A Novel Cyclic Time to Digital Converter Based on Triple-Slope Interpolation and Time Amplification

This paper investigates a novel cyclic time-to-digital converter (TDC) which employs triple-slope analog interpolation and time amplification techniques for digitizing the time interval between the rising edges of two input signals(Start and Stop). The proposed converter will be a 9-bit cyclic time-to-digital converter that does not use delay lines in its structure. Therefore, it has a low sensitivity to temperature, power supply and process (PVT) variations. The other advantages of the proposed converter are low circuit complexity, and high accuracy compared with the time-to-digital converters that have previously been proposed. Also, this converter improves the time resolution and the dynamic range. In the same resolution, linear range and dynamic range, the proposed cyclic TDC reduces the number of circuit elements compared with the converters that have a similar circuit structure. Thus, the converter reduces the chip area, the power consumption and the figure of merit (FoM). In this converter, the integral nonlinearity (INL) and differential nonlinearity (DNL) errors are reduced. In order to evaluate the idea, the proposed time-to-digital converter is designed in TSMC 45 nm CMOS technology and simulated. Comparison of the theoretical and simulation results confirms the benefits of the proposed TDC

Analysis of Residue Probability Density Function and Comparator Offset Error in Pipelined ADCs

This paper presents a new approach to analyze the convergence of residue probability density function (pdf) in pipelined ADCs. Compared to the previous approaches, in the proposed approach, in addition to the analysis of residue pdfs for different input densities, the analysis of the sub-ADC comparator offsets impact on output pdf is possible. Using Fourier analysis, it will be shown that the residue density converges to uniformity. In the half-bit redundant structure, residue pdf concentrates in the center half of the stage full-scale range and 6 dB of extra resolution can be gained. Also, the share of each stage in this resolution improvement is investigated. Examining the sub-ADC threshold offsets impact on residue pdfs, it is observed that with respect to the impact on converter additional resolution, the final stages offset errors are more significant than the first stages offsets

Improving hydro-formability of stainless steel tubes by tube channel pressing

© Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd. Tube channel pressing (TCP), which is one of the severe plastic deformation (SPD) technologies to refine grain size into submicron size for tubular materials, have been applied to ferritic stainless steel tubes for one pass, in order to alleviate ridging and enhance the hydro-formability. It was found that grain-scale shear bands were introduced by one-pass TCP, and texture and microstructure was successfully modified by promoting recrystallization of deformation microstructure, which is otherwise hard-to-recrystallize, in the post-TCP annealing. Elongation to failure, strain-hardening exponent (n-value) and Lankford values of both longitudinal and circumferential directions increased in comparison to with the tube fabricated by conventional process.Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) matching planner program

A Micropower Current-Mode Euclidean Distance Calculator for Pattern Recognition

In this paper a new synthesis for circuit design of Euclidean distance calculation is presented. The circuit is implemented based on a simple two-quadrant squarer/divider block. The circuit that employs floating gate MOS (FG-MOS) transistors operating in weak inversion region, features low circuit complexity, low power (<20uW), low supply voltage (0.5V), two quadrant input current, wide dynamic range and immunity from body effect. In addition, this circuit is designed in modular methodology, leading to a very regular structure. The circuit was successfully applied to the recognition of some simple patterns. Simulation results of the circuit by HSPICE show high performance in the separation and confirm the validity of the proposed technique

Class-AB Square-Root Domain Filters Based on the Floating

In this paper a new approach for design of class-AB current-mode square-root domain filters based on the electronically simulated translinear loop principle is presented. FG-MOS transistors that operate in strong inverted saturation region are employed for implementation of translinear loop circuit. The filter achieves immunity to body effect, low circuit complexity, large input dynamic range, and also works in low voltage compared to those reported before. With supply voltage 1.2V a dynamic range of 46dB at 1% THD is achieved. Simulation results by HSPICE confirm the validity of the proposed design technique and show high performance of the filter

A decision model for decentralized autonomous organization platform selection: Three industry case studies

Context: Decentralized autonomous organizations are a new form of smart contract-based governance. Decentralized autonomous organization platforms, which support the creation of such organizations, are becoming increasingly popular, such as Aragon and Colony. Selecting the best fitting platform is challenging for organizations, as a significant number of decision criteria, such as popularity, developer availability, governance issues and consistent documentation of such platforms, should be considered. Additionally, decision-makers at the organizations are not experts in every domain, so they must continuously acquire volatile knowledge regarding such platforms. Objective: Supporting decision-makers in selecting the right decentralized autonomous organization platforms by designing an effective decision model is the main objective of this study. We aim to provide more insight into their selection process and reduce time and effort significantly by designing a decision model. Method: This study presents a decision model for the decentralized autonomous organization platform selection problem. The decision model captures knowledge regarding such platforms and concepts systematically. This model is based on an existing theoretical framework that assists software engineers with a set of multi-criteria decision-making problems in software production. Results: We conducted three industry case studies in the context of three decentralized autonomous organizations to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the decision model in assisting decision-makers. The case study participants declared that the decision model provides significantly more insight into their selection process and reduces time and effort. Conclusion: We observe in the empirical evidence from the case studies that decision-makers can make more rational, efficient, and effective decisions with the decision model. Furthermore, the reusable form of the captured knowledge regarding decentralized autonomous organization platforms can be employed by other researchers in their future investigations