FPGA ARCHITECTURE AND VERIFICATION OF BUILT IN SELF-TEST (BIST) FOR 32-BIT ADDER/SUBTRACTER USING DE0-NANO FPGA AND ANALOG DISCOVERY 2 HARDWARE

The integrated circuit (IC) is an integral part of everyday modern technology, and its application is very attractive to hardware and software design engineers because of its versatility, integration, power consumption, cost, and board area reduction. IC is available in various types such as Field Programming Gate Array (FPGA), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), System on Chip (SoC) architecture, Digital Signal Processing (DSP), microcontrollers (μC), and many more. With technology demand focused on faster, low power consumption, efficient IC application, design engineers are facing tremendous challenges in developing and testing integrated circuits that guaranty functionality, high fault coverage, and reliability as the transistor technology is shrinking to the point where manufacturing defects of ICs are affecting yield which associates with the increased cost of the part. The competitive IC market is pressuring manufactures of ICs to develop and market IC in a relatively quick turnaround which in return requires design and verification engineers to develop an integrated self-test structure that would ensure fault-free and the quality product is delivered on the market. 70-80% of IC design is spent on verification and testing to ensure high quality and reliability for the enduser. To test complex and sophisticated IC designs, the verification engineers must produce laborious and costly test fixtures which affect the cost of the part on the competitive market. To avoid increasing the part cost due to yield and test time to the end-user and to keep up with the competitive market many IC design engineers are deviating from complex external test fixture approach and are focusing on integrating Built-in Self-Test (BIST) or Design for Test (DFT) techniques onto IC’s which would reduce time to market but still guarantee high coverage for the product. Understanding the BIST, the architecture, as well as the application of IC, must be understood before developing IC. The architecture of FPGA is elaborated in this paper followed by several BIST techniques and applications of those BIST relative to FPGA, SoC, analog to digital (ADC), or digital to analog converters (DAC) that are integrated on IC. Paper is concluded with verification of BIST for the 32-bit adder/subtracter designed in Quartus II software using the Analog Discovery 2 module as stimulus and DE0-NANO FPGA board for verification

Development of an optimization model to determine sampling levels

As the complexity of multi-component products increases the quality of these products becomes increasingly difficult to control. The first step to manufacturing a quality product is making sure that the components of the product meet specifications. Product quality can be controlled through sampling inspection of the components. Two models were developed in this research to determine the optimal sampling levels for incoming lots containing parts for production and assembly of multi-component systems. The main objective of the first model is to minimize the expected cost that is associated with a nonconforming item reaching assembly. In this model the time available for inspection is limited. The main objective in the second model is to minimize total cost, which includes the appraisal cost (inspection cost) and the cost associated with nonconformance reaching assembly. In this model the time available is not a constraint. The distribution of defects is assumed to follow the binomial distribution, and the distribution of accepting the lot with defects follows the hypergeometric distribution. In addition, the inspection is considered to be accurate and, if a nonconforming item is found in the inspected sample, the entire lot is rejected. An example is given with real world data and the results are discussed --Abstract, page iv

Reforming mental disability law in Africa: practical tips and suggestions

This report constitutes a major output of the project Designing Mental Health Law in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Lesotho which was directed by Professor Peter Bartlett, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Professor of Mental Health. The report provides examples of best practice, suggestions for future legislative reform initiatives and the direction of legislation and policy regarding service provision for people with mental disabilities

Saksalaiset matkailijat Kainuussa - matkailun parissa toimivien näkemyksiä kansainvälisestä matkailuliiketoiminnasta

