Capacitances in double-barrier tunneling structures

Capacitances in a double-barrier tunneling structure are calculated for the specific sequential electron tunneling regime. Starting from Luryi's (1988) definition of quantum capacitance, the authors model the charge accumulation in the well during the tunneling process using the Fermi-Dirac distribution. Analytical formulas for the total capacitance and conductance are derived. A complete small-signal model is proposed that demonstrates the external capacitance and conductance of the structure and its frequency behavior. The authors show both theoretically and experimentally that the capacitance in a tunneling structure is both bias- and frequency-dependent     

RoBiN: Random Access using Border Routers in Cellular Networks

Introducing Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications over traditional 4G cellular networks make the cellular random access channel more congested and collision-prone. In order to resolve this random access congestion, we propose RoBiN - Random access using Border router in M2M cellular Networks. RoBiN proposes an architectural modification of introducing small cells, called Border Routers (BR), in cellular networks, with complete frequency reuse capability. We formulate the aforementioned challenge in terms of collision probability and system capacity. Subsequently, we propose an efficient solution for M2M communications in cellular networks. Exhaustive mathematical analysis shows that RoBiN significantly improves the random access success probability, by 50 % over existing 4G cellular systems. Simulation results on typical 4G networks corroborate our mathematical analysis and demonstrate almost 15 dB increase in Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) and 3 times throughput improvements over legacy 4G cellular systems. Furthermore, RoBiN also achieves 50 %?80 % improvement in collision probability over existing time alignment matching work.     

Vertically integrated SOI circuits for low-power and high-performance applications

Vertical integration offers numerous advantages over conventional structures. By stacking multiple-material layers to form double gate transistors and by stacking multiple device layers to form multidevice-layer integration, vertical integration can emerge as the technology of choice for low-power and high-performance integration. In this paper, we demonstrate that the vertical integration can achieve better circuit performance and power dissipation due to improved device characteristics and reduced interconnect complexity and delay. The structures of vertically integrated double gate (DG) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) devices and circuits, and corresponding multidevice-layer (3-D) SOI circuits are presented; a general double-gate SOI model is provided for the study of symmetric and asymmetric SOI CMOS circuits; circuit speed, power dissipation of double-gate dynamic threshold (DGDT) SOI circuits are investigated and compared to single gate (SG) SOI circuits; potential 3-D SOI circuits are laid out. Chip area, layout complexity, process cost, and impact on circuit performance are studied. Results show that DGDT SOI CMOS circuits provide the best power-delay product, which makes them very attractive for low-voltage low-power applications. Multidevice-layer integration achieves performance improvement by shortening the interconnects. Results indicate that up to 40% of interconnect performance improvements can be expected for a 4-device-layer integration.     

Improved genetic algorithm for channel allocation with channel borrowing in mobile computing

This paper exploits the potential of the Genetic Algorithm to solve the cellular resource allocation problem. When a blocked host is to be allocated to a borrowable channel, a crucial decision is which neighboring cell to choose to borrow a channel. It is an optimization problem and the genetic algorithm is efficiently applied to handle this. The Genetic Algorithm, for this particular problem, is improved by introducing a new genetic operator, named pluck, that incorporates a problem-specific knowledge in population generation and leads to a better channel utilization by reducing the average blocked hosts. The pluck operator makes the crucial decision of when and which cell to borrow with the future consideration that the borrowing should not lead the network to chaos. It makes a channel borrowing decision that minimizes the number of blocked hosts and improves the long-term performance of the network. Efficacy of the proposed method has been evaluated by experimentation.     

Performance of the transmission line model for the microstrip elements

Although more rigorous treatments have been developed for the microstrip elements, the purpose of this transmission line model is to provide a numerically efficient substitute for them. The rectangular resonator is replaced by two equivalent radiating slots. In most practical cases the approximations are acceptable. It is obvious that the efficiency of the transmission model can be used to include mutual coupling in practical analysis. The calculated results are in good agreement with observed results.     

