The general trend of modern network devices towards greater intelligence and programmability is accelerating the development of systems that are increasingly autonomous and to a certain degree self-managing. Examples range from router scripting environments to fully programmable server blades. This has opened up a new field of computer science research, reflected in this new volume. This selection of contributions to the first ever international workshop on network-embedded management applications (NEMA) features six papers selected from submissions to the workshop, held in October 2010 at Niagara Falls, Canada. They represent a wide cross-section of the current work in this vital field of inquiry. Covering a diversity of perspectives, the volume's dual structure first of all examines the 'enablers' for NEMAs-the platforms, frameworks, and development environments which facilitate the evolution of network-embedded management and applications. The second section of the book covers network-embedded applications that might both empower and benefit from such enabling platforms. These papers cover topics ranging from deciding where to best place management control functions inside a network to a discussion of how multi-core hardware processors can be leveraged for traffic filtering applications. The section concludes with an analysis of a delay-tolerant network application in the context of the 'One Laptop per Child' program. There is a growing recognition that it is vital to make network operation and administration as easy as possible to contain operational expenses and cope with ever shorter control cycles. This volume provides researchers in the field with the very latest in current thinking.

This book describes several methods and systems solving one of the highlighted problems within computer aided design, namely architectural and logic synthesis. The book emphasises the most recent technologies in high level synthesis, concentrating on applicative studies and practical constraints or criteria during synthesis. Logic and Architecture Synthesis concentrates on the practical problems involving automatic synthesis of designs. It is essential reading for researchers and CAD Managers working in this area.

This book provides a comprehensive set of optimization and prediction techniques for an enterprise information system. Readers with a background in operations research, system engineering, statistics, or data analytics can use this book as a reference to derive insight from data and use this knowledge as guidance for production management. The authors identify the key challenges in enterprise information management and present results that have emerged from leading-edge research in this domain. Coverage includes topics ranging from task scheduling and resource allocation, to workflow optimization, process time and status prediction, order admission policies optimization, and enterprise service-level performance analysis and prediction. With its emphasis on the above topics, this book provides an in-depth look at enterprise information management solutions that are needed for greater automation and reconfigurability-based fault tolerance, as well as to obtain data-driven recommendations for effective decision-making.

Embedded systems are characterized by the presence of processors running application-specific software. Recent years have seen a large growth of such systems, and this trend is projected to continue with the growth of systems on a chip. Many of these systems have strict performance and cost requirements. To design these systems, sophisticated timing analysis tools are needed to accurately determine the extreme case (best case and worst case) performance of the software components. Existing techniques for this analysis have one or more of the following limitations: they cannot model complicated programs they cannot model advanced micro-architectural features of the processor, such as cache memories and pipelines they cannot be easily retargeted for new hardware platforms. In Performance Analysis of Real-Time Embedded Software, a new timing analysis technique is presented to overcome the above limitations. The technique determines the bounds on the extreme case (best case and worst case) execution time of a program when running on a given hardware system. It partitions the problem into two sub-problems: program path analysis and microarchitecture modeling. Performance Analysis of Real-Time Embedded Software will be of interest to Design Automation professionals as well as designers of circuits and systems.

This text is about methods used for the computer simulation of analog systems. It concentrates on electronic applications, but many of the methods are applicable to other engineering problems as well. This revised edition (1st, 1983) encompasses recent theoretical developments and program-writing ti

Photovoltaic generation is one of the cleanest forms of energy conversion available. One of the advantages offered by solar energy is its potential to provide sustainable electricity in areas not served by the conventional power grid. Optimisation of Photovoltaic Power Systems details explicit modelling, control and optimisation of the most popular stand-alone applications such as pumping, power supply, and desalination. Each section is concluded by an example using the MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) packages to help the reader understand and evaluate the performance of different photovoltaic systems. Optimisation of Photovoltaic Power Systems provides engineers, graduate and postgraduate students with the means to understand, assess and develop their own photovoltaic systems. As such, it is an essential tool for all those wishing to specialise in stand-alone photovoltaic systems. Optimisation of Photovoltaic Power Systems aims to enable all researchers in the field of electrical engineering to thoroughly understand the concepts of photovoltaic systems; find solutions to their problems; and choose the appropriate mathematical model for optimising photovoltaic energy.

Graphene has emerged as a potential candidate to replace traditional CMOS for a number of electronic applications; this book presents the latest advances in graphene nanoelectronics and the potential benefits of using graphene in a wide variety of electronic applications. The book also provides details on various methods to grow graphene, including epitaxial, CVD, and chemical methods. This book serves as a spring-board for anyone trying to start working on graphene. The book is also suitable to experts who wish to update themselves with the latest findings in the field.

