Flicker Noise Research Articles

Spatiotemporal Filtering for Continuous GPS Coordinate Time Series in Mainland China by Using Independent Component Analysis

Continuous Global Positioning Systems (GPS) coordinate time series with a high spatiotemporal resolution, and provide a great opportunity to study their noise models and common mode errors (CMEs), thus making it possible to detect and analyse spatiotemporal characteristics of tectonic and non-tectonic signals in time series, and further to estimate a reliable and accurate velocity field of crustal movement in a region by removing CMEs and using the optimal noise model. In this paper, we used GPS coordinate time series from the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC) with an approximate decadal period from 2010 to 2020, to construct optimal noise models by fitting them with several noise combinations according to the Akaike information criterion (AIC). We further adopted independent component analysis (ICA) to extract CMEs and analysed their spatiotemporal characteristics, and then evaluated their effects on noise models and velocity uncertainties, and finally estimated a decennial velocity field of crustal movement with a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by applying the CME filtering and considering the optimal noise model in Mainland China. Our results show that optimal noise models are dominated by white noise (WN) plus flicker noise (FN) for both east and north components, and WN plus power law noise (PN) with spectral index close to −1 for up component, respectively. ICA filtering can remove the highly spatially correlated CMEs and decrease the mean RMSEs of the residual time series by about 40–60%, providing a more accurate velocity field with a higher SNR in Mainland China, accordingly.

Noise content assessment in GNSS coordinate time-series with autoregressive and heteroscedastic random errors

SUMMARYProper representation of the stochastic process of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) coordinate time-series lays a foundation for realistic velocities estimates and their uncertainties, as well as identifications of functional effects, generally called periodic/offset signals. Various noise models (e.g. autoregressive process) have been used to describe the stochastic process of GNSS data. A realistic stochastic model prefers proper consideration of individual error characteristics of observations. The usual autoregressive (AR) noise model assumes its white-noise components sharing the same constant variances, which might degrade the modelling accuracy of stochastic process. Through using a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) process to quantify variance variation of the white-noise components, our current investigation has constituted an AR-GARCH noise model to realize the stochastic model and subsequent noise content assessment. This noise framework and its adjustment algorithm are further considered in the identifications of functional effects. For evaluating the performance of our current algorithm, 500 emulated real time-series were used, they consist of a linear trend, seasonal periodic signals, offsets, gaps (up to 10 per cent) and an AR-GARCH noise process. The algorithm's identification power for functional effects was investigated within a case study in the absence of periodic/offset signals. Furthermore, the algorithm's results were compared with the current state-of-the-art noise models (e.g. white plus flicker noise) using 15 real GNSS coordinate time-series. The results demonstrated that the presented stochastic model has been identified as a preferred noise model. Its model's algorithm can offer reliable noise content although sporadic unidentified periodic/offset signals are still masked in time-series. Moreover, the error volatility of white-noise components was identified via an autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity Lagrange multiplier (ARCH LM) test and confirmed in the time-series.

Quantum Flicker Noise in Atomic and Molecular Junctions.

We report on a quantum form of electronic flicker noise in nanoscale conductors that contains valuable information on quantum transport. This noise is experimentally identified in atomic and molecular junctions and theoretically analyzed by considering quantum interference due to fluctuating scatterers. Using conductance, shot-noise, and flicker-noise measurements, we show that the revealed quantum flicker noise uniquely depends on the distribution of transmission channels, a key characteristic of quantum conductors. This dependence opens the door for the application of flicker noise as a diagnostic probe for fundamental properties of quantum conductors and many-body quantum effects, a role that up to now has been performed by the experimentally less-accessible shot noise.

Noise spectroscopy study of methylammonium lead tribromide single-crystal detectors: Gamma-ray spectroscopy applications

Metal halide perovskites have been studied since 2016 for gamma-ray spectroscopy applications. In this work, we study devices based on methylammonium lead tribromide single crystals as gamma-ray detectors. These detectors can measure the signal of a single gamma-ray photon but the energy resolution is limited by the noise of the detectors. Such noise is multicomponent and a deeper investigation was carried out by measuring the noise power spectral density of the devices for different bias voltages. Non-biased devices were found to behave as an idealized equivalent electrical circuit with the main noise source being thermal noise. In the case of biased devices, the dominant noise source is found to be the 1/f noise which becomes preponderant at lower frequency (<1 MHz). These results demonstrate the major contribution of the flicker noise in perovskite detectors of this kind and lay the foundation for next developments to make them compatible with spectrometric applications.

