Customers increasingly expect products that are smaller, have improved functionality and reliabiltiy, and cost less. Minaturization and integration of mechanical, sensing, and control functions within confined spaces is becoming an important trend in designing new products in the automotive, biomedical, pharaceutical and telecommunications industries in particular.

The International Precision Assembly Seminar (IPAS) is a premier international forum for reporting and discussing key technological developments in the field of mini and micro assembly automation. The contributions to the 3rd IPAS'2006 seminar have been grouped into 6 sections. Part 1 deals with new techniques for the handling and feeding of micro parts. Micro-robotics and robot applications for micro assembly are discussed in Part 2. An overview of different design and planning applications for microassembly is provided in Part 3. Part 4 is dedicated to reconfigurable and modular micro assembly systems and control applications. The economic aspects of microassembly including new business models are discussed in Part 5 while Part 6 presents specific technical solutions and microassembly applications.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to integrated optical waveguides for information technology and data communications. Integrated coverage ranges from advanced materials, fabrication, and characterization techniques to guidelines for design and simulation. A concluding chapter offers perspectives on likely future trends and challenges. The dramatic scaling down of feature sizes has driven exponential improvements in semiconductor productivity and performance in the past several decades. However, with the potential of gigascale integration, size reduction is approaching a physical limitation due to the negative impact on resistance and inductance of metal interconnects with current copper-trace based technology. Integrated optics provides a potentially lower-cost, higher performance alternative to electronics in optical communication systems. Optical interconnects, in which light can be generated, guided, modulated, amplified, and detected, can provide greater bandwidth, lower power consumption, decreased interconnect delays, resistance to electromagnetic interference, and reduced crosstalk when integrated into standard electronic circuits. Integrated waveguide optics represents a truly multidisciplinary field of science and engineering, with continued growth requiring new developments in modeling, further advances in materials science, and innovations in integration platforms. In addition, the processing and fabrication of these new devices must be optimized in conjunction with the development of accurate and precise characterization and testing methods. Students and professionals in materials science and engineering will find "Advanced Materials for Integrated Optical Waveguides" to be an invaluable reference for meeting these research and development goals.

In three main divisions the book covers combinational circuits, latches, and asynchronous sequential circuits. Combinational circuits have no memorising ability, while sequential circuits have such an ability to various degrees. Latches are the simplest sequential circuits, ones with the shortest memory. The presentation is decidedly non-standard. The design of combinational circuits is discussed in an orthodox manner using normal forms and in an unorthodox manner using set-theoretical evaluation formulas relying heavily on Karnaugh maps. The latter approach allows for a new design technique called composition. Latches are covered very extensively. Their memory functions are expressed mathematically in a time-independent manner allowing the use of (normal, non-temporal) Boolean logic in their calculation. The theory of latches is then used as the basis for calculating asynchronous circuits. Asynchronous circuits are specified in a tree-representation, each internal node of the tree representing an internal latch of the circuit, the latches specified by the tree itself. The tree specification allows solutions of formidable problems such as algorithmic state assignment, finding equivalent states non-recursively, and verifying asynchronous circuits.

H-infinity engineering continues to establish itself as a discipline of applied mathematics. As such, this extensively illustrated monograph makes a significant application of H-infinity theory to electronic amplifier design, demonstrating how recent developments in H-infinity engineering equip amplifier designers with new tools and avenues for research.

The presentation, at the interface of applied mathematics and engineering, emphasizes how to (1) compute the best possible performance available from any matching circuits; (2) benchmark existing matching solutions; and (3) generalize results to multiple amplifiers. As the monograph develops, many research directions are pointed out for both disciplines. The physical meaning of a mathematical problem is made explicit for the mathematician, while circuit problems are presented in the H-infinity framework for the engineer. A final chapter organizes these research topics into a collection of open problems ranging from electrical engineering, numerical implementations, and generalizations to H-infinity theory.