This book presents efficient visualization techniques, a prerequisite for the interactive exploration of complex data sets. High performance is demonstrated as a process of devising algorithms for the fast graphics processing units (GPUs) of modern graphics hardware. Coverage includes parallelization on cluster computers with several GPUs, adaptive rendering methods, and non-photorealistic rendering techniques for visualization.

This book contains extended and revised versions of the best papers that were presented during the thirteenth edition of the IFIP TC 10 International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration, a Global System-on-Chip Design and CAD conference.

The purpose of this conference is to provide a forum to exchange ideas and show industrial and academic research results in the field of microelectronics design. The current trend toward increasing chip integration and technology process advancements brings about stimulating new challenges both at the physical and system-design levels, as well as in the test of these systems.

This book describes the design of a receiver front-end circuit for operation in the 60GHz range in 90nm CMOS. Physical layout of the test circuit and post-layout simulations for the implementation of a test chip including the QVCO and the first stage divider are also presented. The content of this book is particularly of interest to those working on mm-wave frequency generation and signal reception.

Regular Nanofabrics in Emerging Technologies gives a deep insight into both fabrication and design aspects of emerging semiconductor technologies, that represent potential candidates for the post-CMOS era. Its approach is unique, across different fields, and it offers a synergetic view for a public of different communities ranging from technologists, to circuit designers, and computer scientists. The book presents two technologies as potential candidates for future semiconductor devices and systems and it shows how fabrication issues can be addressed at the design level and vice versa. The reader either for academic or research purposes will find novel material that is explained carefully for both experts and non-initiated readers. Regular Nanofabrics in Emerging Technologies is a survey of post-CMOS technologies. It explains processing, circuit and system level design for people with various backgrounds.

This textbook serves as an introduction to the subject of embedded systems design, using microcontrollers as core components. It develops concepts from the ground up, covering the development of embedded systems technology, architectural and organizational aspects of controllers and systems, processor models, and peripheral devices. Since microprocessor-based embedded systems tightly blend hardware and software components in a single application, the book also introduces the subjects of data representation formats, data operations, and programming styles. The practical component of the book is tailored around the architecture of a widely used
Texas Instrument s microcontroller, the MSP430 and a companion web site offers for download an experimenter s kit and lab manual, along with Powerpoint slides and solutions for instructors."

This book provides a multidisciplinary overview of the design and implementation of systems for remote patient monitoring and healthcare. Readers are guided step-by-step through the components of such a system and shown how they could be integrated in a coherent framework for deployment in practice. The authors explain planning from subsystem design to complete integration and deployment, given particular application constraints. Readers will benefit from descriptions of the clinical requirements underpinning the entire application scenario, physiological parameter sensing techniques, information processing approaches and overall, application dependent system integration. Each chapter ends with a discussion of practical design challenges and two case studies are included to provide practical examples and design methods for two remote healthcare systems with different needs.

Logic Synthesis Using Synopsys (R), Second Edition is for anyone who hates reading manuals but would still like to learn logic synthesis as practised in the real world. Synopsys Design Compiler, the leading synthesis tool in the EDA marketplace, is the primary focus of the book. The contents of this book are specially organized to assist designers accustomed to schematic capture-based design to develop the required expertise to effectively use the Synopsys Design Compiler. Over 100 `Classic Scenarios' faced by designers when using the Design Compiler have been captured, discussed and solutions provided. These scenarios are based on both personal experiences and actual user queries. A general understanding of the problem-solving techniques provided should help the reader debug similar and more complicated problems. In addition, several examples and dc_shell scripts (Design Compiler scripts) have also been provided. Logic Synthesis Using Synopsys (R), Second Edition is an updated and revised version of the very successful first edition. The second edition covers several new and emerging areas, in addition to improvements in the presentation and contents in all chapters from the first edition. With the rapid shrinking of process geometries it is becoming increasingly important that `physical' phenomenon like clusters and wire loads be considered during the synthesis phase. The increasing demand for FPGAs has warranted a greater focus on FPGA synthesis tools and methodology. Finally, behavioral synthesis, the move to designing at a higher level of abstraction than RTL, is fast becoming a reality. These factors have resulted in the inclusion of separate chapters in the second edition to cover Links to Layout, FPGA Synthesis and Behavioral Synthesis, respectively. Logic Synthesis Using Synopsys (R), Second Edition has been written with the CAD engineer in mind. A clear understanding of the synthesis tool concepts, its capabilities and the related CAD issues will help the CAD engineer formulate an effective synthesis-based ASIC design methodology. The intent is also to assist design teams to better incorporate and effectively integrate synthesis with their existing in-house design methodology and CAD tools.