Analog Circuits Using Double-Gate Multilayer MoS2 Field-Effect Transistor for Sensor Applications

The advantages of novel double-gate (DG) multilayer MoS <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> transistors for analog circuit applications are presented. Such components are shown to be especially useful in signal-conditioning circuits in sensor instrumentation systems. The nearly symmetric DG device architecture can be exploited in the design of analog front-end circuits to mitigate the effect of flicker (1/ <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${f}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) noise. Quantum mechanical calculations validated by comparisons with experimental data indicate that with active semiconductor layer thickness >2 monolayers (MLs), the sheet carrier density per gate is increased relative to single gate field-effect transistors (FETs) resulting in a lower noise figure. Calculated normalized noise spectral power densities for the single and DG thin-film transistors (TFTs) at the same gate bias clearly show that the DG devices have lower noise than the single gate devices. In sensors for low-frequency signals such as bio-signals, DG transistors allow convenient direct coupling of the signal through one gate, with the other gate available for mixing with a high-frequency signal and/or applying bias voltages without requiring large capacitors. Such circuits are well-suited for use with silicon CMOS technology using back-end-of-the-line (BEOL) fabrication methods.

28-nm CMOS 공정을 이용한 Ka-Band 수신기 설계

This study presents a Ka-band direct-conversion receiver using a 28-nm CMOS (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) process for radar applications. The designed receiver includes a LNA (Low-Noise Amplifier), Mixer, and Baseband amplifier. The LNA adopts a two-stage cascode amplifier structure. Then, the mixer is a single-balanced passive mixer with low flicker noise. At the end, the baseband amplifier is a transimpedance amplifier with fat FET (Field-Effect-transistor) for low flicker noise and current-mode operation of the mixer. The LO (Local Oscillator) signal for driving the mixer is supplied externally. The performance of the receiver is tested using on-wafer probing and an air test is performed by integrating a microstrip antenna. The total conversion gain, noise figure, and 3 dB bandwidth are 28 dB, 6.1 dB, and 6 GHz, respectively. The chip size is 0.320 mm2.

Analysis of the common model error on velocity field under Colored noise model by GPS and InSAR: A case study in the Nepal and everest region

The accuracy of the velocity field will be affected by the noise model and common mode errors through GPS time series analysis. In order to analyze the influence of these two factors on the accuracy of the velocity field, two kinds of data are used, including the three-year observation from 20 permanent GPS stations with high spatial correlation in the Everest, which is about 650 km from north to south and 1068 km from east to west, and three-year 80 ascending images and 141 descending images from sentinel-1A, which are processed by GAMIT/GLOBK software and Small Baseline Subset-Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar method (SBAS-InSAR), respectively. The vertical deformation rate is solved by time series analysis through a self-made adaptive algorithm. In the analysis, the linear change rate, period, half period coefficient, and residual sequence of all stations are solved by using James L. Davis periodic model. The noise type of residual sequence is analyzed by the power spectrum model. The spatio-temporal correlated noise, Common Mode Error (CME), is extracted by the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Karhunen-Loeve (KLE) methods. The results show that noises can be best described by “flicker noise + white noise” model. After the removal of CME, the R2 estimates of all stations are above 0.8, with RMS value of velocity field decreasing from 1.428 mm/yr to 1.062 mm/yr and 1.063 mm/yr to 0.815 mm/yr, in N and E directions, respectively, indicating that the influence of CME can't be ignored in the extraction of the high-precision velocity field in the Nepal and Everest region.

Phase noise modelling of MEMS resonant accelerometer with non-AGC-driven circuit

Phase noise is an essential performance indicator for microelectromechanical system (MEMS) resonant accelerometers. The optimal resolution achievable is limited by the close-to-the carrier phase noise resulting from the modulation of noise sources by the mechanical resonator and driving circuit. Compared with the frequently used automatic gain control (AGC) circuit, the non-AGC scheme is more concise and can avoid the additional frequency flicker noise and 1/f 5 phase noise introduced by the AGC module. Although the mechanisms of these two kind of control loops are well-known by the communities, the phase noise modelling study on the non-AGC loop, especially compared with that of AGC loop is insufficient. This paper established a phase noise model for the AGC and non-AGC closed loop circuit of MEMS resonant accelerometer. The model includes the effects of resonator thermal noise, random loading noise of proof masses, front-circuit noise, comparator noise, AGC noise and amplitude stiffness coupling on the output noise spectrum of the resonant accelerometer. This paper carries the noise analysis through a behaviour level simulation with Simulink. The measured frequency power spectral density and Allan variance are very close to the theoretical predictions, which verifies the effectiveness of the phase noise model. The test results show that the white noise and the bias instability of the silicon resonant accelerometer are 837 ng (√Hz)−1 and 140 ng respectively, which are in good agreement with the model prediction results.

