Implementation of arithmetic primitives using truly deep submicron technology (TDST)

The invention of the transistor in 1947 at Bell Laboratories revolutionised the electronics industry and created a powerful platform for emergence of new industries. The quest to increase the number of devices per chip over the last four decades has resulted in rapid transition from Small-Scale-Integration (SSI) and Large-Scale-lntegration (LSI), through to the Very-Large-Scale-Integration (VLSI) technologies, incorporating approximately 10 to 100 million devices per chip. The next phase in this evolution is the Ultra-Large-Scale-Integration (ULSI) aiming to realise new application domains currently not accessible to CMOS technology. Although technology is continuously evolving to produce smaller systems with minimised power dissipation, the IC industry is facing major challenges due to constraints on power density (W/cm2) and high dynamic (operating) and static (standby) power dissipation. Mobile multimedia communication and optical based technologies have rapidly become a significant area of research and development challenging a variety of technological fronts. The future emergence or 4G (4th Generation) wireless communications networks is further driving this development, requiring increasing levels of media rich content. The processing requirements for capture, conversion, compression, decompression, enhancement and display of higher quality multimedia, place heavy demands on current ULSI systems. This is also apparent for mobile applications and intelligent optical networks where silicon chip area and power dissipation become primary considerations. In addition to the requirements for very low power, compact size and real-time processing, the rapidly evolving nature of telecommunication networks means that flexible soft programmable systems capable of adaptation to support a number of different standards and/or roles become highly desirable. In order to fully realise the capabilities promised by the 4G and supporting intelligent networks, new enabling technologies arc needed to facilitate the next generation of personal communications devices. Most of the current solutions to meet these challenges are based on various implementations of conventional architectures. For decades, silicon has been the main platform of computing, however it is slow, bulky, runs too hot, and is too expensive. Thus, new approaches to architectures, driving multimedia and future telecommunications systems, are needed in order to extend the life cycle of silicon technology. The emergence of Truly Deep Submicron Technology (TDST) and related 3-D interconnection technologies have provided potential alternatives from conventional architectures to 3-D system solutions, through integration of IDST, Vertical Software Mapping and Intelligent Interconnect Technology (IIT). The concept of Soft-Chip Technology (SCT) entails integration of Soft• Processing Circuits with Soft-Configurable Circuits . This concept can effectively manipulate hardware primitives through vertical integration of control and data. Thus the notion of 3-D Soft-Chip emerges as a new design algorithm for content-rich multimedia, telecommunication and intelligent networking system applications. 3•D architectures (design algorithms used suitable for 3-D soft-chip technology), are driven by three factors. The first is development of new device technology (TDST) that can support new architectures with complexities of 100M to 1000M devices. The second is development of advanced wafer bonding techniques such as Indium bump and the more futuristic optical interconnects for 3-D soft-chip mapping. The third is related to improving the performance of silicon CMOS systems as devices continue to scale down in dimensions. One of the fundamental building blocks of any computer system is the arithmetic component. Optimum performance of the system is determined by the efficiency of each individual component, as well as the network as a whole entity. Development of configurable arithmetic primitives is the fundamental focus in 3-D architecture design where functionality can be implemented through soft configurable hardware elements. Therefore the ability to improve the performance capability of a system is of crucial importance for a successful design. Important factors that predict the efficiency of such arithmetic components are: • The propagation delay of the circuit, caused by the gate, diffusion and wire capacitances within !he circuit, minimised through transistor sizing. and • Power dissipation, which is generally based on node transition activity. [2] Although optimum performance of 3-D soft-chip systems is primarily established by the choice of basic primitives such as adders and multipliers, the interconnecting network also has significant degree of influence on !he efficiency of the system. 3-D superposition of devices can decrease interconnect delays by up to 60% compared to a similar planar architecture. This research is based on development and implementation of configurable arithmetic primitives, suitable to the 3-D architecture, and has these foci: • To develop a variety of arithmetic components such as adders and multipliers with particular emphasis on minimum area and compatible with 3-D soft-chip design paradigm. • To explore implementation of configurable distributed primitives for arithmetic processing. This entails optimisation of basic primitives, and using them as part of array processing. In this research the detailed designs of configurable arithmetic primitives are implemented using TDST O.l3µm (130nm) technology, utilising CAD software such as Mentor Graphics and Cadence in Custom design mode, carrying through design, simulation and verification steps

Affordance Theory in Social Media Research: Systematic Review and Synthesis of the Literature

Social media technologies continue transforming various dimensions of social and organisational life through possibilities they present for goal-oriented actions of diverse users/ user groups. The notion of affordances that explains these possibilities has witnessed popularity among IS scholars to study these technologies. However, since the concept itself has been under ongoing development, its use in studying social media technologies has been focused on identifying technical affordances, perception and actualisations of these affordances, or the social and organisational implications of such affordances. In this research-in-progress paper, we present our attempt to systematically review and synthesise the literature to examine the effects of social media affordances. In addition, we aim to systematically review the existing literature to explore how the concept of affordance has been employed in social media research, to uncover the effects of social media affordances and present a comprehensive framework of these affordances effects and identify areas for future research

Modeling of Coupled Memristive-Based Architectures Applicable to Neural Network Models

