# VLSI and Circuits, Embedded and Hardware Systems Commons™

## All Articles in VLSI and Circuits, Embedded and Hardware Systems

476 full-text articles. Page 1 of 21.

Interferometric Detection Of Pinned Interactions In Bismuth-Substituted Iron Garnet, 2019 Iowa State University

#### Interferometric Detection Of Pinned Interactions In Bismuth-Substituted Iron Garnet, L. Bauer, Neelam G. Prabhu Gaunkar, Mani Mina, J. W. Pritchard

##### Industrial Design Publications

The utilization of a bismuth-substituted iron garnet as a magnetooptic Faraday rotator (MOFR) has been reported for all-optical networking purposes as well as for other applications. Our measurements and observations demonstrate that the MOFR saturates once a significantly large magnetic field (>225 G) is applied. After the applied magnetic field enters the saturation region, the material's magnetic domains can become pinned at intermediate levels of magnetization. Pinning in this form has not been reported nor well studied for this application. In this paper, a method to detect and describe anomalous pinning in terms of Faraday rotation is presented. Measurements ...

Thin-Film Sensor For Fatigue Crack Sensing And Monitoring In Steel Bridges Under Varying Crack Propagation Rates And Random Traffic Loads, 2019 University of Kansas

#### Thin-Film Sensor For Fatigue Crack Sensing And Monitoring In Steel Bridges Under Varying Crack Propagation Rates And Random Traffic Loads, Xiangxiong Kong, Jian Li, Caroline Bennett, William Collins, Simon Laflamme, Hongki Jo

##### Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

Fatigue cracks are critical structural concerns for steel highway bridges, and fatigue initiation and propagation activity continues undetected between physical bridge inspections. Monitoring fatigue crack activity between physical inspections can provide far greater reliability in structural performance and can be used to prevent excessive damage and repair costs. In this paper, a thin-film strain sensor, called a soft elastomeric capacitor (SEC) sensor, is evaluated for sensing and monitoring fatigue cracks in steel bridges. The SEC is a flexible and mechanically robust strain sensor, capable of monitoring strain over large structural surfaces. By deploying multiple SECs in the form of dense ...

An Rs-485 Transceiver In A Silicon Carbide Cmos Process, 2018 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

#### An Rs-485 Transceiver In A Silicon Carbide Cmos Process, Maria Raquel Benavides Herrera

##### Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the design, simulation and test results of a silicon carbide (SiC) RS-485 transceiver for high temperature applications. This circuit is a building block in the design and fabrication of a digital data processing and control system. Automation processes for extreme environments, remote connection to high temperature locations, deep earth drilling, and high temperature data acquisition are some of the potential applications for such a system. The transceiver was designed and developed in a 1.2 µm SiC-CMOS process by Raytheon Systems, Ltd. (UK). It has been tested with a supply voltage of 12 V and 15 V ...

2018 University of Nebraska - Lincoln

#### Asic Design To Support Low Power High Voltage Power Supply For Radiation Monitoring Applications, Daniel Rogge

##### Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research from Electrical & Computer Engineering

A low power high voltage power supply is designed for use in a long duration radiation monitoring system. The supply employs a flexible pulse frequency modulation switching controller implemented in a 0.35 $\mu$m CMOS technology. The controller drives and regulates a flyback transformer driven 12-stage Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier chain. The chain provides bias for the dynodes of a photomultiplier tube. The supply voltage is selectable via a 12-bit on-chip digital to analog converter. The system is designed for low power operation and immunity to supply voltage variation as the application is battery-powered.

Advisors: Sina Balkir and Michael Homan

2018 Southern Methodist University

#### Investigating The Effect Of Detecting And Mitigating A Ring Oscillator-Based Hardware Trojan, Lakshmi Ramakrishnan

##### Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

The outsourcing of the manufacturing process of integrated circuits to fabrications plants all over the world has exposed these chips to several security threats, especially at the hardware level. There have been instances of malicious circuitry, such as backdoors, being added to circuits without the knowledge of the chip designers or vendors. Such threats could be immensely powerful and dangerous against confidentiality, among other vulnerabilities.

