Layer‐by‐Layer All‐Inorganic Quantum‐Dot‐Based LEDs: A Simple Procedure with Robust Performance

A novel all‐inorganic electroluminescent device is demonstrated based on highly luminescent CdTe nanocrystals intercalated within a laminar hydrotalcite‐like structure. The laminar scaffold acts to both support and distribute the CdTe nanocrystals. The device is synthesized using simple wet chemical processes at room temperature in ambient conditions. It has high thermal stability, operating continuously up to 90 °C, and a maximum efficiency at J = 0.12 A cm^?2. The device is targeted at the automotive industry.     

Design of Engineered Elastomeric Substrate for Stretchable Active Devices and Sensors

In the field of flexible electronics, emerging applications require biocompatible and unobtrusive devices, which can withstand different modes of mechanical deformation and achieve low complexity in the fabrication process. Here, the fabrication of a mesa‐shaped elastomeric substrate, supporting thin‐film transistors (TFTs) and logic circuits (inverters), is reported. High‐relief structures are designed to minimize the strain experienced by the electronics, which are fabricated directly on the pillars' surface. In this design configuration, devices based on amorphous indium‐gallium‐zinc‐oxide can withstand different modes of deformation. Bending, stretching, and twisting experiments up to 6 mm radius, 20% uniaxial strain, and 180° global twisting, respectively, are performed to show stable electrical performance of the TFTs. Similarly, a fully integrated digital inverter is tested while stretched up to 20% elongation. As a proof of the versatility of mesa‐shaped geometry, a biocompatible and stretchable sensor for temperature mapping is also realized. Using pectin, which is a temperature‐sensitive material present in plant cells, the response of the sensor shows current modulation from 13 to 28 °C and functionality up to 15% strain. These results demonstrate the performance of highly flexible electronics for a broad variety of applications, including smart skin and health monitoring.     

Smashing OpenFlow's “atomic” actions: Programmable data plane packet manipulation in hardware

Recently, with new hardware architectures such as Reconfigurable Match Tables and languages such as P4, the Software Defined Networking community has started to bring line‐rate data plane programmability inside switching chipsets. Starting from the original OpenFlow's match/action abstraction, most of the work has so far focused on key improvements in matching flexibility. Conversely, the “action part,” ie, the set of operations (such as encapsulation or header manipulation) performed on packets after the forwarding decision, has received way less attention. Goal of this paper is to move beyond the idea of “atomic,” preimplemented, actions, and rather make them programmable while retaining high speed multi‐Gbps operation. To this purpose, we propose a domain‐specific HW architecture, called Packet Manipulation Processor (PMP), able to efficiently implement such actions. Both a PMP C++ instruction set simulator and a NetFPGA prototype have been developed. The performances of the PMP have been verified with three nontrivial use cases (tunneling, NAT, and ARP reply generation), showing that also in the worst case the throughput is well above 10 Gbps.     

新型自振荡电源转换器VK05CFL

1.技术概述 VK05CFL是一种用于驱动微型荧光灯的自振荡转换器,采用意法半导体的VIPower M3-3专利技术制造而成,允许在同一芯片上集成控制部分和电源级。电源级是一个“发射器开关”,其构成是在级联配置内放置一个双极高压复合晶体管和一个低压MOSFET,因此,在高击穿电     

A VLSI structure forX(modm) operation

High-computing speed and modularity have made RNS-based arithmetic processors attractive for a long time, especially in signal processing, where additions and multiplications are very frequent. The VLSI technology renewed this interest because RNS-based circuits are becoming more feasible; however, intermodular operations degradate their performance and a great effort results on this topic. In this paper, we deal with the problem of performing the basic operationX(modm), that is the remainder of the integer divisionX/m, for large values of the integerX, following an approximating and correcting approach, which guarantees the correctness of the result. We also define a structure to computeX(modm) by means of few fast VLSI binary multipliers, which is exemplified for 32-bit long numbers, obtaining a total response time lower than 200 nsec. Furthermore, such a structure is evaluated in terms of VLSI complexity and area and time figuresA=?(n ² T _m ² ) andT=?(T _M ) for the parameterT _M in \([\log n,\sqrt n ]\) are derived. A simple positional-to-residue converter is finally presented, based on this structure; it improves some complexity results previously obtained by authors.     