The exponential growth of the number of internet nodes has suddenly created a widespread demand for high-speed optical and electronic devices, circuits, and systems. The new optical revolution has replaced modular, general-purpose building blocks by end-to-end solutions. Greater levels of integration on a single chip enable higher performance and lower cost. The mainstream VLSI technologies such as BiCmos and CMOS continue to take over the territories thus far claimed by GaAs and InP devices. This calls for an up-to-date book describing the design of high-speed electronic circuits for optical communication using modern techniques in a low-cost CMOS process. High-Speed CMOS Circuits for Optical Receivers covers the design of the world's first and second 10 Gb/s clock and data recovery circuits fabricated in a pure CMOS process. The second prototype meets some of the critical requirements recommended by the SONET OC-192 standard. The clock and data recovery circuits consume a power several times lower than in prototypes built in other fabrication processes. High-Speed CMOS Circuits for Optical Receivers describes novel techniques for implementation of such high-speed, high-performance circuits in a pure CMOS process. High-Speed CMOS Circuits for Optical Receivers is written for researchers and students interested in high-speed and mixed-mode circuit design with focus on CMOS circuit techniques. Designers working on various high-speed circuit projects for data communication, including optical com., giga bit ethernet will also find it of interest.

This volume starts with a description of the metrics and benchmarks used to design energy-efficient microprocessor systems, followed by energy-efficient methodologies for the architecture and circuit design, DC-DC conversion, energy-efficient software and system integration.

Multicore Processors and Systems provides a comprehensive overview of emerging multicore processors and systems. It covers technology trends affecting multicores, multicore architecture innovations, multicore software innovations, and case studies of state-of-the-art commercial multicore systems. A cross-cutting theme of the book is the challenges associated with scaling up multicore systems to hundreds of cores.

The book provides an overview of significant developments in the architectures for multicore processors and systems. It includes chapters on fundamental requirements for multicore systems, including processing, memory systems, and interconnect. It also includes several case studies on commercial multicore systems that have recently been developed and deployed across multiple application domains. The architecture chapters focus on innovative multicore execution models as well as infrastructure for multicores, including memory systems and on-chip interconnections. The case studies examine multicore implementations across different application domains, including general purpose, server, media/broadband, network processing, and signal processing.

Multicore Processors and Systems is the first book that focuses solely on multicore processors and systems, and in particular on the unique technology implications, architectures, and implementations. The book has contributing authors that are from both the academic and industrial communities.

This book presents new methods of circuit design for guitar electronics, based directly upon U.S. Non-Provisional Patent Applications. By systematic construction of unique series-parallel circuit topologies, the author shows how many series-parallel circuits are possible, including non-matched single-coil pickups, humbucking pickups, and humbucking combinations of matched single-coil pickups. This allows designers to avoid unnecessary and confusing duplicate circuits in pickup switching systems. It shows how electromechanical switches cannot produce the maximum number of tones for more than 2 or 3 pickups. Thus the author discloses an efficient micro-controller and cross-point switch architecture to replace mechanical switches, and allow access to the maximum number of tones. The discussion continues, developing humbucking circuits for odd numbers of matched single-coil pickups, extendable to any odd or even number, greater than 1, using a simplified switching system with very simple rules. It abandons some tones in favor of producing all-humbucking and unique tones, no matter what the switching choice. The author discloses both mechanical and digital switching versions. Then, based on using humbucking basis vectors, the author discloses variable-gain circuits that duplicate all possible switched humbucking tone circuits, and produces all the continuous tone gradations in between. The presentation includes analog and digitally controlled systems. The object of all the disclosures: give the guitarist or pianist a system which allows going from bright to warm tones and back, without ever needing to know which pickups are used in what combination.

This text, the first of its kind, delivers a systematically organized introduction to the theory and practice of yield prediction. The book addresses the economic need for accurate yield prediction, and clarifies the important role it plays in the semiconductor industry.

This book describes for readers a methodology for dynamic power estimation, using Transaction Level Modeling (TLM). The methodology exploits the existing tools for RTL simulation, design synthesis and SystemC prototyping to provide fast and accurate power estimation using Transaction Level Power Modeling (TLPM). Readers will benefit from this innovative way of evaluating power on a high level of abstraction, at an early stage of the product life cycle, decreasing the number of the expensive design iterations.

This book deals with energy delivery challenges of the power processing unit of modern computer microprocessors. It describes in detail the consequences of current trends in miniaturization and clock frequency increase, upon the power delivery unit, referred to as voltage regulator. This is an invaluable reference for anybody needing to understand the key performance limitations and opportunities for improvement, from both a circuit and systems perspective, of state-of-the-art power solutions for next generation CPUs.

Based on the author's real-world design experience in this key emerging area, this comprehensive guide examines and compares all major RF power amplifier linearization techniques in detail. Featuring practical tips, more than 250 illustrations, and over 600 verified equations, the book seeks to save the reader valuable design time whilst helping them avoid costly design errors. It covers the modelling and measurement of amplifier non-linearity, and describes the main methods for overcoming non-linearity in a wide range of applications, including: base stations using feedforward and predistortion; mobile communications systems and handsets using RF or digital predistortion, cartesian loop, LINC and envelope elimination and restoration (EECR); and satellite systems.

