Alternate Testing of RF Transceivers Using Optimized Test Stimulus for Accurate Prediction of System Specifications

In the recent past, with the emergence of System-on-Chip (SoC), focus has shifted towards testing system specifications rather than device or module specifications. While the problem of test accessibility for test stimulus application and response capture for such high-speed systems remains a challenge to the test engineers, new test strategies are needed which can address the problem in a practical manner. In this paper, the problem of testing the transmitter and the receiver subsystems of a RF transceiver for system level specification is addressed. Instead of using different conventional test stimuli for testing each of the system level specifications of RF subsystems, a specially crafted test stimulus is used for testing all the specifications from the response of the subsystem-under-test. A new simulation approach has also been developed to perform fast behavioral simulations in frequency domain for the system-under-test. In the test method, frequency domain test response spectra are captured and non-linear regression models are constructed to map the spectral measurements onto the specifications of interest. In the presented simulation results, the test stimuli have been validated using netlist level simulation of the subsystem-under-test and specifications have been predicted within an error of ±3% of the actual value.Soumendu Bhattacharya was born in Calcutta, India, in 1978. He received his Bachelors degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in 2000. In 2002, he received the M.S.E.E. degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. He is currently working toward his Ph.D. degree. In the summer of 2001, he worked as a summer intern in National Semiconductor, Santa Clara, CA, USA. His research interests are in the area of test generation for mixed-signal and RF circuits and systems and design-for-test.Achintya Halder received the B.S. degree in electronics and electrical communication engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1998. He worked as an IC design engineer with Texas Instruments until 2000. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student and a research assistant with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. His research area is analog/RF and mixed signal testing.Ganesh P. Srinivasan received the B.E. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the National Institute of Technology and Science, University of Madras, Chennai (Madras), India, in 2002. He received the M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, in 2004 and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. His research interests include low cost testing approaches for analog/RF and mixed-signal circuits, and improving performance of low cost testers for enabling high quality tests.Abhijit Chatterjee received the Bachelor of Technology degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, in 1981, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from University of Illinois at Chicago in 1983 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990. Until December 1992, he was a Research Staff Member at the General Electric Research and Development Center in Schenectady, NY. His work has been cited by the Wall Street Journal and presented on a Japanese network TV program called High Tech Shower International. He is a collaborating partner in NASAs New Millennium Project. Dr. Abhijit Chatterjee is also the author of one U.S. patent and has over one hundred publications in referenced journals and conferences.     

Electrical properties of Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ gate dielectric on strained-Si

High dielectric constant (high-k) thin Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ films have been deposited on tensilely strained silicon (strained-Si) layers using a microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique at a low temperature. The deposited Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ films show good electrical properties as gate dielectrics and are suitable for microelectronic applications. The feasibility of integration of strained-Si and high-k dielectrics has been demonstrated.     

Minimization in variations of different parameters in different φ planes of a small-size concentric ring array antenna using firefly algorithm

The radiation pattern of a small-size concentric ring array antenna does not remain φ-symmetric, if the array is made with an appreciably lesser number of antenna elements. The sidelobe level, first null beamwidth (FNBW), half-power beamwidth (HPBW), and the null depths of the radiation pattern change significantly in different φ planes. An efficient pattern synthesis method has been developed in this work to reduce the variation of sidelobe level, FNBW, and HPBW of a small-size concentric ring array of isotropic antennas, for different φ cuts. It is done by finding out an optimum set of amplitude distribution of the array elements using firefly algorithm. The sidelobe level and the first null depth of the array are kept below a desired value for all the defined φ cuts. The directivity of the optimized array and the uniform array has been computed. The variation of all these parameters for different φ cuts has been compared to the same array with uniform excitation among the elements.     

An automated patient monitoring using discrete‐time wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Internet of Things (IoT) devices are used for remote health monitoring. For remotely monitoring a patient, only the health information at different time points are not sufficient; predicted values of biomarkers (for some future time points) are also important. In this article, we propose a powerful statistical model for an efficient dynamic patient monitoring using wireless sensor nodes through Bayesian Learning (BL). We consider the setting where a set of correlated biomarkers are measured from a patient through wireless sensors, but the sensors only report the ordinal outcomes (say, good, fair, high, or very high) to the sink based on some prefixed thresholds. The challenge is to use the ordinal outcomes for monitoring and predicting the health status of the patient under consideration. We propose a linear mixed model where interbiomarker correlations and intrabiomarker dependence are modeled simultaneously. The estimated and the predicted values of the biomarkers are transferred over the internet so that health care providers and the family members of the patient can remotely monitor the patient. Extensive simulation studies are performed to assess practical usefulness of our proposed joint model, and the performance of the proposed joint model is compared to that of some other traditional models used in the literature.     

