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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Tree-Based Partition Querying: A Methodology For Computing Medoids In Large Spatial Datasets, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Dimitris Papadias, Spiros Papadimitriou Dec 2010

Tree-Based Partition Querying: A Methodology For Computing Medoids In Large Spatial Datasets, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Dimitris Papadias, Spiros Papadimitriou

Kyriakos MOURATIDIS

Besides traditional domains (e.g., resource allocation, data mining applications), algorithms for medoid computation and related problems will play an important role in numerous emerging fields, such as location based services and sensor networks. Since the k-medoid problem is NP hard, all existing work deals with approximate solutions on relatively small datasets. This paper aims at efficient methods for very large spatial databases, motivated by: (i) the high and ever increasing availability of spatial data, and (ii) the need for novel query types and improved services. The proposed solutions exploit the intrinsic grouping properties of a data partition index in order …


Rf Shields That Can Be Integrated With Ic Test Handlers, Chin-Leong Lim Nov 2010

Rf Shields That Can Be Integrated With Ic Test Handlers, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

This paper describes several radio frequency interference shields that have been developed for integration with high-speed bulk-input turret-test IC handlers. The shields were developed to mitigate interference to noise figure measurements of Low Noise Amplifier components. Two categories of shielded enclosures were evaluated for shielding effectiveness and ease of incorporation into the existing machines and manufacturing processes. The first category enclosed the handler's working area in its entirety, while the second one enclosed the testboard only. Variation in the testboard shield design was required to suit different collet trajectories between handler models. The shielding effectiveness (SE) was measured according to …


Design And Modeling Of A 40w Microwave Switch In Qfn 2x2 Package, Chin-Leong Lim Nov 2010

Design And Modeling Of A 40w Microwave Switch In Qfn 2x2 Package, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

This paper describes a Quad Flat Non-lead (QFN 2x2) packaged PIN diode switch that is capable of handling Continuous Wave (CW) power up to 40W and WCDMA signal up to 10W. The target application is the Transmit arm of a Transmit Receive switch for cellular base-stations. The part was developed in response to this market segment's aggressive cost-cutting pressure. Prior designs relied on more expensive ceramic packages.


Software Engineering Issues For Mobile Application Development, Tony Wasserman Oct 2010

Software Engineering Issues For Mobile Application Development, Tony Wasserman

Tony Wasserman

This paper provides an overview of important software engineering research issues related to the development of applications that run on mobile devices. Among the topics are development processes, tools, user interface design, application portability, quality, and security.


Lna Based On A Low Cost (~Usd1.30) Commercial Gaas Phemt Mmic Offers Wideband (0.4~1.4 Ghz) And Room-Temperature Low Noise (~0.3 Db) Performances That Satisfy The Ska Low Cost And No-Cooling Requirement, Chin-Leong Lim Aug 2010

Lna Based On A Low Cost (~Usd1.30) Commercial Gaas Phemt Mmic Offers Wideband (0.4~1.4 Ghz) And Room-Temperature Low Noise (~0.3 Db) Performances That Satisfy The Ska Low Cost And No-Cooling Requirement, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

Introduction: New generations of radio telescopes such as the Square Kilometre Array consist of millions of receivers scattered over a continent. The array’s quantity and geographic considerations ruled out the traditional radio astronomy LNA implementation; i.e. costly InP devices cooled by high-maintenance closed-cycle helium (He) refrigerators. Several LNA designs have been proposed to address the cost and room-temperature operation constraints but none appear a clear winner. Peltier and package-scale cooling have also been proposed as a lower cost/maintenance alternative to He cooling but when multiplied by the quantity required can still carve a significant chunk of the budget. Additionally, cooling …


Wideband Limiter Fits Sot-323 Pack, Chin-Leong Lim Jun 2010

Wideband Limiter Fits Sot-323 Pack, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

Limiters protect wireless receiver front-ends from damage due to signal overload. The Schottky-PIN limiter is more protective than the self-biased PIN limiter because the former's limiting threshold is ~10 dB lower. Present implementation of the Schottky-PIN limiter use separate PIN and Schottky diodes. Additionally, some prior knowledge is necessary to select the correct PIN and Schottky diodes for limiter service. To miniaturize the limiter and to simplify the diode selection process, we combined a pair of limiter-optimized PIN and Schottky diodes into a compact and low-cost SOT-323 package. This paper describes the design, fabrication and experimental validation of the industry's …


Pin Switch Protects Lna From Overloads, Chin-Leong Lim Mar 2010

Pin Switch Protects Lna From Overloads, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

The objective of this paper is to describe how a Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuit (MMIC) can be paired with an external PIN diode bypass switch in the implementation of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with overload protection feature for mobile TV receiver applications. In the preliminary phase of the design, competing schemes for reducing LNA gain were reviewed and their respective cost-performance trade-offs were benchmarked against the customer’s set of requirements. Based on the selected design, a “proof of concept” prototype was then assembled and tested. The key components of this switch by-passable LNA were sourced from in-house product portfolio, …


Lna With A Bypass Mode Improves Overload Resistance For Mobile Tv, Chin-Leong Lim Mar 2010

Lna With A Bypass Mode Improves Overload Resistance For Mobile Tv, Chin-Leong Lim

Chin-Leong Lim

Objective: This paper describes how a Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuit (MMIC) can be paired with an external PIN diode bypass switch in the implementation of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with overload protection feature for mobile TV receiver applications.