Digital signal processing (DSP) covers a wide range of applications such as signal acquisition, analysis, transmission, storage, and synthesis. Special attention is needed for the VLSI (very large scale integration) implementation of high performance DSP systems with examples from video and radar applications. This book provides basic architectures for VLSI implementations of DSP tasks covering architectures for application specific circuits and programmable DSP circuits. It fills an important gap in the literature by focusing on the transition from algorithms specification to architectures for VLSI implementations. Areas covered include:

• architectures for basic operations and elementary functions
• parallel processing and pipelining
• application specific array processors
• programmable digital signal processors

This consistently written book provides a comprehensive presentation of a multitude of results stemming from the author's as well as various researchers' work in the field. It also covers functional decomposition for incompletely specified functions, decomposition for multi-output functions and non-disjoint decomposition.

Neurobiology research suggests that information can be represented by the location of an activity spot in a population of cells (place coding'), and that this information can be processed by means of networks of interconnections. Place Coding in Analog VLSI defines a representation convention of similar flavor intended for analog-integrated circuit design. It investigates its properties and suggests ways to build circuits on the basis of this coding scheme. In this electronic version of place coding, numbers are represented by the state of an array of nodes called a map, and computation is carried out by a network of links. In the simplest case, a link is just a wire connecting a node of an input map to a node of an output map. In other cases, a link is an elementary circuit cell. Networks of links are somewhat reminiscent of look-up tables in that they hardwire an arbitrary function of one or several variables. Interestingly, these structures are also related to fuzzy rules, as well as some types of artificial neural networks. The place coding approach provides several substantial benefits over conventional analog design: Networks of links can be synthesized by a simple procedure whatever the function to be computed. Place coding is tolerant to perturbations and noise in current-mode implementations. Tolerance to noise implies that the fundamental power dissipation limits of conventional analog circuits can be overcome by using place coding. The place coding approach is illustrated by three integrated circuits computing non-linear functions of several variables. The simplest one is made up of 80 links and achieves submicrowatt power consumption in continuous operation. The most complex one incorporates about 1800 links for a power consumption of 6 milliwatts, and controls the operation of an active vision system with a moving field of view. Place Coding in Analog VLSI is primarily intended for researchers and practicing engineers involved in analog and digital hardware design (especially bio-inspired circuits). The book is also a valuable reference for researchers and students in neurobiology, neuroscience, robotics, fuzzy logic and fuzzy control.

Emerging Memories: Technologies and Trends attempts to provide background and a description of the basic technology, function and properties of emerging as well as discussing potentially suitable applications.
This book explores a range of new memory products and technologies. The concept for some of these memories has been around for years. A few completely new. Some involve materials that have been in volume production in other type of devices for some time. Ferro-electrics, for example, have been used in capacitors for more than 30 years. In addition to looking at using known devices and materials in novel ways, there are new technologies being investigated such as DNA memories, light memories, molecular memories, and carbon nanotube memories, as well as the new polymer memories which hold the potential for the significant manufacturing reduction.
Emerging Memories: Technologies and Trends is a useful reference for the professional engineer in the semiconductor industry.

This book discusses the trade-offs involved in designing direct RF digitization receivers for the radio frequency and digital signal processing domains. A system-level framework is developed, quantifying the relevant impairments of the signal processing chain, through a comprehensive system-level analysis. Special focus is given to noise analysis (thermal noise, quantization noise, saturation noise, signal-dependent noise), broadband non-linear distortion analysis, including the impact of the sampling strategy (low-pass, band-pass), analysis of time-interleaved ADC channel mismatches, sampling clock purity and digital channel selection. The system-level framework described is applied to the design of a cable multi-channel RF direct digitization receiver. An optimum RF signal conditioning, and some algorithms (automatic gain control loop, RF front-end amplitude equalization control loop) are used to relax the requirements of a 2.7GHz 11-bit ADC.
A two-chip implementation is presented, using BiCMOS and 65nm CMOS processes, together with the block and system-level measurement results. Readers will benefit from the techniques presented, which are highly competitive, both in terms of cost and RF performance, while drastically reducing power consumption.
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One of the main trends of microelectronics is toward design for integrated systems, i.e., system-on-a-chip (SoC) or system-on-silicon (SoS). Due to this development, design techniques for mixed-signal circuits become more important than before. Among other devices, analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters are the two bridges between the analog and the digital worlds. Besides, low-power design technique is one of the main issues for embedded systems, especially for hand-held applications.