This book describes the trends, challenges and solutions in computing use for scientific research and development within different domains in Africa, such as health, agriculture, environment, economy, energy, education and engineering. The benefits expected are discussed by a number of recognized, domain-specific experts, with a common theme being computing as solution enabler. This book is the first document providing such a representative up-to-date view on this topic at the continent level.

The Analog to Digital Converters represent one half of the link between the world we live in - analog - and the digital world of computers, which can handle the computations required in digital signal processing. These devices are mathematically very complex due to their nonlinear behavior and thus fairly difficult to analyze without the use of simulation tools. High Speed A/D Converters: Understanding Data Converters Through SPICE presents the subject from the practising engineer's point of view rather than from the academic's point of view. A practical approach is emphasized. High Speed A/D Converters: Understanding Data Converters Through SPICE is intended as a learning tool by providing building blocks that can be stacked on top of each other to build higher order systems. The book provides a guide to understanding the various topologies used in A/D converters by suggesting simple methods for the blocks used in an A/D converter. The converters discussed throughout the book constitute a class of devices called undersampled or Nyquist converters. The tools used in deriving the results presented are: TopSpiceA(R) by Penzar - a mixed mode SPICE simulator - version 5.90. The files included in Appendix A were written for this tool. However, most circuit files need only minor adjustments to be used on other SPICE simulators such as PSpice, Hspice, IS_Spice and Micro-Cap IV; Mathcad 2000 - Professional by Mathsoft. This tool is very useful in performing FFT analysis as well as drawing some of the graphs. Again, the mathcad files are included to help the user analyze the data. High Speed A/D Converters: Understanding Data Converters Through SPICE not only supplies the models for the A/Dconverters for SPICE program but also describes the physical reasons for the converter's performance.

This book compiles and presents the research results from the past five years in mm-wave Silicon circuits. This area has received a great deal of interest from the research community including several university and research groups. The book covers device modeling, circuit building blocks, phased array systems, and antennas and packaging. It focuses on the techniques that uniquely take advantage of the scale and integration offered by silicon based technologies.

Chaos and nonlinear dynamics initially developed as a new emergent field with its foundation in physics and applied mathematics. The highly generic, interdisciplinary quality of the insights gained in the last few decades has spawned myriad applications in almost all branches of science and technology-and even well beyond. Wherever quantitative modeling and analysis of complex, nonlinear phenomena is required, chaos theory and its methods can play a key role. his fourth volume concentrates on reviewing further relevant contemporary applications of chaotic and nonlinear dynamics as they apply to the various cuttingedge branches of science and engineering. This encompasses, but is not limited to, topics such as synchronization in complex networks and chaotic circuits, time series analysis, ecological and biological patterns, stochastic control theory and vibrations in mechanical systems. Featuring contributions from active and leading research groups, this collection is ideal both as a reference and as a 'recipe book' full of tried and tested, successful engineering applications.

This book discusses new techniques for detecting, controlling, and exploiting the impacts of temperature variations on nanoscale circuits and systems. A new sensor system is described that can determine the temperature dependence as well as the operating temperature to improve system reliability. A new method is presented to control a circuit's temperature dependence by individually tuning pull-up and pull-down networks to their temperature-insensitive operating points. This method extends the range of supply voltages that can be made temperature-insensitive, achieving insensitivity at nominal voltage for the first time.

This book details timing analysis and optimization techniques for circuits with level-sensitive memory elements. It contains a linear programming formulation applicable to the timing analysis of large scale circuits and includes a delay insertion methodology that improves the efficiency of clock skew scheduling. Coverage also provides a framework for and results from implementing timing optimization algorithms in a parallel computing environment.

Analog integrated circuits are very important as interfaces between the digital parts of integrated electronic systems and the outside world. A large portion of the effort involved in designing these circuits is spent in the layout phase. Whereas the physical design of digital circuits is automated to a large extent, the layout of analog circuits is still a manual, time-consuming and error-prone task. This is mainly due to the continuous nature of analog signals, which causes analog circuit performance to be very sensitive to layout parasitics. The parasitic elements associated with interconnect wires cause loading and coupling effects that degrade the frequency behaviour and the noise performance of analog circuits. Device mismatch and thermal effects put a fundamental limit on the achievable accuracy of circuits. For successful automation of analog layout, advanced place and route tools that can handle these critical parasitics are required. In the past, automatic analog layout tools tried to optimize the layout without quantifying the performance degradation introduced by layout parasitics. Therefore, it was not guaranteed that the resulting layout met the specifications and one or more layout iterations could be needed. In Analog Layout Generation for Performance and Manufacturability, the authors propose a performance driven layout strategy to overcome this problem. In this methodology, the layout tools are driven by performance constraints, such that the final layout, with parasitic effects, still satisfies the specifications of the circuit. The performance degradation associated with an intermediate layout solution is evaluated at runtime using predetermined sensitivities. In contrast with other performance driven layout methodologies, the tools proposed in this book operate directly on the performance constraints, without an intermediate parasitic constraint generation step. This approach makes a complete and sensible trade-off between the different layout alternatives possible at runtime and therefore eliminates the possible feedback route between constraint derivation, placement and layout extraction. Besides its influence on the performance, layout also has a profound impact on the yield and testability of an analog circuit. In Analog Layout Generation for Performance and Manufacturability, the authors outline a new criterion to quantify the detectability of a fault and combine this with a yield model to evaluate the testability of an integrated circuit layout. They then integrate this technique with their performance driven routing algorithm to produce layouts that have optimal manufacturability while still meeting their performance specifications. Analog Layout Generation for Performance and Manufacturability will be of interest to analog engineers, researchers and students.