Scattering by a perfectly conducting and a coated thin wire using aphysical basis model

A traveling-wave model is used in conjunction with a Galerkin's solution of the exact integral equation to solve for the scattering by a thin perfectly conducting and a thin dielectrically coated wire. The proposed current model consists of three weighted traveling-wave components; one is associated with the current on the infinite wire whereas the other two describe the reflected traveling waves from the wire terminations. Several current distribution and scattering patterns are presented which serve to validate the accuracy of the model and the derived analytical formulas     

Relations between the nuclear activity and the variable 3H-amino acid incorporation pattern in Amoeba proteus

Tracer kinetic studies have revealed the existence of a variable pattern of 3H-amino acid incorporation into amoeba proteins during the early G2 phase of the cell cycle. Two peaks of incorporation of [3H]leucine were found to occur at 19 and 22 h, whereas a single peak at 17 h was noticed in the amoebae labelled with [3H]lysine. An almost 2-fold increase of the labelled amino acid incorporation occurred during the peak periods, while the other periods showed a more or less steady state of incorporation, suggesting a basal rate of synthesis at these times. In a detailed study involving the peaks and the basal incorporation period of [3H]leucine, it was shown that the removal of the nucleus or Actinomycin D treatment eliminated the peaks but the base line protein synthesis was not affected. This suggests that for the peak synthetic periods, mRNA is probably transcribed concurrently, followed by immediate translation, whereas long-life mRNA accounts for the basal synthetic activity.     

The possible mode of action of prostaglandins: X. Antagonism between prostaglandin F2a and prolactin or human chorionic gonadotropin: a comparative study

A comparative assessment of the efficacy of prolactin or HCG in reversing the luteolytic property of a single dose (2.0 mg/kg) of PGF2a was conducted in pregnant (day 10) rats. It was found that prolactin maintained pregnancy in 90% of the test animals. HCG though found to maintain pregnancy in 70% of the PGF2a-treated pregnants, the fetal survival rate was, however, recorded to be 62% against the control value of 98%. Conversely, prolactin replacement maintained the fetal survival rate as high as 93.4%. Moreover, the growth of the fetuses, placentae and corpus luteum in the pregnants having prolactin in conjunction with PGF2a was also found to be greater compared to the animals which had a combined regimen of PGF2a and HCG, but identical to controls. On the other hand, similar combined regimen when applied to hysterectomized pregnant rats, it was observed that though the vaginal diestrus was maintained by the prolactin or HCG in the presence of PGF2a, the prolactin regimen was found to be superb compared to HCG in the maintenance of luteal weight and functional activity. It was concluded that the antifertility effect of PGF2a in the rat is primarily the consequence of luteolysis and prolactin seems to be a much more appropriate hormonal replacement compared to HCG, a long-acting LH, in antagonizing the luteolytic property of PGF2a.     

Reactivity ratios of some substituted aromatic amines by linear graphical methods

Reactivity ratios of some halogen substituted aromatic amines have been determined by using Kelen-Tüd?s and Fineman-Ross linear graphical methods. On copolymerization with p-toluidine or p-nitrophenol as comonomer, the reactivity of halogen substituted aromatic amines was found to be in the order of their basic strength. However, this order of reactivity gets reversed when these halogen substituted amines are copolymerized with p-nitroaniline. This reversal of reactivity has been interpreted in terms of polarization and resonance stabilization of the monomeric species.     

Wall-to-bed heat transfer characteristics of spout-fluid beds

Wall-to-bed heat transfer characteristics have been investigated in a rectangular spout-fluid (S–F) bed segment column (20 cm length, 5 cm width and 50 cm height) utilizing glass beads (D_p = 0.254, 0.388 and 0.461 mm) and air as fluid. Results indicate that h values in the S–F bed increase with increasing air mass velocity and particle diameter, and decrease with increasing bed height. Under identical flow conditions h values in the S–F bed were about 30% more than for the corresponding fluidized bed.