Evaluation of Fully-Integrated Switching Regulators for CMOS Process Technologies

This paper presents a feasible study of fully-integrated switching voltage regulators for power-optimized systems-on-chip (SoCs). In order to evaluate the power efficiency across a number of design variables, a compact macro-model of a regulator is created and validated. A key focus of the study is on the characteristics of the active and passive devices that are needed in order to maximize the efficiency of an on-chip regulator. With the macro-model, geometric programming is used to find the optimal characteristics for a given set of constraints such as load condition, process technology, and area. The achievable efficiencies for various current loads and across a range of technologies from 0.35-mum to 90-nm CMOS process are analyzed. The power efficiency is found to be strongly dependent on the inductor technology and over 70% efficiency is possible with advanced inductor technologies.     

FDTD Study on Back Scattering of Conducting Sphere Coated with Double-Negatibe Metamaterials

The shift operator method in finite-difference time-domain method for anisotropic double-negative (DNG) metamaterials is derived. The problem which incorporates both anisotropy and frequency dispersion at the same time is solved for the electromagnetic wave propagation in DNG media. By comparing with the mie series solution, the numerical verification of the method and program are confirmed by computing the back scattering of isotropic unmagnetized plasma sphere. The back scattering of conducting sphere coated with DNG media with different parameters is computed by using the shift operator method. One finds that the degree of DNG media’s match and isotropy plays important parts in the decrease of the back scattering of the conducting sphere.     

Novel Digital Nonvolatile Memory Devices Based on Semiconducting Polymer Thin Films

Recent increases in the demand for mobile devices have stimulated the development of nonvolatile memory devices with high performance. In this Communication, we describe the fabrication of low‐cost, high‐performance, digital nonvolatile memory devices based on semiconducting polymers, poly(o‐anthranilic acid) and poly(o‐anthranilic acid‐co‐aniline). These memory devices have ground‐breaking and novel current–voltage switching characteristics. The devices are switchable in a very low voltage range (which is much less than those of all other devices reported so far) with a very high ON/OFF current ratio (which is on the order of 10⁵). The low critical voltages have the advantage for nonvolatile memory device applications of low operation voltages and hence low power consumption. With this very low power consumption, the devices demonstrate in air ambient to have very stable ON‐ and OFF‐states without any degradation for a very long time (which has been confirmed up to one year so far) and to be repeatedly written, read and erased. Our study proposes that the ON/OFF switching of the devices is mainly governed by a filament mechanism. The high ON/OFF switching ratio and stability of these devices, as well as their repeatable writing, reading and erasing capability with low power consumption, opens up the possibility of the mass production of high performance digital nonvolatile polymer memory devices with low cost. Further, these devices promise to revolutionize microelectronics by providing extremely inexpensive, lightweight, and versatile components that can be printed onto plastics, glasses or metal foils.     

A Multi‐Strategic Concept‐Spotting Approach for Robust Understanding of Spoken Korean

We propose a multi‐strategic concept‐spotting approach for robust spoken language understanding of conversational Korean in a hostile recognition environment such as in‐car navigation and telebanking services. Our concept‐spotting method adopts a partial semantic understanding strategy within a given specific domain since the method tries to directly extract pre‐defined meaning representation slot values from spoken language inputs. In spite of partial understanding, we can efficiently acquire the necessary information to compose interesting applications because the meaning representation slots are properly designed for specific domain‐oriented understanding tasks. We also propose a multi‐strategic method based on this concept‐spotting approach such as a voting method. We present experiments conducted to verify the feasibility of these methods using a variety of spoken Korean data.     

Efficient modeling of RF CMOS spiral inductors using generalized knowledge-based neural network

Efficient modeling of RF CMOS spiral inductors by virtue of a novel generalized knowledge-based neural network (GKBNN) is presented. Prior knowledge of on-chip inductors is used for constructing the GKBNN. This new modeling approach also exploits merits of the iterative multi stage algorithm. This GKBNN has much enhanced learning and generalization capabilities. Comparing with the conventional neural network or the knowledge-based neural network, this new GKBNN model can map the input–output relationships with fewer hidden neurons and has higher reliability for generalization. As a consequence, this GKBNN model can run as fast as an approximate equivalent circuit model yet generate results as accurate as detailed electromagnetic simulations. Experiments are included to demonstrate merits and efficiency of this new approach.     

An improved charge-averaging charge-pump scheme

An improved charge-averaging charge-pump scheme is described in the paper. The circuit mainly includes four pairs of switches and four sampling capacitors. Two operation modes (normal/charge-averaging) are achieved by switching on/off. SpectreVerilog simulation results show the proposed scheme can strongly reduce the energy of spurs, and could be applied to high performance frequency synthesizers.     

CMOS inverters based positive type second generation current conveyor

A new versatile class AB low-voltage second generation current conveyor based on CMOS inverters operating in transconductance mode is presented in this letter. Against traditional design based on CCII+, the circuit is able to operate at low supply voltages and offers numerous advantages like class AB operation, large voltage and current swing, synthesis from digital inverters. Simulation results from a typical 0.35 μm CMOS process had demonstrated the circuit capability to operate at high frequency over wide voltage and wide current swings. The proposed circuit operation has been acted from measurements with the HEF4069UBP from Philips semiconductors [1].     

A simple and analytical parameter-extraction method of a microwaveMOSFET

A simple and accurate parameter-extraction method of a high-frequency small-signal MOSFET model including the substrate-related parameters and nonreciprocal capacitors is proposed. Direct extraction of each parameter using a linear regression approach is performed by Y-parameter analysis on the proposed equivalent circuit of the MOSFET for high-frequency operation. The extracted results are physically meaningful and good agreement has been obtained between the simulation results of the equivalent circuit and measured data without any optimization. Also, the extracted parameters, such as g_m and g_ds, match very well with those obtained by DC measurement     

Panorama field rendering with scene depth estimation

A novel approach to image-based modelling and rendering is proposed. A set of randomly placed panoramas and omnidirectional depth information of the surrounding scene are used to generate an output image at a vantage viewpoint. Implementation results show that the proposed approach achieves smooth walkthrough at a realtime     

Smart TDI readout circuit for long-wavelength IR detector

A smart time delay and integration (TDI) readout circuit is suggested which performs background suppression, cell-to-cell non-uniformity compensation, and dead pixel correction. Using the smart TDI readout circuit, the integration capacitor area occupying almost the whole area of a unit-cell can be reduced to one-fifth and transimpedance gain can increase by five times. From measurement results, it is found that the skimming current error for a few hundred nA background current is < 1.25 nA corresponding to LSB/2 of ADC and the non-uniformity introduced by cell-to-cell background current variation is reduced to 1.02 nA