A 5-GHz fully integrated ESD-protected low-noise amplifier in 90-nm RF CMOS

A fully integrated 5-GHz low-power ESD-protected low-noise amplifier (LNA), designed and fabricated in a 90-nm RF CMOS technology, is presented. This 9.7-mW LNA features a 13.3-dB power gain at 5.5 GHz with a noise figure of 2.9 dB, while maintaining an input return loss of -14 dB. An on-chip inductor, added as "plug-and-play," i.e., without altering the original LNA design, is used as ESD protection for the RF pins to achieve sufficient ESD protection. The LNA has an ESD protection level up to 1.4 A transmission line pulse (TLP) current, corresponding to 2-kV Human Body Model (HBM) stress. Experimental results show that only minor RF performance degradation is observed by adding the inductor as a bi-directional ESD protection device to the reference LNA.     

Channel model for wireless communication around human body

A channel model for a wireless body area network at 400 MHz, 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz is derived. The electromagnetic wave propagation around the body is simulated with a finite-difference time-domain simulator. Creeping waves were identified as the propagation path around the body. Its impact on the delay spread in an indoor environment is discussed.     

Technologies for highly miniaturized autonomous sensor networks

Recent results of the autonomous sensor research program HUMAN++ will be summarized in this paper. The research program aims to achieve highly miniaturized and (nearly) autonomous sensor systems that assist our health and comfort. Although the application examples are dedicated to human monitoring/assistance, the necessary technology development for this program is generic and can serve many wireless sensor applications. This multi-disciplinary program combines research on wireless ultra-low-power communications, research on 2D/3D integration and packaging platforms, energy scavenging techniques, as well as low-power and ultra-low-power sensor circuit design. An example sensor system is the wearable wireless EEG system.     

Modeling and experimental verification of substrate noise generation in a 220-Kgates WLAN system-on-chip with multiple supplies

Substrate noise is a major obstacle for mixed-signal integration. While the power consumption scales linearly with the clock frequency, substrate noise does not have this scaling due to the resonances in the transfer function of the supply current to the substrate. This paper addresses a practical technique to estimate the substrate noise frequency spectrum of a large mixed-mode System-on-Chip (SoC) with multiple supplies and embedded memories. The results have been verified with substrate noise measurements on a 60-MHz 220-Kgates telecom SoC implemented in a 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS process on an EPI-type substrate. We compute a linear chip-level substrate model together with the single-cycle representation of piecewise-linear noise sources of three supply regions used in this ASIC. Based on this model we accurately estimate the four major resonances in the substrate noise spectrum and their relative magnitudes with 2 dB relative error at the major resonance with respect to measurements. We also present substrate noise measurements at different operating modes of the WLAN receiver. These measurements show that output I/O buffers generate significant substrate noise where an increase of 44% is measured for substrate noise peak-to-peak value due to the additional simultaneous switching of six output I/O buffers with already fully switching datapath and two output I/Os.     

Iodination of mouse EGF with chloramine T at 4 degrees C: characterization of the iodinated peptide and comparison with other labelling methods

The BP-1/6C3 molecule expressed by early B lineage cells and some stromal cells has been identified as aminopeptidase A (APA). We have previously demonstrated that IL-7 selectively induces BP-1/APA expression by pre-B cells coincident with their growth. Here we directly demonstrate that BP-1 is preferentially expressed by the proliferating subpopulation of normal B cell progenitors. Furthermore, when non-adherent BALB/c bone marrow cells were incubated with IL-7 in the presence of purified BP-1 antibody, B cell precursor proliferation was markedly inhibited. Modulation of the BP-1/6C3 antigen did not occur in the presence of the BP-1 antibody, but APA enzymatic activity was significantly inhibited. The 6C3 antibody, which recognizes a different epitope on the APA molecule, had no effect on either B cell precursor proliferation or APA enzyme activity. We hypothesized that neutralization of APA by the BP-1 antibody results in inhibition of IL-7 driven B cell precursor proliferation. However, when isolated 14.8+ bone marrow cells were cultured with IL-7 in the presence of the BP-1 antibody, no inhibition of proliferation occurred. This data suggested that the effect of the BP-1 antibody might be related to the action of APA on peptides in the marrow microenvironment which are not present in cultures of isolated B cell precursors. The addition of irradiated non-adherent bone marrow cells to the 14.8+ cell cultures restored the inhibitory effect of the BP-1 antibody. Based on these observations, we propose that APA cleaves a small peptide which serves as a natural inhibitor of B cell precursor proliferation.     

