An optimal checkpointing-strategy for real-time control systemsunder transient faults

Real-time computer systems are often used in harsh environments, such as aerospace, and in industry. Such systems are subject to many transient faults while in operation. Checkpointing enables a reduction in the recovery time from a transient fault by saving intermediate states of a task in a reliable storage facility, and then, on detection of a fault, restoring from a previously stored state. The interval between checkpoints affects the execution time of the task. Whereas inserting more checkpoints and reducing the interval between them reduces the reprocessing time after faults, checkpoints have associated execution costs, and inserting extra checkpoints increases the overall task execution time. Thus, a trade-off between the reprocessing time and the checkpointing overhead leads to an optimal checkpoint placement strategy that optimizes certain performance measures. Real-time control systems are characterized by a timely, and correct, execution of iterative tasks within deadlines. The reliability is the probability that a system functions according to its specification over a period of time. This paper reports on the reliability of a checkpointed real-time control system, where any errors are detected at the checkpointing time. The reliability is used as a performance measure to find the optimal checkpointing strategy. For a single-task control system, the reliability equation over a mission time is derived using the Markov model. Detecting errors at the checkpointing time makes reliability jitter with the number of checkpoints. This forces the need to apply other search algorithms to find the optimal number of checkpoints. By considering the properties of the reliability jittering, a simple algorithm is provided to find the optimal checkpoints effectively. Finally, the reliability model is extended to include multiple tasks by a task allocation algorithm     

A Video Streaming System for Mobile Phones: Practice and Experience

This paper presents a case of video streaming system for mobile phone which has actually been implemented and deployed for commercial services in CDMA2000 1X cellular phone networks. As the computing environment and the network connection of cellular phones are significantly different from the wired desktop environment, the traditional desktop streaming method is not applicable. Therefore, a new architecture is required to suit the successfully streaming in the mobile phone environment. We have developed a very lightweight video player for use in mobile phone and the related authoring tool for the player. The streaming server has carefully been designed to provide high efficiency, reliability and scalability. Based on a specifically-designed suite of streaming protocol, the server employs an adaptive rate control mechanism which transmits the media packets appropriately into the network according to the change in network bandwidth.Hojung Cha is currently a professor in computer science at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. His research interests include multimedia computing system, multimedia communication networks, wireless and mobile communication systems and embedded system software. He received his B.S. and M.S. in computer engineering from Seoul National University, Korea, in 1985 and 1987, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Manchester, England, in 1991.Jongmin Lee is a Ph.D. candidiate in computer science at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. His research interests include wireless multimedia system, QoS architecture, multimedia communication networks. He received his B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Kwangwoon University in 1999 and 2001, respectively.Jongho Nang is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Sogang University. He received his B.S. degree from Sogang University, Korea, in 1986 and M.S. and Ph.D. degree from KAIST, in 1988 and in 1992, respectively. His research interests are in the field of multimedia systems, digital video library, and Internet technologies. He is a member of KISS, ACM, and IEEE.Sung-Yong Park is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Sogang University, Seoul, Korea. He received his B.S. degree in computer science from Sogang University, and both the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Syracuse University. From 1987 to 1992, he worked for LG Electronics, Korea, as a research engineer. From 1998 to 1999, he was a research scientist at Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) where he developed network management software for optical switches. His research interests include high performance distributed computing and systems, operating systems, and multimedia.Jin-Hwan Jeong received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Korea University, Seoul, Korea, in 1997, and 1999, respectively. He is currently in Ph.D. course at Korea University. His research interests include video processing for thin devices, multimedia streaming and operating systems.Chuck Yoo received the B.S. degree in electronics engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea and the M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science in University of Michigan. He worked as a researcher in Sun Microsystems Lab. from 1990 to 1995. He joined the Computer Science and Enginnering Department, Korea University, Seoul, Korea in 1995, where he is currently a professor. His research interests include high performance network, multimedia streaming, and operating systems.Jin-Young Choi received the B.S. degree from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1982, the M.S. degree from Drexel University in 1986, and the Ph.D. degree from University of Pennsylvania, in 1993. He is currently a professor of Computer Science and Engineering Department, Korea University, Seoul, Korea. His current research interests are in real-time computing, formal methods, programming languages, process algebras, security, software engineering, and protocol engineering.     

Statistical Characterization of Open Failures in the Fine-Pitch COG Interconnection

Chip-on-glass (COG) interconnection using anisotropic conductive film (ACF) is susceptible to open failures. Open failures can be induced by the absence of conductive particles or an insufficient contact. Experimental results as well as statistical approaches were used to understand the conditions for open failures in COG bonding. The binomial distribution was used to predict the probability of the open failure due to the deficiency of conductive particles. The probability of an open failure decreased with increasing bump area and decreasing particle size. The bump height variation was also an important factor that affected the probability of the open failure together with the bump-to-electrode gap and the particle size. The variation in bump height should be minimized to avoid open failures in fine-pitch applications where a smaller particle size is required.     