Band-tunable and multiplexed integrated circuits for simultaneous recording and stimulation with microelectrode arrays

Two thin-film microelectrode arrays with integrated circuitry have been developed for extracellular neural recording in behaving animals. An eight-site probe for simultaneous neural recording and stimulation has been designed that includes on-chip amplifiers that can be individually bypassed, allowing direct access to the iridium sites for electrical stimulation. The on-probe amplifiers have a gain of 38.9 dB, an upper-cutoff frequency of 9.9 kHz, and an input-referred noise of 9.2 microV rms integrated from 100 Hz to 10 kHz. The low-frequency cutoff of the amplifier is tunable to allow the recording of field potentials and minimize stimulus artifact. The amplifier consumes 68 microW from +/- 1.5 V supplies and occupies 0.177 mm2 in 3 microm features. In vivo recordings have shown that the preamplifiers can record single-unit activity 1 ms after the onset of stimulation on sites as close as 20 microm to the stimulating electrode. A second neural recording array has been developed which multiplexes 32 neural signals onto four output data leads. Providing gain on this array eliminates the need for bulky headmounted circuitry and reduces motion artifacts. The time-division multiplexing circuitry has crosstalk between consecutive channels of less than 6% at a sample rate of 20 kHz per channel. Amplified, time-division-multiplexed multichannel neural recording allows the large-scale recording of neuronal activity in freely behaving small animals with minimum number of interconnect leads.     

Co‐optimization of SnS absorber and Zn(O,S) buffer materials for improved solar cells

Thin‐film solar cells consisting of earth‐abundant and non‐toxic materials were made from pulsed chemical vapor deposition (pulsed‐CVD) of SnS as the p‐type absorber layer and atomic layer deposition (ALD) of Zn(O,S) as the n‐type buffer layer. The effects of deposition temperature and annealing conditions of the SnS absorber layer were studied for solar cells with a structure of Mo/SnS/Zn(O,S)/ZnO/ITO. Solar cells were further optimized by varying the stoichiometry of Zn(O,S) and the annealing conditions of SnS. Post‐deposition annealing in pure hydrogen sulfide improved crystallinity and increased the carrier mobility by one order of magnitude, and a power conversion efficiency up to 2.9% was achieved. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance Analysis of a Cognitive Radio Network Under Energy Harvesting from Primary User Emulation Attacker

Wireless Personal Communications - The paper reports the performance of an energy harvesting cognitive radio network under primary user emulation (PUE) attack. A secondary user (SU) can harvest...     

SPICE compatible analytical electron mobility model for biaxial strained-Si-MOSFETs

This paper describes an analytical model for bulk electron mobility in strained-Si layers as a function of strain.Phonon scattering,columbic scattering and surface roughness scattering are included to analyze the full mobility model.Analytical explicit calculations of all of the parameters to accurately estimate the electron mobility have been made.The results predict an increase in the electron mobility with the application of biaxial strain as also predicted from the basic theory of strain physics of metal oxide semiconductor(MOS) devices.The results have also been compared with numerically reported results and show good agreement.     

NEST: novel eMBMS scheduling technique

In order to meet the growing demand for mobile multimedia broadcast services 3GPP includes evolved multimedia broadcast and multicast (eMBMS) services in LTE systems. The high data rates, low latency and QoS provisioning makes LTE systems more suitable for mobile broadcast and multicast services than legacy wireless networks. However, the 3GPP standards has not specified any scheduling strategy for this broadcast and multicast services. In this paper, we propose a novel eMBMS scheduling technique (NEST) which focuses on reducing the average waiting time (latency) of the broadcast services offered by LTE system. This paper has twofold contributions. We proffer NEST considering two types of impatience that is user equipment (UE) departure and UE request repetition. Our proposed scheduling strategy estimates the effects originating from the departure of the mobile UEs and UE request repetition case. It intelligently combines the advantages of both flat scheduling and on-demand scheduling in such a way that the overall latency of the system is reduced. We design a suitable modeling framework to analyze the performance of the system. Simulation experiments on typical LTE systems support the performance analysis and demonstrates 10 % gains while comparing with existing eMBMS scheduling available in present LTE systems.