A Binary Decision Diagram based on-line testing of digital VLSI circuits for feedback bridging faults

Classical manufacturing test verifies that a circuit is fault free during fabrication, however, cannot detect any fault that occurs after deployment or during operation. As complexity of integration rises, frequency of such failures is increasing for which on-line testing (OLT) is becoming an essential part in design for testability. In majority of the works on OLT, single stuck at fault model is considered. However in modern integration technology, single stuck at fault model can capture only a small fraction of real defects and as a remedy, advanced fault models such as bridging faults, transition faults, delay faults, etc. are now being considered. In this paper we concentrate on bridging faults for OLT. The reported works on OLT using bridging fault model have considered non-feedback faults only. The basic idea is, as feedback bridging faults may cause oscillations, detecting them on-line using logic testing is difficult. However, not all feedback bridging faults create oscillations and even if some does, there are test patterns for which the fault effect is manifested logically. In this paper it is shown that the number of such cases is not insignificant and discarding them impacts OLT in terms of fault coverage and detection latency. The present work aims at developing an OLT scheme for bridging faults including the feedback bridging faults also, that can be detected using logic test patterns. The proposed scheme is based on Binary Decision Diagrams, which enables it to handle fairly large circuits. Results on ISCAS 89 benchmarks illustrate that consideration of feedback bridging faults along with non-feedback ones improves fault coverage, however, increase in area overhead is marginal, compared to schemes only involving non-feedback faults.     

Modification of cellulose acetate nanofibers with PVP/Ag addition

In this work cellulose acetate (CA) nanostructures were synthesized using electrospinning process. Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were synthesized using silver nitrate as the starting precursor, ethanol as solvent and polyvinyl pyrolydone (PVP) as capping agent. The Ag NPs were added to the cellulose acetate (CA) nanostructures before and after CA electrospinning. The obtained CA and Ag-CA composite were characterized by various techniques such as, Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Raman Spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). It was found that Ag NPs can be effectively coated on or embedded into the electrospun CA and the PVP can lead to noticeable change in morphology and structure.     

Benzoyl side-chains push the open-circuit voltage of PCDTBT/PCBM solar cells beyond 1 V

The synthesis, characterization and solar cell performance of PCDTBT and its highly soluble analogue hexyl-PCDTBT with cross-conjugated benzoyl moieties at the carbazole comonomer are presented. Through the use of both model reactions and time-controlled microwave-assisted Suzuki polycondensation, the base-induced cleavage of the benzoyl group from the polymer backbone has been successfully suppressed. Compared to the commonly used symmetrically branched alkyl motif, the benzoyl substituent lowers the energy levels of PCDTBT as well as the band gap, and consequently increases energy of the charge transfer state in blends with PC₇₁BM. As a result, photovoltaic diodes with high-open circuit voltage of above 1 V are realized.     

Magneto-optical behaviors at a 2-D ferromagnetic/organic semiconductor interface for singlet fission

This article reports the magneto-optical effects on the singlet fission of the p-type organic semiconductor, tetracene, from a ferromagnetic/semiconductor interface between thin films of cobalt and tetracene. We experimentally show that this interface has two effects on the thin films of tetracene: spin interactions and electrical polarization. The experimental tools used to study the interface include magnetic field effect photoluminescence (MFE_PL), photoluminescence and absorption. Spin interaction effects are shown by MFE_PL data, where we observe a large increase in the maximum MFE_PL when cobalt is introduced, as well as changes in the hyperfine interactions at low magnetic fields. Electrical polarization is analyzed with photoluminescence and absorption measurements, showing small changes in the energy difference between the HOMO and LUMO levels of tetracene, as well as an increase in the electron-phonon coupling in tetracene. Also, electrical polarization is shown to increase electrical interactions between tetracene molecules. Therefore, we conclude that using spin interactions and electrical polarization from the ferromagnetic/organic semiconductor interface can tune the properties of tetracene, ultimately enhancing singlet fission. This work gives new insight to understand the singlet fission process using a ferromagnetic interface. These changes can be further utilized in photovoltaic applications based on this singlet fission material and be applied to other similar types of singlet fission organic semiconductors.     

Spiro-fused N-phenylcarbazole-based host materials for blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes

Two host materials, SFCA and SFCC, consist of a diphenylamine or carbazole unit linking to spiro-fused phenyl carbazole (SFC) backbone, were designed and synthesized. By choosing the meta linkage way between diphenylamine/carbazole units and SFC ring, higher triplet energies could be easily achieved for the two new materials, which mean that they could be used as effective host material for popular blue phosphorescent material Iridium(III) bis[(4,6-difluorophenyl)pyridinato-N,C^2′] picolinate (FIrpic, E_T = 2.65). Besides that, the steric SFC structure could guarantee their good thermal stabilities. Their thermal, photophysical and electroluminescent properties were systematically investigated. The blue phosphorescent OLEDs with the two materials as hosts and FIrpic as a dopant exhibited excellent performance with maximum current efficiencies of 33.9 and 40.8 cd/A, respectively.     

Spray coating methods for polymer solar cells fabrication: A review

The main focus of this review article is the introduction of relevant parameters in spray coating processes to provide better understanding on controlling the morphology of spray coated thin films for producing high performance polymer solar cells (PSC). Three main parameters have been identified as major influences on the spray coating processes. These are nozzle to substrate distance, solvent and mixed solvents effects, and substrate temperature and annealing treatment. Such spray coating techniques show great potential for large scale production, since these methods have no limitation in substrate size and low utilization of polymers which is promising to substitute the conventional spin coating methods. Currently available printing and coating methods are also briefly discussed in this review.     

3D model retrieval by sample based alignment

In 3D model retrieval, preprocessing of 3D models is needed, in which alignment is a key factor that significantly affects retrieval performance. In particular, the anti-rotation image feature can obtain the alignment effect of 3D model views. In practice, the focus of many users of 3D models is not just on retrieval performance, but the use of aligned models for different purposes. In this paper, we propose a method, namely Sample Based Alignment (SBA) for better 3D model alignment and retrieval. In SBA, given a class, a sample model is used as the target for alignment, after which each 3D model in this class is then aligned one by one, i.e., the 3D model is actually rotated. Our experimental results, based on two 3D model datasets and performance comparisons with other methods, demonstrate the superiority of the SBA method over state-of-the-art methods in terms of 3D model retrieval and classification.     

Encoding true-color images with a limited palette via soft vector clustering as an instance of dithering multidimensional signals

One of the classic problems of digital image processing is to encode true-color images for the optimal viewing on displays with a limited set of colors. A major manifestation of optimal viewing in this regard is to maximally remove parasitic artifacts in the degraded encoded images such as the contouring effect. Several robust attempts have been made to solve this problem over the past 50 years, and the first contribution of this paper is to introduce a simple – yet effective – novel solution that is based on soft vector clustering.The other contribution of this paper is to propose the application of the soft clustering methodology deployed in our color-encoding solution for the dithering of multidimensional signals. Dithering essentially adds controlled noise to the analog signal upon its digitization so that the resulting quantization noise is dispersed over a much wider band of the frequency domain and is therefore less perceptible in the digitized signal. This comes of course at the price of more overall quantization noise. Dithering is a vital operation that is performed via well-known simple schemes upon the analog-to-digital conversion of one-dimensional signals; however, the published literature is still missing a general neat scheme for the dithering of multidimensional signals that is able to handle arbitrary dimensionality, arbitrary number and distribution of quantization centroids, and with computable and controllable noise power. This gap is also filled by this paper.