Modular Low-Power, High-Speed CMOS Analog-to-Digital Converter for Embedded Systems aims at design techniques for low-power, high-speed analog-to-digital converter processed by the standard CMOS technology. Additionally this book covers physical integration issues of A/D converter integrated in SoC, i.e., substrate crosstalk and reference voltage network design.

Innovations and Advanced Techniques in Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering includes a set of rigorously reviewed world-class manuscripts addressing and detailing state-of-the-art research projects in the areas of Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Information Sciences.

Innovations and Advanced Techniques in Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering includes selected papers form the conference proceedings of the International Conference on Systems, Computing Sciences and Software Engineering (SCSS 2006) which was part of the International Joint Conferences on Computer, Information and Systems Sciences and Engineering (CISSE 2006).

All aspects of the conference were managed on-line; not only the reviewing, submissions and registration processes; but also the actual conference. Conference participants - authors, presenters and attendees - only needed an internet connection and sound available on their computers in order to be able to contribute and participate in this international ground-breaking conference. The on-line structure of this high-quality event allowed academic professionals and industry participants to contribute work and attend world-class technical presentations based on rigorously refereed submissions, live, without the need for investing significant travel funds or time out of the office. Suffice to say that CISSE received submissions from more than 70 countries, for whose researchers, this opportunity presented a much more affordable, dynamic and well-planned event to attend and submit their work to, versus a classic, on-the-ground conference.

The CISSE conference audio room provided superb audio even over low speed internet connections, the ability to display PowerPoint presentations, and cross-platform compatibility (the conferencing software runs on Windows, Mac, and any other operating system that supports Java). In addition, the conferencing system allowed for an unlimited number of participants, which in turn granted CISSE the opportunity to allow all participants to attend all presentations, as opposed to limiting the number of available seats for each session.

Harmonic Modeling of Voltage Source Converters using Basic Numerical Methods One of the first books to bridge the gap between frequency domain and time-domain methods of steady-state modeling of power electronic converters Harmonic Modeling of Voltage Source Converters using Basic Numerical Methods presents detailed coverage of steady-state modeling of power electronic devices (PEDs). This authoritative resource describes both large-signal and small-signal modeling of power converters and how some of the simple and commonly used numerical methods can be applied for harmonic analysis and modeling of power converter systems. The book covers a variety of power converters including DC-DC converters, diode bridge rectifiers (AC-DC), and voltage source converters (DC-AC). The authors provide in-depth guidance on modeling and simulating power converter systems. Detailed chapters contain relevant theory, practical examples, clear illustrations, sample Python and MATLAB codes, and validation enabling readers to build their own harmonic models for various PEDs and integrate them with existing power flow programs such as OpenDss. This book: Presents comprehensive large-signal and small-signal harmonic modeling of voltage source converters with various topologies Describes how to use accurate steady-state models of PEDs to predict how device harmonics will interact with the rest of the power system Explains the definitions of harmonics, power quality indices, and steady-state analysis of power systems Covers generalized steady-state modeling techniques, and accelerated methods for closed-loop converters Shows how the presented models can be combined with neural networks for power system parameter estimations Harmonic Modeling of Voltage Source Converters using Basic Numerical Methods is an indispensable reference and guide for researchers and graduate students involved in power quality and harmonic analysis, power engineers working in the field of harmonic power flow, developers of power simulation software, and academics and power industry professionals wanting to learn about harmonic modeling on power converters.

The modern wireless communication industry has put great demands on circuit designers for smaller, cheaper transceivers in the gigahertz frequency range. One tool which has assisted designers in satisfying these requirements is the use of on-chip inductiveelements (inductors and transformers) in silicon (Si) radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuits (ICs). These elements allow greatly improved levels of performance in Si monolithic low-noise amplifiers, power amplifiers, up-conversion and down-conversion mixers and local oscillators. Inductors can be used to improve the intermodulation distortion performance and noise figure of small-signal amplifiers and mixers. In addition, the gain of amplifier stages can be enhanced and the realization of low-cost on-chip local oscillators with good phase noise characteristics is made feasible. In order to reap these benefits, it is essential that the IC designer be able to predict and optimize the characteristics of on-chip inductiveelements. Accurate knowledge of inductance values, quality factor (Q) and the influence of ad- cent elements (on-chip proximity effects) and substrate losses is essential. In this book the analysis, modeling and application of on-chip inductive elements is considered. Using analyses based on Maxwells equations, an accurate and efficient technique is developed to model these elements over a wide frequency range. Energy loss to the conductive substrate is modeled through several mechanisms, including electrically induced displacement and conductive c- rents and by magnetically induced eddy currents. These techniques have been compiled in a user-friendly software tool ASITIC (Analysis and Simulation of Inductors and Transformers for Integrated Circuits).

