abstract: Digital architectures for data encryption, processing, clock synthesis, data transfer, etc. are susceptible to radiation induced soft errors due to charge collection in complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits (ICs). Radiation hardening by design (RHBD) techniques such as double modular redundancy (DMR) and triple modular redundancy (TMR) are used for error detection and correction respectively in such architectures. Multiple node charge collection (MNCC) causes domain crossing errors (DCE) which can render the redundancy ineffectual. This dissertation describes techniques to ensure DCE mitigation with statistical confidence for various designs. Both sequential and combinatorial logic are separated using these custom and computer aided design (CAD) methodologies. Radiation vulnerability and design overhead are studied on VLSI sub-systems including an advanced encryption standard (AES) which is DCE mitigated using module level coarse separation on a 90-nm process with 99.999% DCE mitigation. A radiation hardened microprocessor (HERMES2) is implemented in both 90-nm and 55-nm technologies with an interleaved separation methodology with 99.99% DCE mitigation while achieving 4.9% increased cell density, 28.5 % reduced routing and 5.6% reduced power dissipation over the module fences implementation. A DMR register-file (RF) is implemented in 55 nm process and used in the HERMES2 microprocessor. The RF array custom design and the decoders APR designed are explored with a focus on design cycle time. Quality of results (QOR) is studied from power, performance, area and reliability (PPAR) perspective to ascertain the improvement over other design techniques. A radiation hardened all-digital multiplying pulsed digital delay line (DDL) is designed for double data rate (DDR2/3) applications for data eye centering during high speed off-chip data transfer. The effect of noise, radiation particle strikes and statistical variation on the designed DDL are studied in detail. The design achieves the best in class 22.4 ps peak-to-peak jitter, 100-850 MHz range at 14 pJ/cycle energy consumption. Vulnerability of the non-hardened design is characterized and portions of the redundant DDL are separated in custom and auto-place and route (APR). Thus, a range of designs for mission critical applications are implemented using methodologies proposed in this work and their potential PPAR benefits explored in detail. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2017

Estudamos, através de fotometria superficial CCD em B, V, R e I, quatro galáxias espirais, classificadas como barradas, com tipos morfológicos entre Sa e Se: NGC 6835, NGC 5757, IC 1091 e NGC 7412. Para cada galáxia, obtivemos mapas de isofotas e, através do ajuste de elipses às isofotas, determinamos parâmetros como inclinação, orientação no céu e diâmetros. Pelo ajuste de curvas padrões de crescimento às magnitudes integradas, obtivemos magnitudes totais em B e V. Traçamos diferentes tipos de perfis de brilho, tais como perfis de luminosidade ao longo dos eixos maior e menor das galáxias e/ou das barras, perfis de luminosidade promediados elipticamente e perfis azimutais. Os perfis nas direções das barras mostraram que o brilho superficial ao longo dessas componentes decresce de maneira uniforme, com um gradiente quase exponencial, e que é mais íngreme em I do que em B. Decompusemos os perfis de luminosidade médios em componentes bojo e disco, ajustando leis de De Vaucouleurs e exponencial. Os perfis azimutais foram estudados com análise de Fourier para determinar as componentes dominantes na região da barra. Traçamos perfis em várias cores ao longo dos eixos principais das galáxias e constatamos que três delas têm núcleo azul, sugerindo ser esse um fenômeno comum em galáxias barradas. Comparamos as cores nucleares com modelos de síntese de população estelar, o que mostrou que aconteceram eventos de formação estelar nesses núcleos nos últimos 108 anos. / We obtained CCD surface photometry in the B, V, R, I wavebands, for four barred spiral galaxies with morphological types ranging from Sa to Se: NGC 6835, NGC 5757, IC 1091, and NGC 7412. For each galaxy we obtained isophote maps, inclination, orientatión, and diameters. We determined B and V total magnitudes by fitting standard growth curves to integrated magnitudes. We determined different kinds of luminosity profiles, · such as luminosity profiles along the major and minor axis of the galaxies and/or the bars, elliptically averaged luminosity profiles and azimuthal profiles. The profiles along the major axis of the bars showed that the surface brightness along these components decreases smoothly; the gradient is almost exponential and steeper in I than in B. We decomposed the mean luminosity profiles in contributions from bulge and disc, using as fitting functions de Vaucouleurs' law and an exponentiallaw. The azimuthal profiles were studied by Fourier transformations to determine the main components in the bar region. Color profiles along the principal axis of the galaxies revealed that three of them have blue nucleus, suggesting · this is a common phenomenon among barred galaxies. A comparison of the nuclear colors with models of stellar population synthesis showed that bursts of star formation occurred in these nuclei during the last 108 years.

