Sintering studies of nano-crystalline zinc oxide

Sintering and grain growth of nano-crystalline undoped ZnO has been studied in detail over a wide range of temperature and holding time. Below 800 °C, sintering of over 70% theoretical density is not observed, irrespective of particle size. At 900 °C for 6 h, the nano-crystalline sample sinters to 99% of theoretical density whereas the density for as received sample is 93% of theoretical density. However, at 1300 °C or higher, the densification is found to be much faster and after a few hours becomes independent of holding time. Grain growth studies reveal a similar feature of attaining saturation over holding time. The average saturated grain size is found to be ∼1.5 and ∼2.2 μm at 800 and 900 °C, respectively, while at 1300 °C or higher, it is in between 12 and 13 μm.     

Anhydrous esterification of myristic acid with propylene: Ion exchange resin and acid-treated clay as catalysts

Anhydrous esterification of myristic acid with propylene was carried out in the temperature range of 110–145°C and pressure from 190–195 psig in the presence of Amberlyst-15 (cation exchange resin) and Filtrol-24 (acid-treated clay) as catalysts. The product ester, isopropyl myristate finds use in cosmetic and topical medicinal preparations where good absorption through the skin is desired. Filtrol-24 is the catalyst of choice, and the recommended operating temperature is 130°C with a pressure of 190 psig.     

Comparative hall measurements on wet- and dry-oxidized 4H-SiC MOSFETs

Hall measurements have been used to compare the properties of 4H-SiC inversion-mode MOSFETs with “wet” and “dry” gate oxides. While the field-effect mobilities were approximately 3–5 cm²/Vs, the Hall mobilities in 4H-SiC MOSFETs in the wet and dry oxide samples were approximately 70–80 cm²/Vs. The dry-oxidized metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) had a higher transconductance, improved threshold voltage, improved subthreshold slope, and a higher inversion carrier concentration compared to the wet-oxidized MOSFETs. The difference in characteristics between the wet- and the dry-oxidized MOSFETs is attributed to the larger fixed oxide charge in the dry oxide sample and a higher interface trap density in the wet oxide sample.     

Network and device-level impacts: performance and reliability of active I/O storage systems

Distributed active storage architectures are designed to offload user-level processing to the peripheral from the host servers. In this paper, we report preliminary investigation on performance and fault recovery designs, as impacted by emerging storage interconnect protocols and state-of-the-art storage devices. Empirical results obtained using validated device-level and interconnect data demonstrate the significance of the said parameters on the overall system performance and reliability.     

Microarchitectures for Managing Chip Revenues under Process Variations

As transistor feature sizes continue to shrink intothe sub-90nm range and beyond, the effects of process variationson critical path delay and chip yields have amplified. A commonconcept to remedy the effects of variation is speed-binning, bywhich chips from a single batch are rated by a discrete range offrequencies and sold at different prices. In this paper, we discussstrategies to modify the number of chips in different bins andhence enhance the profits obtained from them. Particularly, wepropose a scheme that introduces a small Substitute Cacheassociated with each cache way to replicate the data elementsthat will be stored in the high latency lines. Assuming a fixedpricing model, this method increases the revenue by as much as13.8% without any impact on the performance of the chips.     

A unique method for reducing losses of bends in dielectric optical wave guide

The dielectric optical wave guide is finding growing attention at millimeter wave frequencies. However the dielectric optical waveguide radiates at bends and thus transmission loss increases. These radiations are in the outword direction of bends. This output radiation at output bends arises due to change in phase velocities of the propagating wave at the centre of the dielectric guide and the phase velocity at the outer surface of the dielectric guide. A unique methiod is suggested to avoid these radiation losses.Experimental results are also shown at microwave frequencies.     

High voltage 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes

Characteristics of 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes with breakdown voltages up to 1000 V are reported for the first time. The diodes showed excellent forward I-V characteristics, with a forward voltage drop of 1.06 V at an on-state current density of 100 A/cm². The specific on-resistance for these diodes was found to be low (2×10 ^-3 Ω-cm² at room temperature) and showed a T ^1.6 variation with temperature. Titanium Schottky barrier height was determined to be 0.99 eV independent of the temperature. The breakdown voltage of the diodes was found to decrease with temperature