On Multiple Access Using H-ARQ with SIC Techniques for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we consider non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for wireless ad hoc networks over block fading channels where the performance is limited by interference and fading. In order to provide a reasonable performance, we can use re-transmission and interference cancellation techniques. Re-transmission techniques can provide a diversity gain over fading channels, while the successive interference cancellation (SIC) can improve the signal to interference ratio (SIR). Using the information outage probability, we show that the NOMA approach with re-transmissions can perform better than the orthogonal multiple access (OMA) approach with re-transmissions when the signal to noise ratio (SNR) is low. It is also shown that the outage probability of the NOMA with SIC is lower than that of OMA when the rate is sufficiently low where SIC can be facilitated.     

The role of the mercury-Si Schottky-barrier height in /spl Psi/-MOSFETs

Pseudo-MOSFETs (/spl Psi/-MOSFET) are routinely used for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material characterization, allowing threshold voltage, electron and hole mobility, doping density, oxide charge, interface trap density, etc. to be determined. The HgFET, one version of the /spl Psi/-MOSFET, uses mercury source and drain contacts. It is a very effective SOI test structure, but its current-voltage behavior is critically dependent on the Hg-Si interface. We have investigated this interface through current-voltage measurements of HgFETs and Schottky diodes and through device modeling. We show that modest barrier height changes of 0.2 eV lead to current changes of up to three orders of magnitude. Etching the Si surface in a mild HF :H/sub 2/O solution can easily change barrier heights and we attribute this behavior to Si surface passivation of dangling bonds. As this surface passivation diminishes with time, the Si surface becomes a more active generation site and the barrier height of the Hg-Si interface changes, taking on the order of 50-100 h at room temperature in air.     

Blocky artefact reduction using an adaptive constrained leastsquares method

A blocky artefact reduction algorithm using the constrained least squares (CLS) approach is described. The authors use a new objective function which effectively constrains the relationship between not only the block boundary pixels but also the inner pixels. By gracefully reducing the visible discontinuities along the block boundaries, the proposed algorithm shows excellent noise reduction performance     

Scheduling algorithm for real-time imprecise computations tominimise maximum weighted errors using the linear programmingmethod

An optimal scheduling algorithm for imprecise systems is presented. The proposed algorithm aims at minimising the maximum weighted errors. A novel property of the algorithm is that the errors are evenly distributed among scheduled tasks. The complexity of the proposed algorithm is O(N³) in the worst case, where N is the number of tasks     

Metal gate-HfO/sub 2/ MOS structures on GaAs substrate with and without Si interlayer

In this letter, we studied the effects of post-deposition anneal (PDA) time and Si interface control layer (ICL) on the electrical characteristics of the MOS capacitor with high-/spl kappa/ (HfO/sub 2/) material on GaAs. Thin equivalent oxide thickness (EOT<3 nm) with excellent capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics has been obtained. The thickness of the Si ICL and PDA time were correlated with C-V characteristics. It was found that high temperature Si ICL deposition and longer PDA time at 600/spl deg/C improved the C-V shape, leakage current, and especially frequency dispersion (<5%).     

Parallel optical transmitter module using angled fibers and a V-grooved silicon optical bench for VCSEL array

We propose an advanced structure of optical subassembly (OSA) for packaging of the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array, using (111) facet mirror of the V-groove ends formed in a silicon optical bench (SiOB) and angled fiber apertures. The feature of our OSA can provide a low optical crosstalk between neighboring channels, a low feedback reflection, and a large misalignment tolerance along the V-groove. We describe the optimized design of fiber angle, VCSEL position, and fiber position. The fabricated OSA structure consists of 12 channels of angled fiber array, 54.7/spl deg/ V-grooves, Au-coated mirrors on (111) end facet of the V-grooves, and flip-chip-bonded VCSEL array on a SiOB. In this structure, the beam emitted from the VCSEL is deflected at the 54.7/spl deg/ mirror of (111) end facet and propagated into the angled fiber. The angled fiber array was polished by 57/spl deg/. Fabricated OSAs showed a coupling efficiency of 30%-50% that is 25 times larger than that obtained from an OSA with a vertically flat fiber array. Our OSA showed large misalignment tolerance of about 90 /spl mu/m along the longitudinal direction in the V-groove. We fabricated a parallel optical transmitter module using the OSA and demonstrated 12 channels /spl times/2.5 Gb/s data transmission with a clear eye diagram.     

采用反射式液晶显示器和有机电致发光器件前后双置组合而成的高环境对比度显示器

一种高环境对比度(A-CR)和大开口率的显示器已经从理论上证明,并通过把一个正常显黑反射型显示器(NB-RLCD)和一个有机电致发光器件(OLED)堆垛的实验加以证明。这种前后双置(以下称为tandem型)的器件组合可以分别在明亮或昏暗的环境下切换NB-RLCD模式或OLED模式。RLCD的正常显黑特性也可以提升OLED模式工作时的A-CR性能。为了在RLCD模式下获得更好的图像品质,一个复杂并且具有传输功能的结构被用于消除镜面反射和提高可视角至CR﹥2:1超过55°的锥面可视角度。另外,这样的结构也可以提高OLED49.4%的表面量子效率。在我们的实验里,忽略环境亮度因素并使A-CR保持在100:1以上。