The effect of the ionosphere on remote sensing of sea surface salinity from space: absorption and emission at L band

The purpose of this work is to examine the effects of Faraday rotation and attenuation/emission in the ionosphere in the context of a future remote sensing system in space to measure salinity. Sea surface salinity is important for understanding ocean circulation and for modeling energy exchange with the atmosphere. A passive microwave sensor in space operating near 1.4 GHz (L-band) could provide global coverage and complement in situ arrays being planned to provide subsurface profiles. However, the salinity signal is relatively small and changes along the propagation path can be important sources of error. It is shown that errors due to the ionosphere can be as large as several psu. The dominant source of error is Faraday rotation but emission can be important     

Generation and evaluation of current and logic tests for switch-level sequential circuits

This article presents an approach to developing high quality tests for switch-level circuits using both current and logic test generation algorithms. Faults that are aborted or undetectable by logic tests may be detected by current tests, or vice versa. An efficient switch level test generation algorithm for generating current and logic tests is introduced. Clear definitions for analyzing the effectiveness of the joint test generation approach are derived. Experimental results are presented for demonstrating high coverage of stuck-at, stuck-on, and stuck-open faults for switch level circuits when both current and logic tests are used.This is expanded version of the work originally presented at the 1991 International Test Conference.     

Design of A Low-Cost Wireless Indoor Air Quality Sensor Network System

An indoor air quality monitoring system helps in the detection and improvement of indoor air quality. The monitoring systems presently available are very expensive. In this paper, we present a low-cost indoor air quality monitoring wireless sensor network system developed using Arduino, XBee modules, and micro gas sensors. The system is capable of collecting six air quality parameters from different locations simultaneously. We have also developed a linear least square estimation-based method for sensor calibration and measurement data conversion. In this paper, we present the detailed design of wireless air quality sensor node and the calibration method. The performance and usefulness of the system are demonstrated by comparing measurement results of our system with a professional-grade air quality measurement device.     

Microfluidics structures for probing the dynamic behaviour of filamentous fungi

Although filamentous fungi live in physically and chemically complex natural environments that require optimal survival strategies, both at colony and individual cell level, their growth dynamics are usually studied on homogenous media. This study proposes a new research methodology based on the purposeful design, fabrication and operation of microfluidics structures to examine the temporal and spatial responses of filamentous fungi. Two model fungal strains, the wild type of Neurospora crassa – a commonly used model organisms – and the ro-1 mutant strain of this species impaired in hyphal growth and morphology, have been chosen to demonstrate the potential of this new methodology. Time-lapse observations of both species show that filamentous fungi respond rapidly to the physically microstructured environment without any detectable temporal or spatial adjustment period. Despite their genetic differences, and consequently different growth behaviour, both strains present efficient space-search strategies enabling them to solve the microsized networks successfully and in similar periods, thus demonstrating that the space-searching algorithms are robust and mutation-independent. Additionally, the use of the proposed methodology could put in evidence new biological mechanisms responsible for the apical extension of filamentous fungi, beyond the classical theory based on the central role of Spitzenkörper.     

Calibration Enabled Scalable Current Sensor Module for Quiescent Current Testing

Semiconductor testing is aimed at screening fabrication defects that impact expected functionality. While catastrophic defects result in non working devices, parametric faults result in marginalities and are of increasing concern with deep sub-micron process technologies. This work presents a scheme to monitor Circuit-Under-Test (CUT) static bias current to identify catastrophic as well as parametric faults. All circuits require a deterministic amount of DC bias current which may vary outside the specifications when faults exist within the circuit. We propose a compensated current measurement Built-in-Current-Sensor (BICS) scheme, which can be used for sub-system level/circuit-level bias current measurements. The BICS provides accessibility to internal blocks and enables isolated parametric testing. Calibration routine enables process independence and provides robustness. The BICS is compatible with Very-Low-Cost Automatic Test Equipment (VLC-ATE), and can be used for detailed parametric testing in the production environment.     

An 8-Bit Digitally Controlled Programmable Phase Shifter Circuit for Sinusoidal Signals with 252∘ Phase Control Range

In this paper, the synthesis, design, and implementation of a programmable phase shifter circuit for sinusoidal signals is presented. The proposed circuit, built-up herein with operational amplifiers (OPAMPs), high precision resistors and low voltage switches, consists of a digitally controlled amplitude attenuator in combination with a single-tone orthogonalizer. Experimental results agree with theoretical background: the attained phase range was 252^° in 256 steps with a median step of 0.9^°. The inaccuracy of the circuit was determined to be of 0.03 %. Contrary to other OPAMP approaches for sinusoidal signals reported in the literature and based on a first-order all-pass filter structure, the approximation suggested in this work is based on a different concept. The achieved results demonstrate the functionality of the system for the case of a sinusoidal signal with frequency of 1 kHz. Notwithstanding, the proposed architecture can be extended to operate at higher frequencies by using different building blocks with larger bandwidth. Furthermore, it can be extended as well to work out with other periodic input waveforms, like triangular shapes or square waves, with the use of an appropriate orthogonalizer.     

