achieves high performance characteristics, which show low insertion loss, wide band, and compatibility with standard VLSI process.     

Extension of an Efficient 3GPP Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol

Recently, Zhang and Fang proposed a security analysis and enhancements of 3GPP authentication and key agreement protocol (AP-AKA for short). The enhancements of 3GPP authentication and key agreement protocol is proposed to improve some drawbacks of the current third-generation wireless communications. It also eliminates the need of synchronization between a mobile station and its home network. However, this paper shows that AP-AKA has some drawbacks, including the huge bandwidth consumption between foreign network and the home network, and the overhead of the stored space in the foreign network, and the overloaded home network with authentication of mobile stations. As a result, an extension of AP-AKA is proposed, which improves theses drawbacks, while preserving the superior merits of AP-AKA.     

Polarity Effect in a Sn3Ag0.5Cu/Bismuth Telluride Thermoelectric System

This study investigates electromigration in Bi₂Te₃ thermoelectric (TE) material systems and the effectiveness of the diffusion barrier under current. The Peltier effect on the interfacial reaction was decoupled from the effect of electromigration. After connecting p- and n-type Bi₂Te₃ to Sn3Ag0.5Cu (SAC305) solders, different current densities were applied at varying temperatures. The Bi₂Te₃ samples were fabricated by the spark plasma sintering technique, and an electroless nickel-phosphorous (Ni-P) layer was deposited at the solder/TE interfaces. The experimental results confirm the importance of the Ni diffusion barrier in joint reliability. Intermetallic compound layers (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ and NiTe formed at the solder/Ni-P and Ni-P/substrate interfaces, respectively. The experimental results indicate that the mechanism of NiTe and (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ compound growth was dominated by the Peltier effect at high current density. When the current density was low, the growth of NiTe was affected by electromigration but the changes of thickness for (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ were not obvious.     

Reducing Encoder Bit-Rate Variation in MPEG Video

A shortcoming of current video transmission using the MPEG standard is that its encoder produces a variable bit rate (VBR). Due to this, the encoder output has to be buffered and released over the network at a constant rate. This buffering of the encoder output introduces an additional delay between the encoding and decoding phases of the video transmission. To remedy this problem, we present a strategy to distribute the load produced by the encoder as evenly as possible, i.e., try to have a constant bit rate (CBR). This is done by treating the slices in each frame separately while compressing them and then mixing the different kinds of slices that are sent over the network. The resulting load variation is much more uniform, reducing the buffering delay and making future bandwidth requirement estimates more accurate.This material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Award No. IRI-9526004, by the Texas Advanced Research Program under Grant No. 3652270, and by a grant from the University of Houston Institute of Space Systems Operations. Rajat Agarwal is now with Lucent Technologies. This paper is an extended version of a shorter paper presented at IEEE ICMCS 1999.Albert Mo Kim Cheng received the B.A. with Highest Honors in Computer Science at age 19, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, the M.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Electrical Engineering at age 21, and the Ph.D. in Computer Science at age 25, all from The University of Texas at Austin, where he held a GTE Foundation Doctoral Fellowship. Dr. Cheng is currently a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Houston, where he is the founding Director of the Real-Time Systems Laboratory. He has served as a technical consultant for several organizations, including IBM, and was also a visiting faculty in the Departments of Computer Science at Rice University (2000) and at the City University of Hong Kong (1995).He is the author/co-author of over seventy refereed publications in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Real-Time Systems Symposium, Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, and other leading conferences. One of his recent work presents a timing analysis of the NASA X-38 Space Station Crew Return Vehicle Avionics, which contains a fault-tolerant distributed system.Dr. Cheng has received numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation Research Initiation Award (now known as the NSF CAREER award). He has been invited to present seminars and tutorials at over 30 conferences, and has given invited seminars/keynotes at over 20 universities and organizations, most recently at ICEIS, Ecole Superieure de l Ouest (ESEO), Angers, France, April 2003. His next invited keynote speech will be at the 1st Intl. Conf. on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO), Setubal, Portugal, August 2004.He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (1998-2003), a Guest Co-Editor of two IEEE TSE Special Issues on Software and Performance (Nov. and Dec. 2000), an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Computer and Information Science, the work-in-progress program chair of the 2001 IEEE-CS Real-Time Technology and Applications Symposium, the work-in-progress session chair of the 2003 IEEE-CS Real-Time Systems Symposium, and the invited special panel chair for the software engineering for multimedia session at the 1999 IEEE-CS International Conference on Multimedia Computing Systems (ICMCS). Currently, he is a member of the program committees of RTSS, RTAS, ICEIS, ICECCS, RTAS, LCN, COMPSAC, ICCCN, AIA, DBA, PDCN, SE, and ICINCO. Dr. Cheng is an Honorary Member of the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication (INSTICC). He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.Dr. Cheng is the author of several book chapters on E-commerce/Enterprise Information Systems, and an article entitled Embedded OS, in the upcoming Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering (John Wiley & Sons). He is the author of the new senior/graduate-level textbook entitled Real-Time Systems: Scheduling, Analysis, and Verification (John Wiley & Sons). cheng@cs.uh.eduRajat Agarwal received the M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. He is currently a Member of the Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies. His research interest is in real-time multimedia systems.     

Solar cell efficiency tables (version 43)

Consolidated tables showing an extensive listing of the highest independently confirmed efficiencies for solar cells and modules are presented. Guidelines for inclusion of results into these tables are outlined, and new entries since July 2013 are reviewed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.