Storage performance-metrics and benchmarks

The metrics and benchmarks used in storage performance evaluation are discussed. The technology trends taking place in storage systems, such as disk and tape evolution, disk arrays, and solid-state disks, are highlighted. The current popular I/O benchmarks are then described, reviewed, and run on three systems: a DECstation 5000/200 running the Sprite Operating System, a SPARCstation 1+ running SunOS, and an HP Series 700 (Model 730) running HP-UX. Two approaches to storage benchmarks-LADDIS and a self-scaling benchmark with predicted performance-are also described     

20-nm optical wavelength conversion using nondegenerate four-wavemixing

Wavelength conversion of optical signals over 20 nm is demonstrated using highly nondegenerate four-wave mixing in a semiconductor traveling-wave optical amplifier. This technique has the potential for extremely-high-speed operation and allows continuous tuning of both input and output wavelengths over the amplifier gain bandwidth. It is demonstrated that, even for such a large wavelength conversion range, it is possible to obtain conversion efficiencies in excess of -10 dB and high extinction ratios. The feasibility of the technique is demonstrated by system measurements at 622 Mb/s, showing a 1.1-dB power penalty at 10^-9 bit error rate (BER)     

1.3 μm InAsyP1-y-InPstrained-layer quantum-well laser diodes grown by metalorganic chemicalvapor deposition

The authors have fabricated 1.3-μm InAsP-InP separate-confinement-heterostructure (SCH) strained-layer double-quantum-well (SL-DQW) laser diodes (LDs) by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). A low threshold current density of 410 A/cm ² was obtained. The CW threshold current was as low as 1.8 mA at 20°C, and maximum CW operating temperature of 120°C was obtained. These characteristics are almost the same as those of well-designed GaInAsP-InP SL-QW LDs. Further improvement of the characteristics of InAsP-InP LDs is expected by optimizing the device structure     

The correlation of texture and magnetic properties in Co-Cr films

This investigation focuses on the correlation between the crystallographic orientation of grains with respect to magnetic properties in Co-Cr films. Based on a distribution measured for the (0002) crystallographic pole densities, modified formulae describing the texture were used to calculate the coercivity Hc, the squareness ratio Rs (Mr⊥/TMs) and the anisotropy field Ha for Co-Cr films. In general, calculated values for the coercive force He agreed well with the measured values. The calculated Rs⊥. values were much larger than the measured ones, however, indicating that the influence of the demagnetizing field and the magnetostriction on the orientation of the magnetization cannot be neglected. On leave from Institute of Computing Technology, Academia Sinica, P.O.Box 2704-6, Beijing, P.R. China.     

An easy-to-use mismatch model for the MOS transistor

In this paper, a physics-based mismatch model is presented. It is demonstrated on a 0.18-/spl mu/m technology that a simple mismatch model can still be used to characterize deep-submicron technologies. The accuracy of the model is examined and found to be within 20% in the strong inversion region. Bulk bias dependence is modeled in a physical way. To extract the mismatch parameters, a weighted fit is introduced. It is shown that the width and length dependence of the mismatch parameters is given by the Pelgrom model.     

A robust classification procedure based on mixture classifiers and nonparametric weighted feature extraction

There are many factors to consider in carrying out a hyperspectral data classification. Perhaps chief among them are class training sample size, dimensionality, and distribution separability. The intent of this study is to design a classification procedure that is robust and maximally effective, but which provides the analyst with significant assists, thus simplifying the analyst's task. The result is a quadratic mixture classifier based on Mixed-LOOC2 regularized discriminant analysis and nonparametric weighted feature extraction. This procedure has the advantage of providing improved classification accuracy compared to typical previous methods but requires minimal need to consider the factors mentioned above. Experimental results demonstrating these properties are presented.     

Characterization of residual information for SeaWinds quality control

Recent work has shown the important properties of the wind inversion residual or maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE) for quality Control (QC) of QuikSCAT Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) observations. Since March 2000, the QuikSCAT near-real-time (NRT) Binary Universal Format Representation (BUFR) product is available. As this product is used for numerical weather prediction (NWP) assimilation purposes, a QC procedure for the BUFR product is needed. We study the behavior of the MLE in order to determine whether the HDF QC procedure is appropriate for BUFR data. A comparison using real HDF and BUFR data reveals that the MLE distributions of HDF and BUFR differ and are actually poorly correlated. One important difference between BUFR and HDF is the amount of signal averaging prior to wind inversion. The averaging reduces the number of observations used in the wind retrieval for the BUFR product as compared to HDF. We show with a simple example that different MLE distributions are indeed expected due to this averaging. We also run a simulation in order to link theory and reality and better understand the behavior of the MLE. Despite the different MLE behavior in BUFR and HDF, the quality of the retrieved winds, as compared with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts winds, is very similar. We develop an MLE-based QC procedure for BUFR, similarly to the one in HDF, and we compare both. The skill of the QC in BUFR is again very similar to the one in HDF, showing that despite the different MLE behavior in both formats, the properties of the MLE as a QC indicator remain very similar.     

Capacity-achieving sequences for the erasure channel

This paper starts a systematic study of capacity-achieving (c.a.) sequences of low-density parity-check codes for the erasure channel. We introduce a class A of analytic functions and develop a procedure to obtain degree distributions for the codes. We show various properties of this class which help us to construct new distributions from old ones. We then study certain types of capacity-achieving sequences and introduce new measures for their optimality. For instance, it turns out that the right-regular sequence is c.a. in a much stronger sense than, e.g., the Tornado sequence. This also explains why numerical optimization techniques tend to favor graphs with only one degree of check nodes.     

Electromigration-induced damage in bamboo Al interconnects

Depletion and hillock formation were examined in-situ in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) during electromigration of bamboo Al interconnect segments. Hillocks formed directly at the anode ends of the segments by epitaxial addition of Al at the bottom Al/TiN interface. Depletion occurred nonuniformly from the cathode end and stopped once the distance between the leading void and the hillock reached the critical length for electromigration at the given current density. A modified equation for the drift velocity is proposed, which includes the effect of nonuniform depletion and predicts that interconnects with nonuniform depletion are more reliable than those with uniform depletion.     

On Series of Ordinals and Combinatorics

This paper deals mainly with generalizations of results in finitary combinatorics to infinite ordinals. It is well-known that for finite ordinals ∑_bT<αβ is the number of 2-element subsets of an α-element set. It is shown here that for any well-ordered set of arbitrary infinite order type α, ∑_bT<αβ is the ordinal of the set M of 2-element subsets, where M is ordered in some natural way. The result is then extended to evaluating the ordinal of the set of all n-element subsets for each natural number n ≥ 2. Moreover, series ∑_β<αf(β) are investigated and evaluated, where α is a limit ordinal and the function f belongs to a certain class of functions containing polynomials with natural number coefficients. The tools developed for this result can be extended to cover all infinite α, but the case of finite α appears to be quite problematic.