Validity, structure, and content of the 1994 Strong Interest Inventory.

The relative contributions of the personal style scales, general occupational themes, and basic interest scales to the concurrent validity, predictive structure, and personality content of the 1994 Strong Interest Inventory were studied. Effect sizes were provided to indicate the overall differentiation between occupational groups for each of the 35 scales. An expected inverse relationship between the predictive power of each of the 3 sets of nonoccupational scales and their occupational specificity was found. Vocational measures of personality represented by the personal style scales and general occupational themes were found to be effective in a familiar hexagonal 2-dimensional space. Although the results supported the incremental validity of the personal style scales, the basic interest scales were found to deal most effectively with the multivariate complexity of vocational interests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using top-down CAD tools for mixed analog/digital ASICs: a practical design case

A mixed analog/digital ASIC from a real satellite application (a radiation detector front-end) has been designed, simulated and processed according to a hierarchical top-down design methodology. CAD tools (commercial and academic) have been used as much as possible. The top-down methodology is discussed and illustrated by going through the different steps of the ASIC design. At each level the differnt choices and tradeoffs are briefly discussed and practical difficulties of top-down design are pointed out. One of the most important problems in top-down mixed-signal ASIC design—modeling and verification—is highlighted and discussed in detail.research associate of the BeIgian National Fund of Scientific Research     

Porcine embryo development and fragmentation and their relation to apoptotic markers: a cinematographic and confocal laser scanning microscopic study

Porcine embryo selection prior to transfer is mainly influenced by morphological criteria. However, the relationship between embryonic morphology, developmental potential and cell death by apoptosis in porcine embryos is still unclear. The aim of this study was to establish embryo quality parameters for in vivo fertilised porcine embryos based on timing of development in vitro, embryo morphology and the presence of apoptosis. The kinetics of development and morphological parameters were investigated in a time-lapse cinematographic experiment. Possible links between embryo morphology and apoptosis were examined via a confocal laser scanning experiment, analysing nuclear changes, annexin V and terminal dUTP nick-end labelling. The timing of early cleavages was firmly linked to embryo developmental competence in vitro. Attainment of at least the 5-cell stage before 77 h post insemination and attainment of the morula stage before 102 h post insemination significantly increased the odds for reaching the early blastocyst stage. Overall, a negative effect of fragmentation percentage and fragmentation pattern on subsequent embryonic development was observed, but the developmental potential of embryos experiencing slight fragmentation (0-5%) was not different from embryos without fragmentation. Correlations detected between developmental arrest and fragmentation, and fragmentation and apoptosis were 0.60 and 0.87 (P < 0.05) respectively. Only a minority of the embryos arrested between the 1- and 4-cell stage displayed biochemical characteristics of apoptosis. Consequently, a significant correlation (0.57) between developmental arrest and apoptosis could only be established for embryos arrested after embryonic genome activation.     

Evolution of substrate noise generation mechanisms with CMOS technology scaling

Substrate noise is a major obstacle for single-chip integration of mixed-signal systems. To reduce this problem and to assess its evolution with CMOS technology scaling, the different mechanisms that generate substrate noise and their dependencies on different parameters need to be well understood. In this paper, we show that with downscaling of the technology, substrate noise due to supply coupling becomes the dominant coupling mechanism when the chip substrate is directly biased with the digital ground. With Kelvin ground substrate biasing on the other hand, source/drain capacitive coupling becomes the dominant coupling mechanism. Further, we show that with downscaling, the peak value of the supply coupling noise component becomes more dependent on the relative ratio of the switching capacitance to the nonswitching capacitance, which is formed by the circuit decoupling and the nonswitching circuit elements, rather than the Ldi/dt noise. These insights illustrated in a quantitative framework are believed to be very useful for the systematic use of digital low-noise design techniques in future CMOS technologies.