Defense mechanisms against such attacks have been probed and defense techniques have been developed. But with the passage of time, attack techniques have improved immensely as well. From directly observing the inputs or outputs, adversaries ...

Asic Design Of Rf Energy Harvester Using 0.13um Cmos Technology, 2018 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

#### Asic Design Of Rf Energy Harvester Using 0.13um Cmos Technology, Jainish K. Zaveri

##### Master's Theses and Project Reports

Recent advances in wireless sensor nodes, data acquisition devices, wearable and implantable medical devices have paved way for low power (sub 50uW) devices. These devices generally use small solid state or thin film batteries for power supply which need replacement or need to be removed for charging. RF energy harvesting technology can be used to charge these batteries without the need to remove the battery from the device, thus providing a sustainable power supply. In other cases, a battery can become unnecessary altogether. This enables us to deploy wireless network nodes in places where regular physical access to the nodes ...

2018 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

#### Efficacy Of Multi-Threshold Null Convention Logic In Low-Power Applications, Brent Bell

##### Theses and Dissertations

In order for an asynchronous design paradigm such as Multi-Threshold NULL Convention Logic (MTNCL) to be adopted by industry, it is important for circuit designers to be aware of its advantages and drawbacks especially with respect to power usage. The power tradeoff between MTNCL and synchronous designs depends on many different factors including design type, circuit size, process node, and pipeline granularity. Each of these design dimensions influences the active power and the leakage power comparisons. This dissertation analyzes the effects of different design dimensions on power consumption and the associated rational for these effects. Results show that while MTNCL ...

#### Cmos Radioactive Isotope Identification With Multichannel Analyzer And Embedded Neural Network, Samuel Murray

##### Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research from Electrical & Computer Engineering

A radiation detection and identification system is designed and implemented to perform gamma ray spectroscopy on radioactive sources and identify which isotopes are present in the sources. A multichannel analyzer is implemented on an ASIC to process the signal produced from gamma rays detected by a scintillator and photomultiplier tube and to quantize the gamma ray energies to build a histogram. A fast, low memory embedded neural network is implemented on a microcontroller ASIC to identify the isotopes present in the gamma ray histogram produced by the multichannel analyzer in real time.

Advisors: Sina Balkir and Michael Homan

Input Space Dependent Controller For Civil Structures Exposed To Multi-Hazard Excitations, 2018 Lehigh University

#### Input Space Dependent Controller For Civil Structures Exposed To Multi-Hazard Excitations, Liang Cao, Simon Laflamme, Jonathan Hong, Jacob Dodson

##### Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

A challenge in the control of civil structures exposed to multiple types of hazards is in the tuning of control parameters to ensure a prescribed level of performance under substantially different excitation dynamics, which could be considered as largely uncertain. A solution is to leverage data driven control algorithms, which, in their adaptive formulation, can self-tune to uncertain environments. The authors have recently proposed a new type of data-driven controller, termed input space dependent controller (ISDC), that has the particularity to adapt its input space in real-time to identify key measurements that represent the essential dynamics of the system. Previous ...

Arm Mke1xf Mcu Replatform, 2018 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

#### Arm Mke1xf Mcu Replatform, Nathan Hong, Derek Lung, Japsimran Singh, Bevin Tang

##### Computer Engineering

After Cal Poly Racing’s electrical team began to hit the technical limits of the ADC and other I/O features of the current 8-bit Atmel AT90 microcontroller unit, it became clear that an upgrade was due. This replatforming project takes the functionalities of the old, 8-bit architecture, and aims to provide a 32-bit version using the ARM MKE1xF MCU. With the idea of having a working PCB as a stretch goal, the scope of the library development was limited to enable base functionality. Thus, the only libraries developed were for the Timer, ADC, SPI, UART, and CAN. Additionally, this ...