Liquid Crystal Display Drivers deals with Liquid Crystal Displays from the electronic engineering point of view and is the first expressively focused on their driving circuits. After introducing the physical-chemical properties of the LC substances, their evolution and application to LCDs, the book converges to the examination and in-depth explanation of those reliable techniques, architectures, and design solutions amenable to efficiently design drivers for passive-matrix and active-matrix LCDs, both for small size and large size panels. Practical approaches regularly adopted for mass production but also emerging ones are discussed. The topics treated have in many cases general validity and found application also in alternative display technologies (OLEDs, Electrophoretic Displays, etc.).

This book is a comprehensive guide to assertion-based verification of hardware designs using System Verilog Assertions (SVA). It enables readers to minimize the cost of verification by using assertion-based techniques in simulation testing, coverage collection and formal analysis. The book provides detailed descriptions of all the language features of SVA, accompanied by step-by-step examples of how to employ them to construct powerful and reusable sets of properties. The book also shows how SVA fits into the broader System Verilog language, demonstrating the ways that assertions can interact with other System Verilog components. The reader new to hardware verification will benefit from general material describing the nature of design models and behaviors, how they are exercised, and the different roles that assertions play. This second edition covers the features introduced by the recent IEEE 1800-2012. System Verilog standard, explaining in detail the new and enhanced assertion constructs. The book makes SVA usable and accessible for hardware designers, verification engineers, formal verification specialists and EDA tool developers. With numerous exercises, ranging in depth and difficulty, the book is also suitable as a text for students.

This thesis addresses the problem of improving the alignment of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in transistor applications, taking a unique approach using iptycenes acting as molecular tweezers in combination with a liquid crystal solvent. As part of a project to test the effectiveness of a multi-step method, the so-called Alignment Relay Technique (ART), this work contributed evidence for the selectivity and stability of ART, as well as providing the first proof-of-concept that ART can be used to create CNT field-effect transistors (FETs). The thesis effectively explains and illustrates the chemical synthesis of the tweezers, the concept and actualization of the technique, the various factors observed to influence deposition and selectivity, along with material fabrication using both photolithography and electron beam lithography. This research advances knowledge of transistors and expands the applications of small organic molecules in the field of materials science. Particular highlights of this thesis include: an extensive review of ART, its advantages, and limitations; development of new material chemistry methods for the optimization of semiconducting CNT selectivity; and a comprehensive exploration of fabrication and characterization of CNTFETs for future applications.

To handle many standards and ever increasing bandwidth requirements, large number of filters and switches are used in transceivers of modern wireless communications systems. It makes the cost, performance, form factor, and power consumption of these systems, including cellular phones, critical issues. At present, the fixed frequency filter banks based on Film Bulk Acoustic Resonators (FBAR) are regarded as one of the most promising technologies to address performance -form factor-cost issues. Even though the FBARs improve the overall performances the complexity of these systems remains high. Attempts are being made to exclude some of the filters by bringing the digital signal processing (including channel selection) as close to the antennas as possible. However handling the increased interference levels is unrealistic for low-cost battery operated radios. Replacing fixed frequency filter banks by one tuneable filter is the most desired and widely considered scenario. As an example, development of the software based cognitive radios is largely hindered by the lack of adequate agile components, first of all tuneable filters. In this sense the electrically switchable and tuneable FBARs are the most promising components to address the complex cost-performance issues in agile microwave transceivers, smart wireless sensor networks etc. Tuneable Film Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonators discusses FBAR need, physics, designs, modelling, fabrication and applications. Tuning of the resonant frequency of the FBARs is considered. Switchable and tuneable FBARs based on electric field induced piezoelectric effect in paraelectric phase ferroelectrics are covered. The resonance of these resonators may be electrically switched on and off and tuned without hysteresis. The book is aimed at microwave and sensor specialists in the industry and graduate students. Readers will learn about principles of operation and possibilities of the switchable and tuneable FBARs, and will be given general guidelines for designing, fabrication and applications of these devices.