Interfacial Reactions of Sn-9Zn-<Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis>Cu (<Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis> = 1, 4, 7, 10) Solders with Ni Substrates

This study investigates the effects of various reaction times and Cu contents on the interfacial reactions between Sn-9Zn-xCu alloys and Ni substrates. After aging at 255°C for 1 h to 3 h, the Ni₅Zn₂₁ and Cu₅Zn₈ phases formed at the interface of Sn-9Zn/Ni and Sn-9Zn-1wt.%Cu/Ni couples, respectively. The (Ni,Zn)₃Sn₄ phase was found in the Sn-9Zn-4wt.%Cu/Ni couple, and the (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ and Cu₆Sn₅ phases formed, respectively, in the Sn-9Zn-7wt.%Cu/Ni and Sn-9Zn-10wt.%Cu/Ni couples. As the reaction time was increased from 5 h to 24 h, the (Cu₅Zn₈ + Ni₅Zn₂₁) phases replaced the Cu₅Zn₈ phase to form in the Sn-9Zn-1wt.%Cu/Ni couple; the (Ni,Zn)₃Sn₄ phase formed in the Sn-9Zn-4wt.%Cu/Ni couple, and (CuZn + Cu₆Sn₅) formed in the Sn-9Zn-10wt.%Cu alloys. Experimental results indicate that intermetallic compound (IMC) formation in Sn-9Zn-xCu/Ni couples changes dramatically with reaction time and Cu content. The Sn-Zn-Ni, Sn-Cu-Ni, and Sn-Zn-Cu ternary isothermal sections greatly help us to understand the IMC evolutions in the Sn-9Zn-xCu/Ni couples.     

Collusion in Atomic Splittable Routing Games

We study how collusion affects the social cost in atomic splittable routing games. Suppose that players form coalitions and each coalition behaves as if it were a single player controlling all the flows of its participants. We investigate the following question: under what conditions would the social cost of the post-collusion equilibrium be bounded by the social cost of the pre-collusion equilibrium? We show that if (i) the network is “well-designed” (satisfying a natural condition), and (ii) the delay functions are affine, then collusion is always beneficial for the social cost in the equilibrium flows. On the other hand, if either of the above conditions is unsatisfied, collusion can worsen the social cost. Our main technique is a novel flow-augmenting algorithm to build equilibrium flows. Our positive result for collusion is obtained by applying this algorithm simultaneously to two different flow value profiles of players and observing the difference in the derivatives of their social costs. Moreover, for a non-trivial subclass of selfish routing games, this algorithm finds the exact equilibrium flows in polynomial time.     

Evaluating TCP-friendliness in light of Concurrent Multipath Transfer

In prior work, a CMT protocol using SCTP multihoming (termed SCTP-based CMT) was proposed and investigated for improving application throughput. SCTP-based CMT was studied in (bottleneck-independent) wired networking scenarios with ns-2 simulations. This paper studies the TCP-friendliness of CMT in the Internet. In this paper, we surveyed historical developments of the TCP-friendliness concept and argued that the original TCP-friendliness doctrine should be extended to incorporate multihoming and SCTP-based CMT.Since CMT is based on (single-homed) SCTP, we first investigated TCP-friendliness of single-homed SCTP. We discovered that although SCTP’s congestion control mechanisms were intended to be “similar” to TCP’s, being a newer protocol, SCTP specification has some of the proposed TCP enhancements already incorporated which results in SCTP performing better than TCP. Therefore, SCTP obtains larger share of the bandwidth when competing with a TCP flavor that does not have similar enhancements. We concluded that SCTP is TCP-friendly, but achieves higher throughput than TCP, due to SCTP’s better loss recovery mechanisms just as TCP-SACK and TCP-Reno perform better than TCP-Tahoe.We then investigated the TCP-friendliness of CMT. Via QualNet simulations, we found out that one two-homed CMT association has similar or worse performance (for smaller number of competing TCP flows) than the aggregated performance of two independent, single-homed SCTP associations while sharing the link with other TCP connections, for the reason that a CMT flow creates a burstier data traffic than independent SCTP flows. When compared to the aggregated performance of two-independent TCP connections, one two-homed CMT obtains a higher share of the tight link bandwidth because of better loss recovery mechanisms in CMT. In addition, sharing of ACK information makes CMT more resilient to losses. Although CMT obtains higher throughput than two independent TCP flows, CMT’s AIMD-based congestion control mechanism allows other TCP flows to co-exist in the network. Therefore, we concluded that CMT is TCP-friendly, similar to two TCP-Reno flows are TCP-friendly when compared to two TCP-Tahoe flows.     

