Measurement and numerical simulation of three‐dimensional fiber orientation states in injection‐molded short‐fiber‐reinforced plastics

To determine three‐dimensional fiber orientation states in injection‐molded short‐fiber composites, a confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) is used. Since the CLSM optically sections the specimen, more than two images of the cross sections on and below the surface of the composite can be obtained. Three‐dimensional fiber orientation states can be determined by using geometric parameters of fiber images obtained from two parallel cross sections. For experiments, carbon‐fiber‐reinforced polystyrene is examined by the CLSM and geometric parameters of fibers on each cross‐sectional plane are measured by an image analysis. In order to describe fiber orientation states compactly, orientation tensors are determined at different positions of the prepared specimen. Three‐dimensional orientation states are obtained without any difficulty by determining the out‐of‐plane angles utilizing fiber images on two parallel planes acquired by the CLSM. Orientation states are different at different positions and show the shell–core structure along the thickness of the specimen. Fiber orientation tensors are predicted by a numerical analysis and the numerically predicted orientation states show good agreement with measured ones. However, some differences are found at the end of cavity. They may result from the fountain flow effects, which are not considered in the numerical analysis. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 88: 500–509, 2003     

ESD protection design to overcome internal damage on interface circuits of a CMOS IC with multiple separated power pins

This paper reports a real case of electrostatic discharge (ESD) improvement on a complementary metal oxide semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) product with multiple separated power pins. After ESD stresses, the internal damage have been found to locate at the interface circuit connecting between different circuit blocks with different power supplies. Some ESD designs have been implemented to rescue this IC product to meet the required ESD specification. By adding only an extra ESD clamp N-channel metal oxide semiconductor with a channel width of 10 /spl mu/m between the interface node and the ground line, the human-body-model (HBM) ESD level of this IC product can be improved from the original 0.5 to 3 kV. By connecting the separated vertical sync signal (VSS) power lines through the ESD conduction circuit to a common VSS ESD bus realized by the seal ring, the HBM ESD level of the enhanced version IC product with 12 separated power supplies pairs can be significantly improved from original 1 kV up to > 5 kV, without the noise coupling issue.     

Enhanced thermal stability of a sputtered titanium-nitride film as a diffusion barrier for capacitor-bottom electrodes

The effect of a thin RuO_x layer formed on the Ru/TiN/doped poly-Si/Si stack structure was compared with that on the RuO_x/TiN/doped poly-Si/Si stack structure over the post-deposition annealing temperature ranges of 450–600°C. The Ru/TiN/poly-Si/Si contact system exhibited linear behavior at forward bias with a small increase in the total resistance up to 600°C. The RuO_x/TiN/poly-Si/Si contact system exhibited nonlinear characteristics under forward bias at 450°C, which is attributed to no formation of a thin RuO_x layer at the RuO_x surface and porous-amorphous microstructure. In the former case, the addition of oxygen at the surface layer of the Ru film by pre-annealing leads to the formation of a thin RuO_x layer and chemically strong Ru-O bonds. This results from the retardation of oxygen diffusion caused by the discontinuity of diffusion paths. In particular, the RuO_x layer in a nonstoichiometric state is changed to the RuO₂-crystalline phase in a stoichiometric state after post-deposition annealing; this phase can act as an oxygen-capture layer. Therefore, it appears that the electrical properties of the Ru/TiN/poly-Si/Si contact system are better than those of the RuO_x/TiN/poly-Si/Si contact system.     

Wireless-adaptive fair scheduling for multimedia stream

As packet cellular networks are expected to support multimedia services, the authors incorporate the multimedia QoS requirements into the design of a new scheduling algorithm. The proposed wireless-adaptive fair scheduling tries to allocate time slots for each user with fair share by considering the varying channel condition while reflecting the stream requirements and achieving high throughput.     

Using buried capacitor in LTCC-MLC balun

A novel chip-type ceramic balun designed in the 2.4 GHz ISM band frequency is presented. A buried capacitor is included in the balun, so that the length of the coupled transmission lines can be reduced and can be designed very easily. A meander or spiral broadside coupled-line is adopted to realise the proposed LTCC multi-layer balun. The measured performances of phase and amplitude balance for this LTCC-MLC balun show a good match with computer simulation     

InP D-HBT ICs for 40-Gb/s and higher bitrate lightwave transceivers

The combination of device speed (f/sub T/, f/sub max/ > 150 GHz) and breakdown voltage (V/sub bceo/ > 8 V) makes the double heterojunction bipolar InP-based transistor (D-HBT) an attractive technology to implement the most demanding analog functions of 40-Gb/s transceivers. This is illustrated by the performance of a number of analog circuits realized in an InP D-HBT technology with an 1.2- or 1.6-/spl mu/m-wide emitter finger: a low phase noise push-push voltage-controlled oscillator with -7-dBm output power at 146 GHz, a 40-GHz bandwidth and low-jitter 40-Gb/s limiting amplifier, a lumped 40-Gb/s limiting driver amplifier with 4.5-V/sub pp/ differential output swing, a distributed 40-Gb/s driver amplifier with 6-V/sub pp/ differential output swing, and a number of distributed preamplifiers with up to 1.3-THz gain-bandwidth product.     

Magnetic effects of direct ion implantation of Mn and Fe into p-GaN

In p-GaN implanted with Mn (3×10¹⁶ cm⁻² at 250 keV), the material after annealing shows ferromagnetic properties below 250 K. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed the presence of platelet structures with hexagonal symmetry. These regions are most likely Ga_xMn_1−xN, which produce the ferromagnetic contribution to the magnetization. In p-GaN implanted with Fe, the material after annealing showed ferromagnetic properties at temperatures that were dependent on the Fe dose, but were below 200 K in all cases. In these samples, TEM and diffraction analysis did not reveal any secondary phase formation. The results for the Fe implantation are similar to those reported for Fe doping during epitaxial growth of GaN.     

Abnormal junction profile of silicided p+/n shallowjunctions: a leakage mechanism

The leakage mechanism in p⁺/n shallow junctions fabricated using Co silicidation and shallow trench isolation processes has been investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) combined with selective chemical etching. TEM and TSUPREM-4 simulation results show that dopant profiles bend upward near the edge of the active region. The formation of the abnormal profile is attributed to transient enhanced diffusion induced by source/drain implantation. Based on the TEM and simulation results, it is suggested that the shallower junctions formed near the active edge can serve as a source for leakage current in the silicided p+ /n shallow junctions     

Extended adaptive RBF equaliser for overcoming co-channelinterference

The authors investigate the problem of nonlinear adaptive equalisation in the presence of intersymbol interference, additive white Gaussian noise and co-channel interference. An extended radial basis function (RBF) network is proposed, in which regression weights are used in the output layer and the hidden unit is defined to have the Gaussian formula with the Mahalanobis distance. It is shown by simulation that the proposed structure gives reduced computational complexity without performance degradation, compared to that of the conventional RBF equaliser