2018 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

#### Genetic Algorithm Amplifier Biasing System (Gaabs): Genetic Algorithm For Biasing On Differential Analog Amplifiers, Sean Whalen

##### Computer Engineering

Genetic Algorithm Amplifier Biasing System (GAABS) - Senior Project Analysis

Summary of Functional Requirements

This project integrates LTSpice with a python script that runs a genetic algorithm to bias a differential amplifier. The system biases the amplifier with 2 different voltages, the base voltage for the PNP BJTs of the active loads and a voltage controlling the current of the current sink. The project runs via a python script, gets data from LTSpice’s command line call, and iteratively runs until the system is biased to achieve the greatest gain on an arbitrary input voltage.

Primary Constraints

Some of the main ...

Portable High-Definition Audio Spectrum Analyzer, 2018 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

#### Portable High-Definition Audio Spectrum Analyzer, Alex Zahn, Jamie Corr

##### Electrical Engineering

The Portable High-definition Audio Spectrum Analyzer (PHASA) allows the user to visualize the audio frequency spectrum of an incoming line-level stereo audio signal. Upon pressing the touch screen spectrum graph, the PHASA displays the corresponding frequency and volume levels as well as crosshairs at the touched location. The PHASA features multiple left/right channel display modes— Left channel only, right channel only, both channels simultaneously, and the average between the two channels. The PHASA features multiple resolution display modes (standard-resolution and high-resolution) and multiple dynamics display modes (standard dynamics, averaging, and peak/hold). The PHASA accepts input audio via a ...

Metrology Computer Redesign, 2018 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

#### Metrology Computer Redesign, Natalie Lizama, Melinda Ong, Mitchell Aiken

##### Electrical Engineering

No abstract provided.

2018 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

#### Differential Power Analysis In-Practice For Hardware Implementations Of The Keccak Sponge Function, Nathaniel Graff

##### Master's Theses and Project Reports

The Keccak Sponge Function is the winner of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) competition to develop the Secure Hash Algorithm-3 Standard (SHA-3). Prior work has developed reference implementations of the algorithm and described the structures necessary to harden the algorithm against power analysis attacks which can weaken the cryptographic properties of the hash algorithm. This work demonstrates the architectural changes to the reference implementation necessary to achieve the theoretical side channel-resistant structures, compare their efficiency and performance characteristics after synthesis and place-and-route when implementing them on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), publish the resulting implementations under the ...

Low Latency Intrusion Detection In Smart Grids, 2018 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

#### Low Latency Intrusion Detection In Smart Grids, Israel Zairi Akingeneye

##### Theses and Dissertations

The transformation of traditional power grids into smart grids has seen more new technologies such as communication networks and smart meters (sensors) being integrated into the physical infrastructure of the power grids. However, these technologies pose new vulnerabilities to the cybersecurity of power grids as malicious attacks can be launched by adversaries to attack the smart meters and modify the measurement data collected by these meters. If not timely detected and removed, these attacks may lead to inaccurate system state estimation, which is critical to the system operators for control decisions such as economic dispatch and other related functions.

This ...

General Design Procedure For Free And Open-Source Hardware For Scientific Equipment, 2018 Michigan Technological University

#### General Design Procedure For Free And Open-Source Hardware For Scientific Equipment, Shane W. Oberloier, Joshua M. Pearce

##### Joshua M. Pearce

Distributed digital manufacturing of free and open-source scientific hardware (FOSH) used for scientific experiments has been shown to in general reduce the costs of scientific hardware by 90–99%. In part due to these cost savings, the manufacturing of scientific equipment is beginning to move away from a central paradigm of purchasing proprietary equipment to one in which scientists themselves download open-source designs, fabricate components with digital manufacturing technology, and then assemble the equipment themselves. This trend introduces a need for new formal design procedures that designers can follow when targeting this scientific audience. This study provides five steps in ...

