Needle Variations and Almost Lower Semicontinuous Differential Inclusions

It is shown that the construction of needle variations can be carried out for almost lower semicontinuous differential inclusions rather than for the case of ordinary single-valued continuously differentiable vector fields usually considered in the literature. The construction leads to needle variations whose flows are in general set-valued but still have good differentiability properties. The variations are constructed by using single-valued selections that are not necessarily continuous with respect to the state variable, but have instead a much weaker 'integral continuity' property, somewhat more general that the 'directional continuity' considered in previous work by A. Cambini and S. Querci, A. Pucci, and A. Bressan. The existence of many such selections is proved by slightly adapting an argument due to Bressan, extending it from the lower semicontinuous to the almost lower semicontinuous case, and strengthening it to yield not only directional continuity at all points but also full continuity at a specified point.     

Novel bipolar differential input/output current-controlled current source

A new bipolar differential input/output current-controlled current source (CCCS) is described. The basic cell consists of a translinear array of six transistors with two bipolar inputs, and is suited for the input stage of a differential current-mode operational amplifier.     

Galactic model of element formation

A cosmological model is presented that produces He, C, O, D, Li, Be, and B in their observed abundances without a Big Bang. The elements are produced during the 1.5-Gy formation period of a galaxy, with C, O, and other heavy elements produced by stars of M>12 M₃ , He by stars of 6 M_s<M<12 M_s, and D, Li, Be, and B by cosmic-ray reactions in a nearly pure H plasma halo. Thus, the model shows that the major elements used in astrophysical studies can be produced during galactic formation by exactly the same processes known to function today at much lower rates     

A VLSI CMOS delay oriented waveform converter for polyphasefrequency synthesizer

In this paper, we present a waveform converter implemented on a 0.25-μm CMOS technology using a dedicated design methodology (Delay Oriented Design). The circuit converts a square wave signal in both in-phase and quadrature-phase sinusoidal differential outputs. It also multiplies the frequency by seven. The output frequency range of this converter extends from 1.05 GHz up to 2.17 GHz. This converter is dedicated for the design of a third-generation mobile phone synthesizer using a double-loop architecture. For an output frequency of 2 GHz, the measured phase noise at 10-kHz offset from the carrier is -97 dBc/Hz. The circuit consumes 50 mW from a 2.5-V supply     

Self-broadening in the millimeter-wave spectrum of ozone

Self broadened widths of seven lines of ozone between 75 and 120 GHz have been measured at room temperature. The variation with temperature of the self-broadening parameter for three of these lines has been studied in the range 245–292°K.     

Neural-style microsystems that learn

The basic operation of biological and electronic (artificial) neural networks (NNs) is examined. Learning by NNs is discussed, covering supervised learning, particularly back-propagation, and unsupervised and reinforcement learning. The use of VLSI implementation to speed learning is considered briefly. Applications of neural-style learning chips to pattern recognition, data compression, optimization, and expert systems is discussed. Problem areas and issues for further research are addressed     

Gigabit pulse position bistability in semiconductor lasers

The paper briefly reviews the major forms of optical bistability in active optical devices compatible for use in gigabit optical communication systems, and reports an entirely new optical bistability for the first time. Unlike previous devices, the two bistable states of the optical device are each a series of picosecond optical pulses at 1 GHz or greater repetition rates, and are distinguished by a half period temporal shift between their temporal positions in relation to a clock pulse. The bistable device is based on a gain switched semiconductor laser. Theoretical studies suggest 100-ps switching speeds might be achieved, and experimental results are reported indicating optically triggered switching times of 500 ps.     

A design model for surface-termination optimization of off-statesemiconductor devices

An optimization design model for surface termination of off-state semiconductor devices under reverse-bias conditions is presented. The multivariable design model is used to optimize the surface profile shapes for nonplanar devices and the doping profiles of material regions along the surface for planar devices. The effectiveness of the design model in reducing the peak surface electric field to below 50% of the bulk value is demonstrated for two examples of each type of device     

A Graphene Field-Effect Device

In this letter, a top-gated field-effect device (FED) manufactured from monolayer graphene is investigated. Except for graphene deposition, a conventional top-down CMOS-compatible process flow is applied. Carrier mobilities in graphene pseudo-MOS structures are compared to those obtained from the top-gated Graphene-FEDs. The extracted values exceed the universal mobility of silicon and silicon-on-insulator MOSFETs