Cette thèse présente le travail de conception, de fabrication et de test d'un processor à 4 qubits Josephson, avec un souci d’évolutivité. Les qubits ont une fréquence réglable et sont tous couplés à un unique bus de couplage, afin d’implémenter la porte à deux qubits iSWAP, sur n’importe quelle paire d'entre eux. Chaque qubit est aussi équipé d’un amplificateur Josephson à bifurcation (JBA). Le principe du processeur, le choix des paramètres, le design micro-onde ainsi que la fabrication sont décrits. Une première expérience montre la lecture simultanée, haute-fidélité et en un coup de tous les qubits, par une technique de multiplexage fréquentiel des signaux de lecture. Une seconde teste la fidélité de la porte à deux qubits iSWAP, qui apparait limitée par la décohérence intrinsèque des qubits. / This thesis presents our effort to design, fabricate and test a simple 4-Josephson qubit processor with scalability potential. The qubits are frequency tunable and are coupled to a shared coupling bus able to implement iSwap two-qubit gates on any pair of qubits. Each qubit is fitted with its own readout made of a Josephson bifurcation amplifier (JBA). The operation principle of the processor, the choice of parameters, the microwave layout design, as well as the fabrication processes are described. A first experiment demonstrates the simultaneous high-fidelity readout of all the qubits by frequency multiplexing of the JBA signals. A second one tests the two-qubit iSwap gate of the processor, the fidelity of which happens to be limited by the intrinsic qubit decoherence.

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the D.Tech.: Electrical Engineering, Durban University of Technology, 2017. / The tremendous growth in the volume of telecommunication traffic has undoubtedly triggered an unprecedented information revolution. The emergence of high-speed and bandwidth-hungry applications and services such as high-definition television (HDTV), the internet and online interactive media has forced the telecommunication industry to come up with ingenious and innovative ideas to match the challenges. With the coming of age of purposeful advances in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology, it is inherently practicany possible to deploy ultra-high speed all-optical networks to meet the ever-increasing demand for modern telecommunication services. All-optical networks are capable of transmitting data signals entirely in the optical domain from source to destination, and thus eliminate the incorporation of the often bulky and high-energy consuming optical­ to-electrical-to-optical (OEO) converters at intermediate nodes. Predictably, all-optical networks consume appreciably low energy as compared to their opaque and translucent counterparts. This low energy consumption results in lower carbon footprint of these networks, and thus a significant reduction in the greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission. In addition, transparent optical networks bring along other additional and favourable rewards such as high bit-rates and overall protocol transparency. Bearing in mind the aforementioned benefits of transparent optical networks, it is vital to point out that there are significant setbacks that accompany these otherwise glamourous rewards. Since OEO conversions are eliminated at intermediate nodes in all-optical networks, the quality of the transmitted signal from source to destination may be severely degraded mainly due to the cumulative effect of physical-layer impairments induced by the passage through the optical fibres and associated network components. It is therefore essential to come up with routing schemes that effectively take into consideration the signal degrading effects of physical -layer impairments so as to safeguard the integrity and health of transmitted signals, and eventually lower blocking probabilities. Furthermore, innovative approaches need to be put in place so as to strike a delicate balance between reduced energy consumption in transparent networks and the quality of transmitted signals. In addition, the incorporation of renewable energy sources in the powering of network devices appears to gain prominence in the design and operation of the next-generation optical networks. The work presented in this dissertation broadly focuses on physical-layer impairment aware routing and wavelength assignment algorithms (PLIA-RWA) that attempt to: (i) achieve a sufficiently high quality of transmission by lowering the blocking probability, and (ii) reduce the energy consumption in the optical networks. Our key contributions of this study may be summarized as follows: Design and development of a Q-factor estimation tool. Formulation, evaluation and validation of a QoT-based analytical model that computes blocking probabilities. Proposal and development of IA-RWA algorithms and comparison with established ones. Design and development of energy-efficient RWA schemes for dynamic optical networks. / D

No description available.

No description available.