Strain Monitoring In Masonry Structures Using Smart Bricks, 2018 University of Perugia

#### Strain Monitoring In Masonry Structures Using Smart Bricks, Andrea Meoni, Antonella D'Alessandro, Austin Downey, Simon Laflamme, Filippo Ubertini

##### Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Conference Presentations and Proceedings

Monitoring a building’s structural performance is critical for the identification of incipient damages and the optimization of maintenance programs. The characteristics and spatial deployment of any sensing system plays an essential role in the reliability of the monitored data and, therefore, on the actual capability of the monitoring system to reveal early-stage structural damage. A promising strategy for enhancing the quality of a structural health monitoring system is the use of sensors fabricated using materials exhibiting similar mechanical properties and durability as those of the construction materials. Based on this philosophy, the authors have recently proposed the concept of ...

Crack Detection In Rc Structural Components Using A Collaborative Data Fusion Approach Based On Smart Concrete And Large-Area Sensors, 2018 Iowa State University

#### Crack Detection In Rc Structural Components Using A Collaborative Data Fusion Approach Based On Smart Concrete And Large-Area Sensors, Austin Downey, Antonella D'Alessandro, Filippo Ubertini, Simon Laflamme

##### Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Conference Presentations and Proceedings

Recent advances in the fields of nanocomposite technologies have enabled the development of highly scalable, low-cost sensing solution for civil infrastructures. This includes two sensing technologies, recently proposed by the authors, engineered for their high scalability, low-cost and mechanical simplicity. The first sensor consists of a smart-cementitious material doped with multi-wall carbon nanotubes, which has been demonstrated to be suitable for monitoring its own deformations (strain) and damage state (cracks). Integrated to a structure, this smart cementitious material can be used for detecting damage or strain through the monitoring of its electrical properties. The second sensing technology consists of a ...

Dense Capacitive Sensor Array For Monitoring Distortion-Induced Fatigue Cracks In Steel Bridges, 2018 University of Kansas

#### Dense Capacitive Sensor Array For Monitoring Distortion-Induced Fatigue Cracks In Steel Bridges, Xiangxiong Kong, Jian Li, William Collins, Caroline Bennett, Hongki Jo, Jong-Hyun Jeong, Simon Laflamme

##### Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Conference Presentations and Proceedings

Distortion-induced fatigue cracks caused by differential deflections between adjacent girders are common issues for steel girder bridges built prior to the mid-1980s in the United States. Monitoring these fatigue cracks is essential to ensure bridge structural integrity. Despite various level of success of crack monitoring methods over the past decades, monitoring distortion-induced fatigue cracks is still challenging due to the complex structural joint layout and unpredictable crack propagation paths. Previously, the authors proposed soft elastomeric capacitor (SEC), a large-size flexible capacitive strain sensor, for monitoring in-plane fatigue cracks. The crack growth can be robustly identified by extracting the crack growth ...

Capacitance-Based Wireless Strain Sensor Development, 2018 University of Arizona

#### Capacitance-Based Wireless Strain Sensor Development, Jong-Hyun Jeong, Jian Xu, Hongki Jo, Jian Li, Xiangxiong Kong, William Collins, Caroline Bennett, Simon Laflamme

##### Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Conference Presentations and Proceedings

A capacitance based large-area electronics strain sensor, termed soft elastomeric capacitor (SEC) has shown various advantages in infrastructure sensing. The ability to cover large area enables to reflect mesoscale structural deformation, highly stretchable, easy to fabricate and low-cost feature allow full-scale field application for civil structure. As continuing efforts to realize full-scale civil infrastructure monitoring, in this study, new sensor board has been developed to implement the capacitive strain sensing capability into wireless sensor networks. The SEC has extremely low-level capacitance changes as responses to structural deformation; hence it requires high-gain and low-noise performance. For these requirements, AC (alternating current ...