BeWell: Sensing Sleep,Physical Activities and Social Interactions to Promote Wellbeing

Smartphone sensing and persuasive feedback design is enabling a new generation of wellbeing apps capable of automatically monitoring multiple aspects of physical and mental health. In this article, we present BeWell+ the next generation of the BeWell smartphone wellbeing app, which monitors user behavior along three health dimensions, namely sleep, physical activity, and social interaction. BeWell promotes improved behavioral patterns via feedback rendered as an ambient display on the smartphone’s wallpaper. With BeWell+, we introduce new mechanisms to address key limitations of the original BeWell app; specifically, (1) community adaptive wellbeing feedback, which generalizes to diverse user communities (e.g., elderly, children) by promoting better behavior yet remains realistic to the user’s lifestyle; and, (2) wellbeing adaptive energy allocation, which prioritizes monitoring fidelity and feedback responsiveness on specific health dimensions (e.g., sleep) where the user needs additional help. We evaluate BeWell+ with a 27 person, 19 day field trial. Our findings show that not only can BeWell+ operate successfully on consumer smartphones; but also users understand feedback and respond by taking steps towards leading healthier lifestyles.     

A Photoaddressable Liquid Crystalline Phase Transition in Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites

The multifunctionality of graphene has the potential to unlock important developments in nanocomposite science. However, the manipulation of graphene without interfering with its unique properties and while controlling its spatial organization remains challenging. Here, the formation of a photoaddressable liquid crystalline (LC) solution through the stabilization of graphene oxide (GO) with photocleavable brushes is described. The LC behavior leads to the thermodynamic entrapment of GO into low aspect ratio domains that fail to display the properties typically predicted for graphene nanocomposites. The morphology and structural and electronic performance of these nanocomposites are regenerated through the brush cleavage, which controls the phase transition of the LC phase. These results show that kinetic control of graphene assembly can be an attractive tool toward the dynamic regulation of processable sol states and structured percolated networks for rational composite manufacturing.     

Opening Doors to Future Electrochemical Energy Devices: The Anion‐Conducting Polyketone Polyelectrolytes

The numerous potential benefits of incorporating anion‐exchange membranes (AEMs), in place of proton‐exchange membranes (PEMs), in energy storage and conversion technologies renders their development of fundamental importance for the continued evolution of alternative energy systems. However, the widespread implementation of AEMs is currently plagued by a range of problems including lower conductivity (with respect to PEMs), poor stability, and high cost. This study reports the conversion of polyketone, one of the world's most mass produced and cheap polymers, to a new highly tuneable polymer architecture, functionalized polyketone (FPK), that demonstrates a range of excellent properties rendering it a significant prospect for AEM materials. The thermal, processing, and ion‐conducting properties of FPK are governed by the amount and nature of the newly formed N‐substituted pyrrole pendant side groups. At 80 °C, the quarternized pyridyl FPK derivative (4MPyrFPK) yields ion‐conductivities of 8.6 and 10.5 mS cm^?1 in the iodide and hydroxide forms. In addition, the hydroxide form of 4MPyr‐FPK demonstrates remarkable stability toward the typically problematic alkaline conditions. No chemical decomposition is observed to the membrane after imbibing it in KOH solution for 72 h, and furthermore, the ion‐conductivity is demonstrated to remain constant for at least 30 d at 80 °C.     

Carrier trapping in thin N2O-grown oxynitride/oxide di-layer for PowerMOSFET devices

A detailed study of the carrier trapping properties shown by the silicon/oxynitride/oxide gate layers in PowerVDMOS technologies is reported. A quantitative analysis of hole and electron trap densities versus the specific N₂O based nitridation process, extracted from Fowler–Nordheim constant current stress kinetics, allows a deep understanding of the role played by those defects in the susceptibility of every nitrided layer.     

Artistic edge and corner enhancing smoothing.

Two important visual properties of paintings and painting-like images are the absence of texture details and the increased sharpness of edges as compared to photographic images. Painting-like artistic effects can be achieved from photographic images by filters that smooth out texture details, while preserving or enhancing edges and corners. However, not all edge preserving smoothers are suitable for this purpose. We present a simple nonlinear local operator that generalizes both the well known Kuwahara filter and the more general class of filters known in the literature as "criterion and value filter structure." This class of operators suffers from intrinsic theoretical limitations which give rise to a dramatic instability in presence of noise, especially on shadowed areas. Such limitations are discussed in the paper and overcome by the proposed operator. A large variety of experimental results shows that the output of the proposed operator is visually similar to a painting. Comparisons with existing techniques on a large set of natural images highlight conditions on which traditional edge preserving smoothers fail, whereas our approach produces good results. In particular, unlike many other well established approaches, the proposed operator is robust to degradations of the input image such as blurring and noise contamination.