<p> Embedded deterministic test (EDT) is a manufacturing test paradigm that combines the compression advantage of built-in self-test with the high fault coverage of deterministic stimuli inherent to methods based on automatic test pattern generation and external testers. Despite enabling the use of low cost testers for rapidly achieving high fault coverage, EDT must consciously use the available tester channels to ensure non-disruptive scaling to future devices of increased complexity. The focus of this thesis is to introduce a new EDT approach for systems-on-a-chip (SOCs) that are designed using embedded cores that are intellectual property (IP)-protected.</p> <p> Following an introduction to integrated circuit testing and an overview of the related work, we define the criteria that must be satisfied by the EDT approaches for the future SOCs of ever growing complexity. Then we observe that the necessary amount of compressed volume of test data transferred from the tester to the embedded cores in an SOC varies significantly during the testing process. This motivates a novel approach to compressed SOC testing based on time-multiplexing the tester channels. It is shown how the introduction of test control channels will reduce the number of required test data channels which will then have increased usage, as the embedded cores will receive compressed test data only when necessary. Through the use of modular and scalable hardware for on-chip test control and test data decompression, we define a new algorithmic framework for test data compression that is applicable to SOCs comprising IP-protected blocks. Experimental results indicate that our approach compares to the existing approaches for EDT that have similar design criteria and methodology constraints, while providing a seamless integration to low cost test equipment.</p> / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p> An optical time division multiplexing (TDM) scheme using soliton interaction is proposed in the thesis to save the time-bandwidth prduct (TBP). The soliton multiplexer (MUX) consisting of a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) combines two adjacent solitons to form a composite soliton, while the soliton demultiplexer (DEMUX) consisting of a similar HNLF restores the component solitons. The case of interaction between identical fundamental solitons is discussed first. However, when this scheme is used in the conventional TDM system, the total bit rate transmitted over the channel is limited by the time interval between the two adjacent component solitons. Therefore, a modified multiplexing scheme using interaction between different solitons is proposed to satisfy more practical engineering applications. The theoretical analysis and numerical simulation results demonstrate that the modified optical TDM scheme offers a higher TBP efficiency and suitable for conventional TDM, which makes it an attractive candidate for meeting the challenge of increasing demand on frequency bandwidth in modern optical communications. </p> / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

This dissertation focuses on downlink multi-antenna transmission with packet scheduling in a wireless packet data network. The topic is viewed as a critical system design problem for future high-speed packet networks requiring extremely high spectral efficiency. Our aim is to illustrate the interaction between transmission schemes at the physical layer and scheduling algorithms at the medium access control (MAC) layer from a sum-capacity perspective. Various roles of multiple antennas are studied under channel-aware scheduling, including diversity, beamforming and spatial multiplexing. At a system performance level, our work shows that downlink throughput can be optimized by joint precoding across multiple transmit antennas and exploiting small-scale fading of distributed multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) channels. There are three major results in this dissertation. First, it is shown that over a MIMO Gaussian broadcast channel, and under channel-aware scheduling, open-loop transmit antenna diversity actually reduces the achievable sum rate. This reveals a negative interaction between open-loop antenna diversity and the closed-loop multiuser diversity through scheduling. Second, a suboptimal dirty paper coding (DPC) approach benefits greatly from multiuser diversity by an efficient packet scheduling algorithm. Performance analysis of a suboptimal greedy scheduling algorithm indicates that, compared with the receiver-centric V-BLAST method, it can achieve a much larger scheduling gain over a distributed MIMO channel. Further, pre-interference cancellation allows for transmissions free of error propagation. A practical solution, termed Tomlinson-Harashima precoding (THP), is studied under this suboptimal scheduling algorithm. Similar to V-BLAST, a reordering is applied to minimize the average error rate, which introduces only a negligible sum-rate loss in the scenarios investigated. Third, for an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system using MIMO precoding, it is shown that a DPC-based approach is readily applicable and can be easily generalized to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAR) up to 5 dB without affecting the receiver design. Simulations show that in an interference-limited multi-cell scenario, greater performance improvement can be achieved by interference avoidance through adaptive packet scheduling, rather than by interference diversity or averaging alone. These findings suggest that, coordinated with channel-aware scheduling, adaptive multiplexing in both spatial and frequency domains provides an attractive downlink solution from a total capacity point of view. / Ph. D.