An adaptive management architecture for ad hoc networks

Ad hoc networks, where mobile nodes communicate via multihop wireless links, facilitate network connectivity without the aid of any preexisting networking infrastructure. The intrinsic attributes of ad hoc networks, such as dynamic network topology, limited battery power, constrained wireless bandwidth and quality, and large number of heterogeneous nodes, make network management significantly more challenging than stationary and wired networks. In particular, the conventional client/server-based manager/agent management paradigm falls short of addressing these issues. We describe the Guerrilla management architecture to facilitate adaptive and autonomous management of ad hoc networks. The management capability of Guerrilla is scalable to accommodate the sheer number and heterogeneity of nodes, autonomous and survivable to adapt to network dynamics, and economical to minimize management overhead.     

Coating uniformity improvement for a dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing filter by use of the etching effect

The uniformity of optical narrow-bandpass filters for dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) has been improved by control of the coating parameters of electron guns and the ion source. The optical film was deposited by the electron gun and was etched by the ion source during the ion-assisted deposition process. The uniformity of the coating of a 100 GHz DWDM filter is better than +/- 0.003% over a circular area of 50 mm in diameter when such an etching process is used.     

Combined rough sets with flow graph and formal concept analysis for business aviation decision-making

Although business aviation has been popular in the USA, Europe, and South America, however, top economies in East Asia, including Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, have been more conservative and lag behind in the development of business aviation. In this paper, we hope to discover possible trends and needs of business aviation for supporting the government to make decision in anticipation of eventual deregulation in the near future. We adopt knowledge-discovery tools based on rough set to analyze the potential for business aviation through an empirical study. Although our empirical study uses data from Taiwan, we are optimistic that our proposed method can be similarly applied in other countries to help governments there make decisions about a deregulated market in the future.     

Adaptive beamforming with conjugate symmetric weights

The Hermitian persymmetric maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) is better than the conventional MLE in estimating the covariance matrix of a symmetrically distributed antenna array. Though using the Hermitian persymmetric MLE improves the performance of adaptive beamforming, it increases the computational load due to the forward-backward averaging of array input sample data. By observing that the weight vector obtained from the Hermitian persymmetric MLE is conjugate symmetric if the phase origin is chosen at the array geometry center, methods are developed to reduce the computational load of the direct-form beamformer and the generalized sidelobe canceler (GSC). The weights of both beamformers can be adapted with real computations, with significant savings in computation time     

Synthesis of Scan Chains for Netlist Descriptions at RT-Level

This paper presents a methodology to insert scan paths in a functional Register Transfer Level (RTL) specification of a design that can exploit existing functional paths between sequential elements in the original circuit for establishing scan chains. The primary objective for RTL scan insertion is to reduce the time taken for DFT, and thus reduce the time to market. Additionally, building scan chains at the functional RT-Level is expected to reduce the total area overhead introduced by full scan without compromising the fault coverage achieved. In addition, it often eliminates the delay associated with the additional multiplexer as a part of a conventional scan-cell in high performance designs. Experimental results presented in this paper demonstrate that the proposed method achieves the above objectives while also achieving higher fault coverages for most of the benchmark circuits considered.     

Analysis of the gate-source/drain capacitance behavior of a narrow-channel FD SOI NMOS device considering the 3-D fringing capacitances using 3-D simulation

This paper reports an analysis of the gate-source/drain capacitance behavior of a narrow-channel fully depleted (FD) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) NMOS device considering the three-dimensional (3-D) fringing capacitances. Based on the 3-D simulation results, when the width of the FD SOI NMOS device is scaled down to 0.05 /spl mu/m, the inner-sidewall-oxide fringing capacitance (C/sub FIS/), due to the fringing electric field at the edge of the mesa-isolated structure of the FD SOI NMOS device biased at V/sub G/=0.3 V and V/sub D/=1 V, is the second largest contributor to the gate-source capacitance (C/sub GS/). Thus, when using nanometer CMOS devices with a channel width smaller than 0.1 /spl mu/m, C/sub FIS/ cannot be overlooked for modeling gate-source/drain capacitance (C/sub GS//C/sub GD/).     

Differential phase decoder in a polarized optical heterodyne interferometer

A differential-phase decoder (DPD) together with a polarization common-path optical heterodyne interferometer is set up. Based on this interferometric configuration and a novel balanced-detector scheme, the performance of the quantum-noise-limited differential-phase decoder is demonstrated and analyzed. The minimum-detectable differential phase is on the order of 10(-7) rad/sqrt Hz when a 2.5 mW He-Ne laser is used. Verified experimentally, the DPD is immune to the common-phase noise induced by an electro-optic phase modulator or by thermal disturbance within the interferometer. This signifies that the minimum-detectable differential phase can become 10(-8) rad/sqrt Hz if a 300 mW continuous wave laser is employed instead.