Method: In the preliminary phase of the design, competing schemes for reducing LNA gain were reviewed and their respective cost-performance trade-offs were benchmarked against the customer’s set of requirements. Based on the selected design, a “proof of concept” prototype was then assembled and tested.

Material: The key components of this switch by-passable LNA were sourced from in-house product portfolio, consisting of …


A Graduate Education In Software Management And The Software Business For Mid-Career Professionals, Ray Bareiss, Gladys Mercier Feb 2010

A Graduate Education In Software Management And The Software Business For Mid-Career Professionals, Ray Bareiss, Gladys Mercier

Ray Bareiss

Given the unique nature of the software business, the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University’s Silicon Valley campus concluded that mid-career software professionals would be better served by a tailored master’s degree focusing on software management and more broadly on the business of software than by a typical MBA. Our software management master’s program integrates business, technical, and soft skills to prepare our students for technical leadership in their current companies or in entrepreneurial ventures. Our initial program built on the strengths of Carnegie Mellon’s world-class software engineering education. We targeted students working in large companies, engaged in large-scale enterprise software …


Coaching Via Cognitive Apprenticeship, Ray Bareiss, Martin Radley Feb 2010

Coaching Via Cognitive Apprenticeship, Ray Bareiss, Martin Radley

Ray Bareiss

At Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley campus we employ a learn by- doing educational approach in which nearly all student learning, and thus instruction, is in the context of realistic, team based projects. Consequently, we have adopted coaching as our predominant teaching model. In this paper we reflect on our experience with the nature of teaching by coaching using a framework derived from Cognitive Apprenticeship, and explain how we employ the techniques it suggests in our teaching. We also discuss a range of instructional tensions that arise in teaching by coaching and present a survey of student attitudes regarding the effectiveness …


The Effect Of Curvature Rate On The Received Power In Parabolic Reflector, Amean Al_Safi Dec 2009

The Effect Of Curvature Rate On The Received Power In Parabolic Reflector, Amean Al_Safi

Amean S Al_Safi

In this paper we study the effect of curvature rate on the generated electric field at the focus point if the frequency and diameter are constants .We assume that the incident electromagnetic waves distributed uniformly on each point of the reflector surface ;hence we can imagine that this reflector has uniform surface charge ,and this body will generate an electric field on all points in front of it (including the focus point) . This field can be obtained by using coulomb’s law .The derived expression for electric field show that X and Y components will vanish and the electric field …


Embedded Systems As Datacenters, Robert Iannucci Dec 2009

Embedded Systems As Datacenters, Robert Iannucci

Robert A Iannucci

No abstract provided.


Super-High-Frequency Two-Port Aln Contour-Mode Resonators For Rf Applications, Matteo Rinaldi, Chiara Zuniga, Chengjie Zuo, Gianluca Piazza Dec 2009

Super-High-Frequency Two-Port Aln Contour-Mode Resonators For Rf Applications, Matteo Rinaldi, Chiara Zuniga, Chengjie Zuo, Gianluca Piazza

Matteo Rinaldi

This paper reports on the design and experimental verification of a new class of thin-film (250 nm) super-high-frequency laterally-vibrating piezoelectric microelectromechanical (MEMS) resonators suitable for the fabrication of narrow-band MEMS filters operating at frequencies above 3 GHz. The device dimensions have been opportunely scaled both in the lateral and vertical dimensions to excite a contour-extensional mode of vibration in nanofeatures of an ultra-thin (250 nm) AlN film. In this first demonstration, 2-port resonators vibrating up to 4.5 GHz have been fabricated on the same die and attained electromechanical coupling, kt2, in excess of 1.5%. These devices are employed to synthesize …


The Effect Of The Digit Slicing Architecture On The Fft Butterfly, Yazan Samir, Rozita Teymourzadeh Dec 2009

The Effect Of The Digit Slicing Architecture On The Fft Butterfly, Yazan Samir, Rozita Teymourzadeh

Dr. Rozita Teymourzadeh, CEng.

