3D crank-nicolson finite difference time domain method for dispersive media

The unconditionally stable Crank-Nicolson finite difference time domain (CN-FDTD) method is extended to incorporate frequency-dependent media in three dimensions. A Gaussian-elimination-based direct sparse solver is used to deal with the large sparse matrix system arising from the formulation. Numerical results validate and confirm that the scheme is unconditionally stable for time steps over the Courant-Friedrich-Lewy limit of classical FDTD.     

Tuning of electronic states in self-assembled InAs quantum dots using an ion implantation technique

We report the tunability of up to 150 meV of the ground state transition of self-assembled InAs quantum dots (QDs) using Mn ion implantation and subsequent annealing. Because of the exciton localization in the quantum dots, the photoluminescence efficiency (T=12K) of the quantum dot transition remains at 80% of its original value after implantation with a Mn dose of 1×10¹³ cm⁻²ions. Strong luminescence still remains at room temperature. At a high implantation dose (1×10¹⁵ cm⁻²) and rapid thermal annealing (700°C for 60s) about 25% of the QD luminescence intensity is recovered at T=12K.     

An intrinsic order criterion to evaluate large, complex fault trees

A new efficient algorithm is introduced to evaluate (non) coherent fault trees, obtaining exact lower & upper bounds on system unavailability, with a prespecified maximum error. The algorithm is based on the canonical normal form of the Boolean function, but overcomes the large number of terms needed, by using an intrinsic order criterion (IOC) to select the elementary states to evaluate. This intrinsic order implies lexicographic (truth table) order. The criterion guarantees a priori that the probability of a given elementary system state is always greater than or equal to the probability of another state, for any set of basic probabilities. IOC is exclusively based on the positions of 0 & 1 in the binary n-tuples defining the elementary states. The algorithm does not require any qualitative analysis of the fault tree. The computational cost mainly depends on the basic event probabilities, and is related to system complexity, only because the Boolean function must be evaluated.     

Design optimization and characterization of high-gain GaInP/GaAsHBT distributed amplifiers for high-bit-rate telecommunication

The design methodology, processing technology, and characterization of high-gain GaInP/GaAs heterojunction-bipolar-transistor-based distributed amplifiers are described in this paper. Distributed amplifiers with different active cells and number of stages have been compared for high-gain (>12 dB) and high-bandwidth (>25 GHz) performance. Based on the results, a three-stage attenuation-compensated distributed amplifier with a flat gain (S₂₁) of 12.7 dB over a bandwidth of 27.5 GHz was successfully fabricated and tested. Eye-diagram tests at 10 Gb/s show very open eye characteristics with no signal skewing. The amplifier achieves a minimum noise figure of 4 dB at 3 GHz and a sensitivity of -25 dBm for 10-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero 2¹⁵-1 pseudorandom bit sequence with a bit error rate of 10^-9     

Dimming of High-Brightness LEDs by Means of Luminous Flux Thermal Estimation

Usually, pulsewidth modulation (PWM) operation is selected as the best dimming strategy to drive high-brightness LEDs. Nevertheless, to obtain an enhanced full linear dimming control of the device, the luminous flux should be measured. This paper proposes a control method based on an estimator of the luminous flux emitted by the LED. Based on the characterization of the LEDs, this estimator is defined. The estimator provides the flux value from only two temperature values (the case temperature and the ambient temperature). Once the estimator is validated, the electronic driver to supply the LEDs, as well as the digital control scheme, are presented. Such a control scheme is suitable for both AM and PWM dimming strategies. A prototype of the electronic driver has been built and tested, and experimental measurements of AM and PWM dimming are presented. It can be concluded that with the proposed estimator, the flux emitted by the LEDs can be accurately estimated. Thus, the output light control of the LEDs can be accomplished by sensing temperature rather than luminous flux. The final output characteristic of the system shows linearity between the output flux and the reference value, with AM as well as with PWM dimming of the LEDs.     

High efficiency coupling technique for planar photonic crystalwaveguides

A high efficiency coupling technique for photonic crystal waveguides is proposed. The technique is based on setting a single defect within a tapered photonic crystal waveguide. Simulation results show that the optimised scheme maximises the power transmission up to 87.5% at a wavelength of λ = 1.55 μm for a 0.5 μm-long photonic crystal taper     

Multiplexer model for RTL satisfiability using MILP

New approaches to the satisfiability problem (SAT) for register transfer level (RTL) designs combine arithmetic blocks with Boolean logic to form a mixed integer linear program (MILP). Two-to-one multiplexers with word-level inputs can be decomposed to logic gates, but it is more efficient to describe them in MILP constraints as arithmetic operators. Larger multiplexers are built using a multilevel selection tree. However, such an approach should be improved to optimise the overall efficiency in solving the SAT problem. Proposed is a new MILP model for multiplexers. Experimental results indicate a 50% decrease in the number of constraints and a reduction in MILP complexity from /spl Omega/(N/sup 2.4/) to /spl Omega/(N/sup 1.7/), measured in CPU time.     

Effect of constrained fast power control on cellular DS-CDMAsystems with base station diversity

An approach is presented for determining the effect of limiting the power transmitted by a mobile user in a cellular DS-CDMA system with fast power control under multipath fading. It is shown that the system capacity can be increased if very deep fades are not compensated     

Stabilizing TCP performance over bursty wireless links through the combined use of link-layer techniques

Improving TCP performance over wireless fidelity (WiFi) networks is recognized as a crucial issue, specially in those links prone to suffer from high bit error rate (BER) and bursty error losses. This paper shows how TCP throughput over a real IEEE 802.11b wireless local area network (WLAN) in a lossy office environment is stabilized by a combination of an adaptive forward error correction (FEC) scheme in conjunction with a Snoop agent, both added to the idle repeat request (RQ) mechanism inherently used by such technology. The most innovative aspects of this work are that these techniques operate simultaneously and they have been tested over a real scenario.