A 1-V 3.5-mW CMOS switched-opamp quadrature IF circuitry for Bluetooth receivers

A 1-V switched-capacitor (SC) quadrature IF circuitry for Bluetooth receivers is demonstrated using switched-opamp technique. To achieve double power efficiency while maintaining low sensitivity to finite opamp gain effects for the SC IF circuitry, half-delay integrator-based filters and /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator have been proposed. The proposed quadrature IF circuitry employs a seventh-order IF filter for channel selection and a third-order /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator for analog-to-digital conversion. A noise-shaping extension technique is employed to enhance the resolution of the low-pass /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator by 16 dB while operating at the same oversampling ratio and power consumption. At a 1-V supply, the quadrature IF circuitry achieves a measured IIP3 of -3 dBm at a nominal gain of 24 dB with a 48-dB variable gain control while consuming a total power dissipation of 3.5 mW.     

An efficient algorithm for electromagnetic scattering from rough surfaces using a single integral equation and multilevel sparse-matrix canonical-grid method

An efficient algorithm for wave scattering from two-dimensional lossy rough surfaces is proposed. It entails the use of a single magnetic field integral equation (SMFIE) in conjunction with a multilevel sparse-matrix canonical-grid (MSMCG) method. The Rao-Wilton-Glisson (RWG) triangular discretization is adopted to better model the rough surface than the pulse basis functions used in the well-established SMCG method. Using the SMFIE formulation, only one unknown per interior edge of the triangular mesh approximating the rough surface is required, and the iterative solution to the moment equation converges more rapidly than that of the conventional coupled equations for dielectric rough surfaces. The MSMCG method extends the applicability of the SMCG method to rougher surfaces. Parallel implementation of the proposed method enables us to model dielectric surfaces up to a few thousand square wavelengths. Simulation results are presented as bistatic scattering coefficients for Gaussian randomly rough surfaces.     

Improved MPEG-4 still texture image coding under noisy environment

This paper describes the performance of the MPEG-4 still texture image codec in coding noisy images. As will be shown, when using the MPEG-4 still texture image codec to compress a noisy image, increasing the compression rate does not necessarily imply reducing the peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of the decoded image. An optimal operating point having the highest PSNR can be obtained within the low bit rate region. Nevertheless, the visual quality of the decoded noisy image at this optimal operating point is greatly degraded by the so-called "cross" shape artifact. In this paper, we analyze the reason for the existence of the optimal operating point and the "cross" shape artifact when using the MPEG-4 still texture image codec to compress noisy images. We then propose an adaptive thresholding technique to remove the "cross" shape artifact of the decoded images. It requires only a slight modification to the quantization process of the traditional MPEG-4 encoder while the decoder remains unchanged. Finally, an analytical study is performed for the selection and validation of the threshold value used in the adaptive thresholding technique. It is shown that, the visual quality and PSNR of the decoded images are much improved by using the proposed technique comparing with the traditional MPEG-4 still texture image codec in coding noisy images.     

Performance utility-analysis of multi-state systems

This paper defines a new utility importance of a state of a component in multi-state systems. This utility importance overcomes some drawbacks of a well-known importance measure suggested by William S. Griffith (J. Applied Probability, 1980). The relationship between this new utility importance and the Griffith importance is studied and their difference is illustrated with examples. The contribution of an individual component to the performance utility of a multi-state system is discussed. Examples show that a meaningful index for measuring the performance of individual components in a multi-state system can hardly be defined in general, without considering the actual values of the utility levels and the distributions of the component-states in the system. An example illustrates how genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, and tabu search can be used in selecting components and defining the position order of components so that the performance utility of a multi-state system is optimized.     

High-performance 94-GHz single balanced mixer using 70-nm MHEMTs and surface micromachined technology

We reported 94-GHz, low conversion loss, and high isolation single balanced active gate mixer based on 70-nm gate length InGaAs/InAlAs metamorphic high-electron mobility transistors (MHEMTs). This mixer showed that the conversion loss and isolation characteristics were 2.5/spl sim/3.5 dB and under -29 dB in the range of 92.95/spl sim/94.5 GHz, respectively. The low conversion loss of the mixer is mainly attributed to the high-performance of the MHEMTs exhibiting a maximum drain current density of 607 mA/mm, an extrinsic transconductance of 1015 mS/mm, a current gain cutoff frequency (f/sub t/) of 330 GHz, and a maximum oscillation frequency (f/sub max/) of 425 GHz. High isolation characteristics are due to hybrid ring coupler which adopted dielectric-supported air-gapped microstrip line structure using surface micromachined technology. To our knowledge, these results are the best performance demonstrated from 94 GHz single balanced mixer utilizing GaAs-based HEMTs in terms of conversion loss as well as isolation characteristics.     