Most communications systems tend to achieve bandwidth, power and cost efficiencies to capable to describe modulation scheme. Hence for signal modulation orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transceiver is introduced to cover communications demand in four generation. However high performance Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT) as a main heart of OFDM acts beyond the view. In order to achieve capable FFT, design and realization of its efficient internal structure is key issues of this research work. In this paper implementation of high performance butterfly for FFT by applying digit slicing technique is presented. The proposed design focused on the trade-off between the …


Vlsi Implementation Of Novel Class Of High Speed Pipelined Digital Signal Processing Filter For Wireless Receivers, Rozita Teymourzadeh, Yazan Samir, Shabuil Islam, Masuri Othman, Mok Vh Dec 2009

Vlsi Implementation Of Novel Class Of High Speed Pipelined Digital Signal Processing Filter For Wireless Receivers, Rozita Teymourzadeh, Yazan Samir, Shabuil Islam, Masuri Othman, Mok Vh

Dr. Rozita Teymourzadeh, CEng.

The need for high performance transceiver with high Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) has driven the communication system to utilize latest technique identified as over sampling systems. It was the most economical modulator and decimation in communication system. It has been proven to increase the SNR and is used in many high performance systems such as in the Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) for wireless transceiver. This research work presented the design of the novel class of decimation and its VLSI implementation which was the sub-component in the over sampling technique. The design and realization of main unit of decimation …


Design Of Automatic Soil Humidity Control Using Maximum Power Point Tracking Controller, Hoe Ck, Vaithlingam A.C., Rozita Teymourzadeh, Rajkumar R Dec 2009

Design Of Automatic Soil Humidity Control Using Maximum Power Point Tracking Controller, Hoe Ck, Vaithlingam A.C., Rozita Teymourzadeh, Rajkumar R

Dr. Rozita Teymourzadeh, CEng.

The photovoltaic system uses the photovoltaic array as a source of electrical power for the direct conversion of the sun’s radiation to direct current without any environmental hazards. The main purpose of this research is to design of a converter with Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) algorithm for any typical application of soil humidity control. Using this setup the major energy from the solar panel is used for the control of soil humidity. The design of the converter with MPPT together with the soil humidity control logic is presented in this paper. Experimental testing of the design controller is implemented …


On-Chip Implementation Of Pipeline Digit-Slicing Multiplier-Less Butterfly For Fast Fourier Transform Architecture, Yazan Samir, Rozita Teymourzadeh, Masuri Othman, Shabiul Islam, Mok Vh Dec 2009

On-Chip Implementation Of Pipeline Digit-Slicing Multiplier-Less Butterfly For Fast Fourier Transform Architecture, Yazan Samir, Rozita Teymourzadeh, Masuri Othman, Shabiul Islam, Mok Vh

Dr. Rozita Teymourzadeh, CEng.

The need for wireless communication has driven the communication systems to high performance. However, the main bottleneck that affects the communication capability is the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), which is the core of most modulators. This study presents on-chip implementation of pipeline digit-slicing multiplier-less butterfly for FFT structure. The approach taken; in order to reduce computation complexity in butterfly, digit-slicing multiplier-less single constant technique was utilized in the critical path of Radix-2 Decimation In Time (DIT) FFT structure. The proposed design focused on the trade-off between the speed and active silicon area for the chip implementation. The new architecture was …


On-Chip Implementation Of High Resolution High Speed Floating Point Adder/Subtractor With Reducing Mean Latency For Ofdm, Rozita Teymourzadeh, Yazan Samir, Nooshin Mahdavi, Masuri Othman Dec 2009

On-Chip Implementation Of High Resolution High Speed Floating Point Adder/Subtractor With Reducing Mean Latency For Ofdm, Rozita Teymourzadeh, Yazan Samir, Nooshin Mahdavi, Masuri Othman

Dr. Rozita Teymourzadeh, CEng.

Fast Fourier transform (FFT) is widely applied in OFDM trance-receiver communications system. Hence Efficient FFT algorithm is always considered. This paper proposed FPGA realization of high resolution high speed low latency floating point adder/subtractor for FFT in OFDM trance-receiver. The design was implemented for 32 bit pipelined adder/subtractor which satisfied IEEE-754 Standard for floating-point Arithmetic. The design was focused on the trade-off between the latency and speed improvement as well as resolution and silicon area for the chip implementation. In order to reduce the critical path and decrease the latency, the novel structure was designed and investigated. Consequently, synthesis report …


Upper Bounds On The Number Of Channels To Ensure Collision-Free Communications In Multi-Channel Wireless Networks Using Directional Antennas, Hong-Ning Dai, Kam-Wing Ng, Min-You Wu Dec 2009

Upper Bounds On The Number Of Channels To Ensure Collision-Free Communications In Multi-Channel Wireless Networks Using Directional Antennas, Hong-Ning Dai, Kam-Wing Ng, Min-You Wu

Hong-Ning Dai

Recent studies have found that using multiple channels can separate concurrent transmissions and significantly improve network throughput. However, these studies have only considered wireless nodes that are equipped with omni-directional antennas, which have high interference. On the other hand, other researchers have found that using directional antennas in wireless networks can reduce interference and improve the network performance. But their studies have only considered single channel to be used in wireless networks with directional antennas. Thus, integrating the two technologies of multiple channels and directional antennas together can potentially bring more benefits. Some previous works have studies the capacity on …