abstract: Switch mode DC/DC converters are suited for battery powered applications, due to their high efficiency, which help in conserving the battery lifetime. Fixed Frequency PWM based converters, which are generally used for these applications offer good voltage regulation, low ripple and excellent efficiency at high load currents. However at light load currents, fixed frequency PWM converters suffer from poor efficiencies The PFM control offers higher efficiency at light loads at the cost of a higher ripple. The PWM has a poor efficiency at light loads but good voltage ripple characteristics, due to a high switching frequency. To get the best of both control modes, both loops are used together with the control switched from one loop to another based on the load current. Such architectures are referred to as hybrid converters. While transition from PFM to PWM loop can be made by estimating the average load current, transition from PFM to PWM requires voltage or peak current sensing. This theses implements a hysteretic PFM solution for a synchronous buck converter with external MOSFET's, to achieve efficiencies of about 80% at light loads. As the PFM loop operates independently of the PWM loop, a transition circuit for automatically transitioning from PFM to PWM is implemented. The transition circuit is implemented digitally without needing any external voltage or current sensing circuit. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Electrical Engineering 2014

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

The rising power demands and cost motivates us to explore low power solutions in electronics. In nanometer Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) processes with low threshold voltages and thin gate oxides, subthreshold leakage power dominates total power of a circuit. As technology scales, Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) emerged as a major limiting reliability mechanism. It causes a threshold voltage shift which, over time, results in circuit performance degradation. Hence, leakage power and NBTI degradation are two key challenges in deep sub micron regime. In this dissertation, interval arithmetic based interval propagation technique is introduced as an effective leakage optimization technique in high level circuits with little overhead. The concept of self similarity from fractal theory is adopted for the first time in VLSI research to handle large design space. Though there are some leakage and NBTI co-optimization techniques in literature, our vector cycling approach combined with a back tracking algorithm have achieved better results for ISCAS85 benchmarks. We did not find any previous research works on NBTI optimization of finite state machines (FSMs). The optimization techniques of NBTI optimization in FSMs is introduced in this dissertation as well and substantial NBTI optimization is reported. Input vector control has been shown to be an effective technique to minimize subthreshold leakage. Applying appropriate minimum leakage vector (MLV) to each register transfer level (RTL) module instance results in a low leakage state with significant area overhead. For each module, via Monte Carlo simulation, we identify a set of MLV intervals such that maximum leakage is within (say) 10% of the lowest leakage points. As the module bit width increases, exhaustive simulation to find the low leakage vector is not feasible. Further, we need to search the entire input space uniformly to obtain as many low leakage intervals as possible. Based on empirical observations, we observed self similarity in the leakage distribution of adder/multiplier modules when input space is partitioned into smaller cells. This property enables uniform search of low leakage vectors in the entire input space. Also, the time taken for characterization increases linearly with the module size. Hence, this technique is scalable to higher bit width modules with acceptable characterization time. We can reduce area overhead (in some cases to 0) by choosing Primary Input (PI) MLVs such that resultant inputs to internal nodes are also MLVs. Otherwise, control points can be inserted. Based on interval arithmetic, given a DFG, we propose a heuristic with several variations for PI MLV identification with minimal control points. Experimental results for DSP filters simulated in 16nm technology demonstrated leakage savings of 93.8% with no area overhead, compared to existing work. Input vector control can also be adopted to reduce NBTI degradation as well as leakage in CMOS circuits. In the prior work, it is shown that minimum leakage vector of a circuit is not necessarily NBTI friendly. In order to achieve NBTI and leakage co-optimization, we propose an input vector cycling technique which applies different sub-optimal low leakage vectors to primary inputs at regular intervals. A co-optimal input vector for a given circuit is obtained by using simulated annealing (SA) technique. For a given input vector, a set of critical path PMOS transistors are under stress. A second input vector is obtained using a back tracking algorithm such that most of the critical path PMOS transistors are put in recovery mode. When a co-optimized input vector is assigned to primary input, critical path nodes under stress with high delay contribution are set to recovery. Logic 1 is back propagated from the nodes to the primary inputs to obtain the second input vector. These two vectors are alternated at regular time intervals. The total stress is evenly distributed among transistor sets of two vectors, as the intersection of the two sets is minimized. Hence, the overall stress on critical path transistors is alleviated, thereby reducing the NBTI delay degradation. For ISCAS85 benchmarks, an average of 5.3% improvement is achieved in performance degradation at 3.3% leakage overhead with NBTI-leakage co-optimization with a back tracking algorithm compared to solely using co-optimization. A 10.5% average NBTI improvement is obtained when compared to circuit with minimum leakage input vector for 18% average leakage overhead. Also, an average NBTI improvement of 2.13% is obtained with 6.77% leakage improvement when compared to circuit with minimum NBTI vector. Vector cycling is shown to be more effective in mitigating NBTI over input vector control. Several works in the literature have proposed optimal state encoding techniques for delay, leakage, and dynamic power optimization. In this work, we propose, for the first time, NBTI optimization based on state code optimization. We propose a SA based state code assignment algorithm, resulting in minimization of NBTI degradation in the synthesized circuit. A PMOS transistor when switched ON for a long period of time, will lead to delay degradation due to NBTI. Therefore, in combinational circuits, an NBTI friendly input vector that stresses the least number of PMOS transistors on the critical path can be applied. For sequential circuits, the state code can significantly influence the ON/OFF mode of PMOS transistors in the controller implementation. Therefore, we propose to focus on state encoding. As the problem is computational intractable, we will focus on encoding states with high state probability. The following SA moves are employed: (a) code swap; and (b) code modification by flipping bits. Experiments with LGSYNTH93 benchmarks resulted in 18.6% improvement in NBTI degradation on average with area and power improvements of 5.5% and 4.6% respectively.