This chapter explores the dynamic behavior of dual flux coupled memristor circuits in order to explore the uncharted territory of the fundamental theory of memristor circuits. Neuromorphic computing anticipates highly dense systems of memristive networks, and with nanoscale devices within such close proximity to one another, it is anticipated that flux and charge coupling between adjacent memristors will have a bearing upon their operation. Using the constitutive relations of memristors, various cases of flux coupling are mathematically modeled. This involves analyzing two memristors connected in composite, both serially and in parallel in various polarity configurations. The new behavior of two coupled memristors is characterized based on memristive state equations, and memductance variation represented in terms of voltage, current, charge and flux. The rigorous mathematical analysis based on the fundamental circuit equations of ideal memristors affirms the memristor closure theorem, where coupled memristor circuits behave as different types of memristors with higher complexity

Prevalence and Clinical Significance of Hepatitis B Basal Core Promoter and Precore Gene Mutations in Southern Iranian Patients

Background and Aims: To investigate the prevalence and pattern of PC and BCP mutations and their clinical significance in patients with genotype D chronic hepatitis B infection in the Fars province of southern Iran. Materials and Methods: From January 2007 to March 2008, we evaluated 44 patients with chronic hepatitis B infection who were referred to our hepatology clinics affiliated with the Shiraz University of Medical Science. All Patients were HBeAg Negative and HBeAb positive. Basal core promoter and precore mutations in these patients were evaluated with clinical phenotype and laboratory tests. Results: The mean age of the patients was 37.21 ± 10.54 years. Twenty-seven patients (61.4) had no mutations, whereas 17 patients (38.6) had mutations in the precore or basal core promoter regions or both. The mean serum ALT level in mutation-free patients was 59.74 ± 55.86 IUL, whereas patients with PC and BCP mutations had a mean serum ALT level of 71.35 ± 59.49 IUL. The mean serum AST level in patients with mutations was higher than for patients without mutations (59.53 ± 41.35 IUL vs. 40.65 ± 25.21 IUL, respectively). There was no statistically significant difference between the mutation and mutation-free groups in terms of age, sex, and liver enzyme levels (P > 0.05). Fourteen of the 44 patients (31.8) had mutations in the precore region (G 1896A). 17 patients (38.6) had mutations in basal core promoter region. Conclusion: This study revealed a high prevalence of precore and basal core promoter mutations in southern Iran. Although no statistically significant difference was noted in liver enzymes, patients with mutations had igher liver enzymes in comparison with mutation-free patients

Opening the Blackbox of ‘Fitness for Use’: The Role of IT Implementation in Perceiving Information Quality

This article explains the role of adoption and adaptation of information technology in shaping and constructing the perception of information quality by information consumers. A qualitative and interpretive study has been conducted among Iranian organizations that faced problems in implementing Western developed software applications in Iran’s institutional context. We have been exploring how the lack of institutional linkage between the technology developers and technology users which already made implementation process a challenging one for the users may affect their perception of information quality. Drawing on Social Studies of Technology and the theory of social learning, we have provided more insight into the mentioned dynamics. We conceptualize the impact of implementation of information technology on the dynamics of shaping perception of information quality by suggesting the following mechanisms: adapting and domesticating a generic type of information technology from other institutional contexts, experiencing context-specific information quality issues by using the appropriated information technology, and affecting the perception of information and its fitness to the context of use

AFFORDANCE THEORY IN SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH: SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND SYNTHESIS OF THE LITERATURE

Social media technologies continue transforming various dimensions of social and organisational life through possibilities they present for goal-oriented actions of diverse users/ user groups. The notion of affordances that explains these possibilities has witnessed popularity among IS scholars to study these technologies. However, since the concept itself has been under ongoing development, its use in studying social media technologies has been focused on identifying technical affordances, perception and actualisations of these affordances, or the social and organisational implications of such affordances. In this research-in-progress paper, we present our attempt to systematically review and synthesise the literature to examine the effects of social media affordances. In addition, we aim to systematically review the existing literature to explore how the concept of affordance has been employed in social media research, to uncover the effects of social media affordances and present a comprehensive framework of these affordances effects and identify areas for future research

ADOPTING A ‘SEARCH’ LENS IN EXPLORATION OF HOW ORGANISATIONS TRANSFORM DIGITALLY

As new forms of digital technologies continue to proliferate, Information Systems (IS) scholars argue that we are witnessing a paradigmatic shift in the nature of technologies and their potential in profoundly changing organisations and ways of working. Such technological shifts have also given rise to consumerisation of IT and thus creating more endowed consumers with changing expectations and practices. The black-boxed nature of digital platforms and their algorithms have imposed challenges for scholars to understand these changes. In this paper, we draw on the notion of ‘search’ and its use in the organisation and management literature to propose a new analytical approach in studying digital transformations. Unlike the existing use of search in enhancing organisational performance or introducing new products, we use search as an approach that organisations renew their offerings, processes and practices in redefining their value proposition. Through different reconfigurations of material enactments, search becomes the underlying logic of organising and the centralised control shifts to a de-centralised autonomy, which facilitates the ongoing adaptations of practices as organisations transform digitally