Tässä RTG Ready To Go Oy:n toimeksiannosta tehdyssä opinnäytetyössä selvitetään missä elinkaaren vaiheessa saksalaismatkailu on tällä hetkellä, minkälaisista kainuulaisista matkailutuotteista saksalainen asiakas on kiinnostunut ja kuinka tarjolla olevia tuotteita voitaisiin kehittää. Opinnäytetyössä selviää myös saksalaissegmentin koko ja kehitys, sekä saksalaismatkailun menestystekijöitä. Tutkimus tuottaa tietoa, jota Kainuun alueen matkailutoimijat voivat hyödyntää omassa toiminnassaan saksalaismatkailun kehittämisessä. Keskeisenä seikkana ovat alueen kehittämiskohteet sekä matkailutuotteiden laatu. Tutkimus toteutettiin teemahaastattelun muodossa syksyllä 2010 yhteistyössä Kainuun alueen matkailutoimijoiden kanssa. Tutkimustulokset perustuvat kymmeneen haastatteluun, joissa ovat edustettuina matkatoimiston palvelut, matkailutuotteiden myyntiagentuuri, luontoon liittyvät ohjelmapalvelut, majoituspalvelut, Kainuun kansainvälinen markkinointi sekä infopalvelut. Tulokset osoittivat, että Kainuu tarjoaa riittävästi monipuolisia ja laadukkaita matkailupalveluita ja – tuotteita saksalaisille matkailijoille, mutta alueen kehittämisen suurin ongelmatekijä on heikko saavutettavuus. Kainuu tekee tämän asian eteen jatkuvasti töitä ja lähiaikoina avautuu uusia reittilentoja Saksasta Pohjois-Suomen, mikä voi vilkastuttaa myös saksalaismatkailijoiden virtaa.This final year paper was commissioned by the RTG Ready To Go Travel Agency Kajaani. The targets of this thesis were to find out what kind of tourism products German tourists are interested in and how the currently offered products would become more attractive. This thesis solves, in which stage of lifespan the German tourism is at the moment and the segment size of the German tourism. The most important facts were to clarify the developing targets and quality of the tourism products in the region. This theme interview survey was carried out in autumn 2010 by interviewing tourism actors who have experiences with German tourists in Kainuu region. The final results and conclusions are based on ten interviews which represent travel agency services, nature based program services, accommodation, Kainuu’s international marketing and info-services. The results show that Kainuu offers great, various and high-quality products, but weak accessibility is the biggest difficulty to develop the region. The results are hoped to serve the commissioner of this study as well as all other tourism actors in Kainuu

Reforming mental disability law in Africa: practical tips and suggestions

This report constitutes a major output of the project Designing Mental Health Law in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Lesotho which was directed by Professor Peter Bartlett, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Professor of Mental Health. The report provides examples of best practice, suggestions for future legislative reform initiatives and the direction of legislation and policy regarding service provision for people with mental disabilities

Anisotropic charge dynamics in the quantum spin-liquid candidate κ\kappa-(BEDT-TTF)2_2Cu2_2(CN)3_3

We have in detail characterized the anisotropic charge response of the dimer Mott insulator $\kappa$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$\-Cu$_2$(CN)$_3$ by dc conductivity, Hall effect and dielectric spectroscopy. At room temperature the Hall coefficient is positive and close to the value expected from stoichiometry; the temperature behavior follows the dc resistivity $\rho(T)$. Within the planes the dc conductivity is well described by variable-range hopping in two dimensions; this model, however, fails for the out-of-plane direction. An unusually broad in-plane dielectric relaxation is detected below about 60 K; it slows down much faster than the dc conductivity following an Arrhenius law. At around 17 K we can identify a pronounced dielectric anomaly concomitantly with anomalous features in the mean relaxation time and spectral broadening. The out-of-plane relaxation, on the other hand, shows a much weaker dielectric anomaly; it closely follows the temperature behavior of the respective dc resistivity. At lower temperatures, the dielectric constant becomes smaller both within and perpendicular to the planes; also the relaxation levels off. The observed behavior bears features of relaxor-like ferroelectricity. Because heterogeneities impede its long-range development, only a weak tunneling-like dynamics persists at low temperatures. We suggest that the random potential and domain structure gradually emerge due to the coupling to the anion network.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure

Anomalous Hall effect and weak localization corrections in a ferromagnet

In this paper, we report results on the anomalous Hall effect. First, we summarize analytical calculations based on the Kubo formalism : explicit expressions for both skew-scattering and side-jump are derived and weak-localization corrections are discussed. Next, we present numerical calculations of the anomalous Hall resistivity based on the Dirac equation. Qualitative agreement with experiments is obtained.Comment: Proceeding JEMS'0