Nowadays, the use of mobile phones and other wireless devices has become an indispensable part of daily life. However, the focus of wireless communication is on infrastructure-based networks, making them prone to service outage if for any reason the infrastructure is overloaded or there is no network coverage. This is the case in a disaster area, where the infrastructure that supports the communication may be destroyed or could become useless. Different approaches to complement the exchange of information in these scenarios are emerging as research results. This thesis concerns Random-Walk Gossip (RWG), which is a protocol to disseminate information in disaster areas. RWG is a many-cast protocol for intermittently connected mobile ad hoc networks. The more people can communicate, the more chances of success there are. Therefore, it is useful to investigate the possibility of implementing such protocols on commodity devices. Since Symbian is currently the most widespread mobile phone operating system, this master's thesis presents the implementation of the protocol in that platform. The protocol is also implemented in Linux and Mac OS X in order to provide heterogeneity. Finally, some aspects of the performance of the protocol in different devices are analyzed, studying the CPU load, memory consumption, radio range, energy consumption and response time of different devices using the protocol. The studies show that the use of the RWG protocol in both laptops and handheld devices is viable.

L’équipe de conception de Freescale à Toulouse développe des circuits intégrés dédiés au marché de l’automobile pour des applications châssis, sécurité ou loisir. Les contraintes associées à l’embarquement des circuits sont nombreuses : niveau d’intégration, fiabilité, températures élevées, et compatibilité électromagnétique. Les produits conçus par Freescale intègrent des convertisseurs à découpage pour l’alimentation en énergie des microcontrôleurs. Cette thèse a pour objet l’étude de nouvelles topologies de convertisseur d’énergie pour la baisse de l’encombrement et des perturbations électromagnétiques. La structure multiphase répond à la problématique dans son ensemble. Un prototype est réalisé dans une technologie silicium Freescale haute tension 0.25µm. Le volume des composants externes de filtrage est optimisé et réduit. Les mesures sur le prototype montrent des performances en accord avec les objectifs, et des émissions électromagnétiques particulièrement faibles.

Kyoto University (京都大学) / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第14628号 / 工博第3096号 / 新制||工||1460(附属図書館) / 26980 / UT51-2009-D340 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科電子工学専攻 / (主査)教授 木本 恒暢, 教授 鈴木 実, 教授 藤田 静雄 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当

In society, intellectual capital (IC) is considered to be necessary in order to create value in organizations. The interest has expanded from private to public organizations such as universities. However, there is still a relatively small amount of research about IC reporting in universities, despite the importance of IC in universities. Previous research does not either consider different university characteristics, something that can help in the development of a common framework for IC reporting. The purpose with this study is to explore and explain howdifferent universities report on IC information in their annual reports in regard to the characteristics size, maturity, type of institution and governmental dependence. The purpose was reached through a multiple case study of eight Swedish universities and a content analysis. The theoretical model was developed through resource based view, knowledge based view, institutional diversity and signaling theory and suggest that internal and external pressures affects the usage of IC assets, strategies and intentions with IC reporting. The results show that all universities report on IC information, to different extent. Relational capital and human capital was the types of IC reported on the most which can be explained by its close connection to the individual, compared to structural capital. The results did not show differences in the IC reporting regarding the different characteristics. However, a contribution of the thesis was the results regarding the IC reporting being integrated in different sections of the annual report, as a part of both strategies and historical performance.

This master thesis deals with the investigation of selected chemical and sensory characteristics of ciders, which were made from four selected apple varieties. The theoretical part describes the chemical composition of apples, cider, the technology of production and production in the world. The next section describes the analytical methods used to determine chemical characteristics not only in ciders but also in other alcoholic beverages. The experimental part focuses on the determination of chemical characteristics such as the content of organic acids, carbohydrates, total phenolic content, alcohol antioxidant activity and elemental composition. The purpose of the work was to find out how different varieties differ in chemical composition. The produced ciders were subjected to sensory analysis to evaluate the selected cider sensory parameters, which were in the natural state and with the addition of carbon dioxide. The results show that ciders of different varieties differ in chemical composition. Malic acid was the most cider's abundant of the organic acids in the range of 2759 – 4411 mg·l-1. Another acid represented was lactic acid in the range of 166,2 – 288,1 mg·l-1. The glucose content of each cider was determined between 845,3 – 1159,8 mg·l-1and fructose 32,6 – 406,7 mg·l-1. Potassium 944,29 – 1073,98 mg·l-1 was the most represented of all elements. The total phenolic content was determined to be in the range of 164,2 – 214,1 mg of GAE·l-1and the antioxidant activity of 0,192 – 0,318 mg·l-1. These differences in chemical composition were also reflected in sensory evaluation. According to the overall assessment, the best cider was made from the Granny Smith variety, which contained the most organic acids and carbohydrates. It has been found that by adding carbon dioxide, sensory parameters such as colour, taste and smell are altered.