"Long Wave Polar Modes in Semiconductor Heterostructures" is concerned with the study of polar optical modes in semiconductor heterostructures from a phenomenological approach and aims to simplify the model of lattice dynamics calculations. The book provides useful tools for performing calculations relevant to anyone who might be interested in practical applications.

The main focus of "Long Wave Polar Modes in Semiconductor Heterostructures" is planar heterostructures (quantum wells or barriers, superlattices, double barrier structures etc) but there is also discussion on the growing field of quantum wires and dots. Also to allow anyone reading the book to apply the techniques discussed for planar heterostructures, the scope has been widened to include cylindrical and spherical geometries.

The book is intended as an introductory text which guides the reader through basic questions and expands to cover state-of-the-art professional topics. The book is relevant to experimentalists wanting an instructive presentation of a simple phenomenological model and theoretical tools to work with and also to young theoreticians by providing discussion of basic issues and the basis of advanced theoretical formulations. The book also provides a brief respite on the physics of piezoelectric waves as a coupling to polar optical modes.

Yield and reliability of memories have degraded with device and voltage scaling in the nano-scale era, due to ever-increasing hard/soft errors and device parameter variations. This book systematically describes these yield and reliability issues in terms of mathematics and engineering, as well as an array of repair techniques, based on the authors' long careers in developing memories and low-voltage CMOS circuits. Nanoscale Memory Repair gives a detailed explanation of the various yield models and calculations, as well as various, practical logic and circuits that are critical for higher yield and reliability.

nalog circuits are fascinating artifacts. They manipulate signals whose informa- Ationcontentisrichcomparedtodigitalsignalsthatcarryminimalamountofinf- mation;theyaredelicateinthatanyperturbationduetoparasiticelements, todelays, to interactionswithotherelementsandwiththeenvironmentmaycauseasigni?cantloss ofinformation. Thedif?cultyindealingwiththeseartifactsistoprotectthemfromall possibleattacks, evenminorones, fromthephysicalworld. Theironyisthattheyare oftenusedtofunnelinformationfromandtothephysicalworldtoandfromtheabstr- tionofthedigitalworldandforthisfunction, theyareirreplaceable. Nowonderthen that analog designers form a club of extraordinary gentlemen where art (or magic?) ratherthanscienceisthesharedtrade. Theyaredif?culttotrainsinceexperienceand intuitionarethetraitsthat characterize them. Andthey have dif?cultiesinexplaining what is the process they use to reach satisfactory results. Tools used for design (s- ulation) are mainly replacing the test benches of an experimental lab. However, the growing complexity of the integrated systems being designed today together with the increasing fragility of analog components brought about by shrinking geometries and reducedpowerconsumptionisposingseverechallengestotraditionalanalogdesigners to produce satisfactory results in a short time. At the same time, the need for expe- enced analog designers has increased constantly since almost all designs, because of integration, docontainanalogcomponents. Thissituationhascreatedastronginterest in developing design methodologies and supporting tools that are based on rigorous, mathematically literate, approaches. Doing so will make it possible to leverage the expertiseofseasonedanalogdesignersandtotrainnewgenerationsfasterandbetter. Inthepast, severalattemptshavebeenmadeinacademia andindustrytocreatethese methodologies and to extend the set of tools available. They have had questionable acceptance in the analog design community. However, recently, a ?urry of start-ups andincreasedinvestmentbyEDAcompaniesinnoveltoolssignalasigni?cantchange inmarketattentiontotheanalogdomain. Ipersonallybelievethattosubstantially- prove quality and design time, tools are simply insuf?cient. A design methodology based on a hierarchy of abstraction layers, successive re?nement between two ad- cent layers, and extensive veri?cation at every layer is necessary. To do so, we need to build theories and models that have strong mathematical foundations. The analog design technology community is as strong as it has ever be