The last couple of years have been very busy for the semiconductor industry and researchers. The rapid speed of production channel length reduction has brought lithographic challenges to semiconductor modeling. These include stress optimization, transistor reliability and efficient circuit design with respect to interconnects, power and leakage at the chip level. This e-book focuses on the latest semiconductor techniques devised to address these issues. It should be a useful resource for electronic engineers and semiconductor chip designers.

This book surveys the major and newly developed techniques for semiconductor strain metrology. Semiconductor strain metrology has emerged in recent years as a topic of great interest to researchers involved in thin film and nanoscale device characterization. This e-book employs a tutorial approach to explain the principles and applications of each technique specifically tailored for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Selected topics include optical, electron beam, ion beam and synchrotron x-ray techniques. Unlike earlier references, this e-book specifically discusses strain metrology as applied to semiconductor devices with both depth and focus.

It is well known that Intersymbol (ISI) Interference is a limiting factor in many communication environments where it causes an irreducible degradation of the bit error rate (BER) thus imposing an upper limit on the data symbol rate. In order to overcome the ISI problem, an equalizer is implemented in those systems. Among the three types of equalizers - non-blind, semi-blind and blind – the blind equalizer has the benefit of bandwidth saving and there is no need of going through a training phase. Blind equalization algorithms are essentially adaptive filtering algorithms designed such that they do not require the external supply of a desired response to generate the error signal in the output of the adaptive equalization filter. The algorithms generate an estimate of the desired response by applying a nonlinear transformation to sequences involved in the adaptation process. This nonlinearity is designed to minimize a cost function that is implicitly based on higher order statistics (HOS) according to one approach, or calculated directly according to the Bayes rules. The Whole Story behind Blind Adaptive Equalizers/ Blind Deconvolution gives the readers a full understanding on blind deconvolution. The e-book covers a variety of blind deconvolution/equalization methods based on both cost functions and Bayes rules where simulation results are supplied to support the theory. These include the Maximum Entropy density approximation technique and the Edgeworth Expansion approach used in various blind equalizers. It also describes the relationship between the cost function approach and the approach taken according to Bayes rules. The e-book deals also with the effect of various system parameters (such as the step-size parameter or the equalizer's tap length) have on the obtained equalization performance. This e-book will be of particular interest to advanced communications engineering undergraduate students, graduate students, university instructors and signal processing researchers.

The number of transistors in integrated circuits doubles every two years, as stipulated by Moore’s law, and this has been the driving force for the huge development of the microelectronics industry in the past 50 years – currently advanced to the nanometric scale. This e-book is dedicated to electronic noises and parasites, accounting for issues involving substrate coupling and interconnections, in the perspective of the 3D integration: a second track for enhancing integration, also compatible with Moore’s law. This reference explains the modeling of 3D circuits without delving into the latest advances, but highlights crucial problems, for instance electro-thermo-mechanical problems, which could be addressed through 3D modeling. The book also explains electromagnetic interferences , at different modeling levels (device and circuit) oriented towards 3D integration technologies. It also covers substrate noise, such as disturbances of digital blocks, power bounces, phase noise in oscillators, both at the device level, such as carriers or field fluctuations, and circuit levels. The entanglement between interconnect and substrate is also discussed. This e-book serves as a reference for advanced graduates or researchers in the field of micro and nano electronics interested in topics relevant to electromagnetic interference or the ‘noise’ domain, at device or circuit and system levels

This ebook is a collection of cutting edge articles from the 2009 Workshop on Microcavities and their Applications (WOMA 2009). It gives readers an overview of state-of-the-art opto electronic research on nano and micro cavities presented by leading experts in the field. Two major themes covered in this ebook are (i) wave- and ray-chaos in open microcavity systems and (ii) opto-electronic applications in nano and micro cavities. The book concludes with a description of recent advances in 2D whispering-gallery-mode microresonators. This ebook should be a very useful reference for any serious opto-electronics researcher.

Voltammetry for Sensing Applications familiarizes readers with recent advancements in the field of electrochemical analysis. The book features 16 chapters which cover many applications of voltammetric analysis such as drug testing and analysis, sensors for point-of-care devices, sensors for diverse analysis, advanced energy storage devices, clinical sample analysis, sensors for the detection of heavy metals, nanomaterials, disease detection, immune sensors, food sample analysis, and anti-inflammatory and anticancer drug detection. Many of the current methods of voltammetry offer increased stability, repeatability, high performance, cost-effectiveness, time-saving, sensitivity, and the chapters also cover appropriate applications for the sensing tools and methodologies which are imperative in electrochemical, environment, biological, medicinal, and food safety analysis. This informative reference serves as a timely and comprehensive update on voltammetry and sensing materials for chemistry scholars and industrial chemists alike.