Using Bulk Heterojunctions and Selective Electron Trapping to Enhance the Responsivity of Perovskite–Graphene Photodetectors

Graphene field effect transistor sensitized by a layer of semiconductor (sensitizer/GFET) is a device structure that is investigated extensively for ultrasensitive photodetection. Among others, organometallic perovskite semiconductor sensitizer has the advantages of long carrier lifetime and solution processable. A further step to improve the responsivity is to design a structure that can promote electron–hole separation and selective carrier trapping in the sensitizer. Here, the use of a hybrid perovskite–organic bulk heterojunction (BHJ) as the light sensitizer to achieve this goal is demonstrated. Our spectroscopy and device measurements show that the CH₃NH₃PbI₃–PCBM BHJ/GFET device has improved charge separation yield and carrier lifetime as compared to a reference device with a CH₃NH₃PbI₃ sensitizer only. The key to these enhancement is the presence of [6,6]‐phenyl‐C₆₁‐butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), which acts as charge separation and electron trapping sites, resulting in a 30‐fold increase in the photoresponsivity. This work shows that the use of a small amount of electron or hole acceptors in the sensitizer layer can be an effective strategy for improving and tuning the photoresponsivity of sensitizer/GFET photodetectors.     

Angular MST‐Based Topology Control for Multi‐hop Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

This letter presents an angular minimum spanning tree (AMST) algorithm for topology control in multi‐hop wireless ad hoc networks. The AMST algorithm builds up an MST for every angular sector of a given degree around each node to determine optimal transmission power for connecting to its neighbors. We demonstrate that AMST preserves both local and network‐wide connectivity. It also improves robustness to link failure and mitigates transmission power waste.     

Effect of Oligothienyl Chain Length on Tuning the Solar Cell Performance in Fluorene‐Based Polyplatinynes

A series of solution‐processable and strongly visible‐light absorbing polyplatinynes containing oligothienyl–fluorene ring hybrids were synthesized and characterized. These rigid‐rod organometallic materials are soluble in polar organic solvents and show intense absorptions in the visible spectral region, rendering them excellent candidates for bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells. The photovoltaic behavior depends significantly on the number of thienyl rings along the polymer chain, and some of these polymer solar cells show high power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of up to 2.9% and a peak external quantum efficiency to 83% under AM1.5 simulated solar illumination. The effect of oligothienyl chain length on improving the polymer solar cell efficiency and on their optical and charge transport properties is elucidated in detail. At the same blend ratio of 1:5, the light‐harvesting capability and PCE increase markedly with increasing number of thienyl rings. The power dependencies of the solar cell parameters (including the short‐circuit current density, open‐circuit voltage, fill‐factor, and PCE) were also examined. The present work opens up an attractive avenue to developing conjugated metallopolymers with broad and strong solar energy absorptions and tunable solar cell efficiency and supports the potential of metalated conjugated polymers for efficient power generation.     

Structure‐Properties Relationship in Iron Oxide‐Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanostructures for Li‐Ion Batteries

Non‐aqueous sol‐gel routes involving the reaction of metal oxide precursors in organic solvents (e.g., benzyl alcohol) at moderate temperature and pressure, offer advantages such as high purity, high reproducibility and the ability to control the crystal growth without the need of using additional ligands. In this paper, a study carried out on a series of iron oxide/reduced graphene oxide composites is presented to elucidate a structure‐properties relationship leading to an improved electrochemical performance of such composites. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the easy production of the composites in a variety of temperature and composition ranges, allows a fine control over the final particles size, density and distribution. The materials obtained are remarkable in terms of the particle's size homogeneity and dispersion onto the reduced graphene oxide surface. Moreover, the synthesis method used to obtain the graphene oxide clearly affects the performances of the final composites through the control of the restacking of the reduced graphene oxide sheets. It is shown that a homogeneous and less defective reduced graphene oxide enables good electrochemical performances even at high current densities (over 500 mAh/g delivered at current densities as high as 1600 mA/g). The electrochemical properties of improved samples reach the best compromise between specific capacity, rate capability and cycle stability reported so far.     

Coding statistics based fast mode decision for multi-view video coding

Reduction of high computational complexity of multi-view video coding (MVC) is necessary for realization in consumer electronics. Since mode decision is one of the key computational bottlenecks of multi-view video encoders, this paper proposes a coding statistics based fast mode decision algorithm. First of all, a rate–distortion cost based fast DIRECT mode decision algorithm early terminates the mode decision process if possible. Next, the candidates for Inter modes are reduced by taking the advantage of the correlation between an optimal mode and motion cost. The proper thresholds to reduce the candidates for the above two fast algorithms can be easily derived from exponential functions at run time. Finally, motion vector difference based motion characteristics is referred to further speed up the mode decision process of Inter modes. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme reduces up to 70.82% of encoding time with negligible degradation of RD performance.