Overlay techniques for scratchpad memories in low power embedded processors

Energy consumption is one of the important parameters to be optimized during the design of portable embedded systems. Thus, most of the contemporary portable devices feature low-power processors coupled with on-chip memories (e.g., caches, scratchpads). Scratchpads are better than traditional caches in terms of power, performance, area, and predictability. However, unlike caches they depend upon software allocation techniques for their utilization. In this paper, we present scratchpad overlay techniques which analyze the application and insert instructions to dynamically copy both variables and code segments onto the scratchpad at runtime. We demonstrate that the problem of overlaying scratchpad is an extension of the Global Register Allocation problem. We present optimal and near-optimal approaches for solving the scratchpad overlay problem. The near-optimal scratchpad overlay approach achieves close to the optimal results and is significantly faster than the optimal approach. Our approaches improve upon the previously known static allocation technique for assigning both variables and code segments onto the scratchpad. The evaluation of the approaches for ARM7 processor reports, average energy, and execution time reductions of 26% and 14% over the static approach, respectively. Additional experiments comparing the overlayed scratchpads against unified caches of the same size, report average energy, and execution time savings of 20% and 10%, respectively. We also report data memory energy reductions of 45%-57% due to the insertion of a 1024-bytes scratchpad memory in the memory hierarchy of a digital signal processor (DSP).     

Electrical characteristics of low temperature-Al0.3Ga0.7As

In this work, we present electrical characterizations of n⁺ GaAs/low temperature (LT)-Al_0.3Ga_0.7As/n⁺ GaAs resistor structures in which the LT layers are grown at nominal substrate temperatures of 250 and 300°C. The resistivity and V_tfl parameters of these LT-Al_0.3Ga_0.7As layers are compared with those of LT-GaAs and Al_0.3Ga_0.7As grown at a normal growth temperature of 720°C. Low-temperature Al_0.3Ga_0.7As layers exhibit resistivities as high as 10¹² ohm-cm, nearly four orders of magnitude higher than that of LT-GaAs, and V_tfl values as high as 45 V, over twice that of LT-GaAs. We also find that the LT-Al_0.3Ga_0.7As materials grown at 250 and 300°C appear to show opposite and contradictory trends with respect to resistivity and V_tfl. We propose that this result can be explained by residual hopping conduction in the 250°C material. Temperature dependent conductivity measurements confirm the presence of a hopping mechanism in LT-Al_0.3Ga_0.7As grown at 250°C and yield activation energies of 0.77 and 0.95 eV for LT-GaAs and LT-Al_0.3Ga_0.7As, respectively.     

Modeling and performance analysis of VI‐CRA: A congestion control algorithm for vehicular networks

This study proposes a Vehicle ID‐based CAM Rate Adaptation (VI‐CRA) algorithm for beacon messages in the vehicular network. Foremost, an improved vehicle ID–based analytical model is proposed at the MAC layer of vehicular network. The model weighs the random back‐off number chosen by vehicles participating in the back‐off process, with the vehicle ID incorporated in their respective CAMs. This eventually leads to the selection of a vehicle ID–based random back‐off number, minimizing the probability of collision due to same back‐off number selection. It is worth noting that the improved analytical model outperforms the existing works in terms of average packet delay since only one fourth of the contention window size is used throughout the simulation. To enhance the performance of the analytical model, the paper incorporates a congestion control algorithm, by adapting the rate of CAM broadcast over the control channel. The algorithm is designed considering a wide range of scenarios, ranging from nonsaturated to extremely saturated network (in terms of collision probability) and sparsely distributed to teemed network (in terms of vehicular density). For better analyses of simulation results, the algorithm is applied over different vehicle ID–based back‐off numbers. Simulation results for all the back‐off numbers show that vehicle ID–based CAM rate adaptation algorithm performs better than the traditional fixed CAM rate IEEE 802.11p, even at high vehicular density.     

Micro- and nanofabrication processes for hybrid synthetic and biological system fabrication

The application of micro- and nanofabrication processes to the development of hybrid synthetic and biological systems may enable the production of new devices such as controllable transporters, gears, levers, micropumps, or microgenerators powered by biological molecular motors. However, engineering these hybrid devices requires fabrication processes that are compatible with biological materials such as kinesin motor proteins and microtubules. In this paper, the effects of micro- and nanofabrication processing chemicals and resists on the functionality of casein, kinesin, and microtubule proteins are systematically examined to address the important missing link of the biocompatibility of micro- and nanofabrication processes needed to realize hybrid system fabrication. It is found that both casein, which is used to prevent motor denaturation on surfaces, and kinesin motors are surprisingly tolerant of most of the processing chemicals examined. Microtubules, however, are much more sensitive. Exposure to the processing chemicals leads to depolymerization, which is partially attributed to the pH of the solutions examined. When the chemicals were diluted in aqueous buffers, a subset of them no longer depolymerized microtubules and in their diluted forms still worked as resist removers. This approach broadens the application of micro- and nanofabrication processes to hybrid synthetic and biological system fabrication.     

Elimination of bipolar induced drain breakdown and singletransistor latch in submicron PD SOI MOSFET

For the first time, we report the combined application of a SiGe source and a delta-doped p⁺ region in a PD SOI MOSFET to minimize the impact of floating body effect on both the drain breakdown voltage and the single transistor latch. Our results demonstrate that the proposed SOI structure exhibits as large as 200% improvement in the breakdown voltage and is completely immune to single transistor latch when compared to the conventional SOI MOSFET thus improving the reliability of these structures in VLSI applications     

A Distance Based Reliable Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Algorithm in Cognitive Radio

Spectrum sensing is the most critical task in cognitive radio (CR) which needs to be performed very precisely in order to efficiently utilize the underutilized spectrum and to provide sufficient protection to the primary users (PUs). To improve the sensing performance under fading, shadowing and hidden terminal problems more than one CR users collaboratively perform the spectrum sensing called as cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS). In conventional CSS the decision of each CR is fused at fusion center with equal weights. But due to variable distance of each CR from the PU all decisions are not equally reliable and therefore should be assigned different weights according to their reliability. In this paper we propose a new weighting scheme for CSS under Rayleigh faded channel. In proposed weighting scheme, based on the distance of each CR from the PU reliability of CR nodes is determined and correspondingly appropriate weights are assigned to different users. The CSS algorithm using new weighting scheme gives better performance than conventional CSS algorithm.     

Bandwidth Improvement of Stub Loaded Compact Ultra-Wideband Microstrip Patch Antenna for C/X-Band Applications

Wireless Personal Communications - Authentication is a term very important for data communication security. We see many frauds due to authentication failure. The problem manifolds when...     

Braille document recognition using Belief Propagation

There is a significant need for a system to recognize Braille documents in order to preserve them and make them available to a larger group of visually impaired people. A new system for Braille document recognition is proposed. We introduce a highly-adaptive Braille documents parameters estimation method to automatically determine the rotation angle, indentations, and spacing in both vertical and horizontal orientation. The key element in determining the rotation angle of the images is based on Radon transform. Also we introduce the method of Braille translation using Belief Propagation on the assumption that the Braille document is a Hidden Markov Model. We demonstrate the effectiveness of rotation angle correction as well as the accuracy of indentation and spacing in both orientations. We also prove that the translation algorithm is efficient and robust to errors made in the dot detection. The proposed method may be used for further applications.     

Routing Protocols in Delay Tolerant Networks: Comparative and Empirical Analysis

Wireless Personal Communications - A Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) is a network capable of handling long delays and data loss efficiently in various challenged scenarios and environments. Owing to...