Fiber-optic Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are a very attractive technology for the measurement of strain and temperature. They have many advantages over conventional sensors in sensing applications such as sensitivity, immunity to electromagnetic interferences,large bandwidths,capability of remote operation and the potential power to sense micro strain at high temperature. They can be directly embedded into many structures such as concrete to evaluate the material deformation. FBGs are fabricated by photo-inscribing through a phase mask technology on a photosensitive fiber. A periodic refractive index is formed in the fiber core, introducing a reflection at the Bragg wavelength. Since the FBG is characterized by a low insertion loss and controllable reflectance, it has the potential to be multiplexed in very large numbers. The major purpose of this dissertation research is to develop an innovative, high- resolution fiber Bragg grating sensing system using photon-counting optical time domain reflectometry (pc-OTDR) based multiplexing technology. The system uses a Fresnel reflection OTDR with a zero deadzone to detect FBG sensors, which improves both the system detection ability and spatial resolution. A low reflectance FBG with broad bandwidth has been developed that is appropriate for the pc-OTDR measurement. Hundred of multiplexed sensors have been implemented in this system. Two theoretical analyses and preliminary results are presented. The greatest advantage of the system is to increase the maximum multiplexing sensor number to one thousand within a short fiber range. Self-referencing demodulation is necessary to eliminate multiplexed system noise caused by the source power fluctuation and fiber bending effects. A referencing FBG with a different wavelength from the sensing FBG has to be introduced to achieve compensation of disturbances in the measurement. The spectral properties of the FBGs and the combination of WDM/TDM are also discussed to evaluate multiplexing sensor performance. The sensor crosstalk and other noise performances are assessed to evaluate the possibility of large scale multiplexing. / Ph. D.

Subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) on lightwave systems is an important technique for the near term implementation of broadband services by both telecommunication and cable TV companies. With advance in opto-electronics technology in the mid-1980s, lightwave SCM systems can now be practically implemented to provide a carrier platform for both digital and analog signals and (for short distance applications) are presently more cost effective than time division multiplexed systems. AM SCM systems are particularly attractive for multichannel video signal transmission due to their compatibility with the National Television Systems Committee Amplitude Modulated Vestigial Sideband (NTSC AM-VSB) TV format. However, AM SCM systems are generally recognized to have a limited system capacity due to large carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) and low nonlinear distortion requirements. This research dissertation contains a comprehensive study of the system capacity of such systems based on theoretical analysis, experiment, and simulation. The practical performance of lightwave AM SCM systems are limited by the laser diode threshold-nonlinearity and laser relative intensity noise, the photodiode shot noise, and the receiver thermal noise. The practical system performance is evaluated and compared with that of the theoretical performance limit. The analysis indicates that AM SCM systems have sufficient system capacity for typical CATV loop distribution and supertrunking systems. It is shown that previous reported limits are generally overly conservative. A sensitivity analysis identifies the critical performance limiting parameters and provides system designers with achievable system performance as device characteristics improve. For 1550 nm AM SCM systems employing erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) operating on the 1300 nm single-mode-fiber of telephone networks, there are additional sources of nonlinear distortion and noise to be considered. The nonlinear distortion produced by laser-chirp and fiber-induced-dispersion and the noise produced by the EDFA can significantly degrade the system performance. The analysis shows that the maximum link distance is limited by the composite-second-order (CSO) distortion, and the maximum number of subscribers is limited by the EDFA excess fluctuation noise. / Ph. D.

Wavelength Division Multiplexed (WDM) based broadband fiber optic networks offer an attractive approach to achieve extremely high throughputs while employing moderate speed electronics. Passive optical filters play a crucial role in such networks serving the function of combining and separating multiple wavelengths. Single and multiple cavity F-P filters are analyzed with particular emphasis on their bandwidth and tuning range. Fabry-Perot (F-P) filter tuning commonly employs piezoelectric techniques. A new tuning technique based on a F-P filter fabricated with a fiber having an electro-optic cladding is proposed. A novel F-P filter structure employing optical feedback is proposed and analyzed. The application of F-P filters in an incoherent multiwavelength star network and the associated concerns involving crosstalk and dispersion are evaluated. A comparative error performance analysis of one and two F-P filter receivers in a BFSK transmission system is performed. An overview of numerous multiwavelength network and switch proposals along with their associated merits and demerits is given. / Master of Science