An Adaptive Learning Scheme for Medium Access with Channel Reservation in Wireless Networks

Providing effective medium access for wireless networks is a challenging task. Most of the existing protocols of IEEE 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) work towards the goal of achieving effective channel access by developing various backoff procedures. In this paper, we make an attempt to develop a new medium access protocol named Learning Automata (LA) based Wireless Channel Reservation (LAWCR). We use an LA approach to implement reservation for channel access for single hop wireless networks. Also, sequence procedure is used to improve the reservation mechanism. The performance of the proposed LAWCR scheme show significant improvements over the legacy DCF protocol with respect to important criteria such as the average time spent in the buffer and the throughput.     

Self-consistent analysis of high-temperature effects onstrained-layer multiquantum-well InGaAsP-InP lasers

We present a comprehensive evaluation of the temperature effects on the threshold current and the slope efficiency of 1.55 μm Fabry-Perot ridge-waveguide lasers between 20°C and 120°C. Experimental results are analyzed using the commercial laser simulator PICS3D. The software self-consistently combines two-dimensional carrier transport, heat flux, strained quantum-well gain computation, and optical waveguiding with a longitudinal mode solver. All relevant physical mechanisms are considered, including their dependence on temperature and local carrier density. Careful adjustment of material parameters leads to an excellent agreement between simulation and measurements at all temperatures. At lower temperatures, Auger recombination controls the threshold current and the differential internal efficiency. At high temperatures, the vertical electron leakage from the separate confinement layer mainly limits the laser performance. The increase of internal absorption is less important. However, all these carrier and photon loss enhancements with higher temperature are mainly triggered by the reduction of the optical gain due to wider Fermi spreading of electrons     

Contact-Barrier Free,High Mobility,Dual-Gated Junctionless Transistor Using Tellurium Nanowire

The gate-all-around nanowire transistor, due to its extremely tight electrostatic control and vertical integration capability, is a highly promising candidate for sub-5 nm technology nodes. In particular, the junctionless nanowire transistors are highly scalable with reduced variability due to avoidance of steep source/drain junction formation by ion implantation. Here a dual-gated junctionless nanowire p-type field effect transistor is demonstrated using tellurium nanowire as the channel. The dangling-bond-free surface due to the unique helical crystal structure of the nanowire, coupled with an integration of dangling-bond-free, high quality hBN gate dielectric, allows for a phonon-limited field effect hole mobility of 570 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ at 270 K, which is well above state-of-the-art strained Si hole mobility. By lowering the temperature, the mobility increases to 1390 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and becomes primarily limited by Coulomb scattering. The combination of an electron affinity of ≈ 4 eV and a small bandgap of tellurium provides zero Schottky barrier height for hole injection at the metal-contact interface, which is remarkable for reduction of contact resistance in a highly scaled transistor. Exploiting these properties, coupled with the dual-gated operation, we achieve a high drive current of 216 μA μm⁻¹ while maintaining an on-off ratio in excess of 2 × 10⁴. The findings have intriguing prospects for alternate channel material based next-generation electronics.     

Ku-band antenna array feed distribution network with ferroelectric phase shifters on silicon

This paper presents the design, fabrication, and experimental results of a 1 : 4 monolithic power distribution network for Ku-band array antenna applications. The network integrated on a high-resistivity silicon (HRS) substrate surface stabilized by polysilicon consists of three Wilkinson power dividers, four dc blocking filters, and four coplanar waveguide (CPW)-to-microstrip (MS) transitions. Each output ports are fed with a barium-strontium-titanate phase shifter. It is found that the introduction of the polysilicon layer between the oxide and HRS reduces RF losses significantly, which will enable the monolithic integration of high-power controller modules onto silicon because of the existence of the oxide layer, preventing any degradation of RF performances. The individual components show insertion losses ranging from 0.4 to 2.6 dB at 15 GHz, and the interconnecting CPW lines result in a loss of 0.064 dB/mm. This network was successfully integrated with MS patch antennas monolithically, showing good performance of 32-dB return loss at 14.85 GHz, and 10/spl deg/ beam-steering capability.