A Low-Noise and Monolithic Array Tactile Sensor Based on Incremental Delta-Sigma Analog-to-Digital Converters

A low-noise and monolithic array tactile sensor, in which a tactile sensing unit, a low-noise analog front end (AFE), and a high-resolution delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter (ΔΣ ADC) are fully integrated, is presented in this paper. In this proposed system, compared with a discrete-device-based board-level system, the parasitic effect of a long cable connection can be reduced, and results are more accurate. Furthermore, a smaller system area and a lower power consumption can be achieved in this monolithic system. A discrete-continuous mixed mode bandpass AFE is proposed to filter out low-frequency flicker noise and high-frequency white noise. In order to improve the quantization rate of the sensor readout circuit and further suppress the high-frequency noise, a two-way alternate sample-and-hold circuit scheme is adopted in this design. The proposed tactile sensor is designed and fabricated in a 0.5-μm CMOS (Complementary metal oxide semiconductor)mixed-signal process with a 16 × 16 array and a total chip area of 1.9 × 1.9 cm2. This chip consumes 33.5 mW from a 5 V supply. The measurement results showed that the signal-to-noise and distortion rate (SNDR) was 65.2894 dB and that the effective number of bits (ENoB) was 10.553 dB. Moreover, this sensor could achieve a pressure measurement range of 0.002–0.5 N with a resolution of 0.4 mN.

Characteristics of noise degradation and recovery in gamma-irradiated SOI nMOSFET with in-situ thermal annealing

This paper demonstrates a procedure for complete in-situ recovery of on-membrane CMOS devices from total ionizing dose (TID) defects induced by gamma radiation. Several annealing steps were applied using an integrated micro-heater with a maximum temperature of 365 °C. The electrical characteristics of the on-membrane nMOSFET are recorded prior and during irradiation (up to 348 krad (Si)), as well as after each step of the in-situ thermal annealing. High-resolution current sampling measurements reveal the presence of oxide defects after irradiation, with a clear dominant single-trap signature in the random telegraph noise (RTN) traces. Drain current over time measurements are used for the trap identification and further for the defects' parameters extraction. The power spectral density (PSD) curves confirm a clear dominance of the RTN behavior in the low-frequency noise. A radiation-induced oxide trap is detected at 5.4 nm from the Si-SiO2 interface, with an energy of 0.086 eV from the Fermi level in the bandgap. After annealing, the RTN behavior vanishes with a further important reduction of flicker noise. Low-frequency noise measurements of the transistor confirmed the neutralization of oxide defects after annealing. The electro-thermal annealing of the nMOSFET allows a total recovery of its original characteristics after being severely degraded by radiation-induced defects.

A 1.2-µW 41-dB Ripple Attenuation Chopper Amplifier Using Auto-Zero Offset Cancelation Loop for Area-Efficient Biopotential Sensing

In this paper, a low-power and low-noise capacitive-coupled chopper instrumentation amplifier (CCIA) is proposed for biopotential sensing applications. A chopping technique is applied to mitigate the domination of flicker noise at low frequency. A new offset cancellation loop is also used to deal with the intrinsic offset, originating from process variation, to reduce ripple noise at the output of CCIA. Moreover, the optimization of the chip area was resolved by adding a T-network capacitor in the negative feedback loop. The CCIA is designed on 0.18 µm process CMOS technology with a total chip area of 0.09 mm2. The post-simulation results show that the proposed architecture can attenuate the output ripple up to 41 dB with a closed-loop gain of 40 dB and up to 800 Hz of bandwidth. The integrated input referred noise (IRN) of the CCIA is 1.8 µVrms over a bandwidth of 200 Hz. A noise efficiency factor (NEF) of 5.4 is obtained with a total power dissipation of 1.2 µW and a supply voltage of 1 V, corresponding to a power efficiency factor of 9.7 that is comparable with that of state-of-the-art studies.

Optics-Free Chip-Scale Intraoperative Imaging Using NIR-Excited Upconverting Nanoparticles.

We present an optics-free CMOS image sensor that incorporates a novel time-gated dual-photodiode pixel design to allow filter- and lens-less image acquisition of near-infrared-excited (NIR-excited) upconverting nanoparticles. Recent biomedical advances have highlighted the benefits of NIR excitation, but NIR interaction with silicon has remained a challenge, even with high-performance optical blocking filters. Using a secondary diode and a dual-photodiode design, this sensor is able to remove the 100s of mV of NIR background on pixels and bring it down to single-digit mV level, nearing its noise floor of 2.2 mV rms, not achievable with any optical filter. Non-linear effects of background cancellation using the diode pair has been mitigated using an initial one-time pixel-level curve fitting and calibration in a post-processing setting. This imager comprises a highly linear 11 fF metal-oxide-metal (MOM) capacitor and includes integrated angle-selective gratings to reject oblique light and enhance sharpness. Each pixel also includes two distinct correlated double sampling schemes, to remove low frequency flicker noise and systematic offset in the datapath. We demonstrate the performance of this imager using pulsed NIR-excited upconverting nanoparticles on standard United-States-Air-Force (USAF) resolution targets and achieve an SNR of 15 dB, while keeping NIR background below 6 mV. This 36-by-80-pixel array measures only 2.3 mm by 4.8 mm and can be thinned down to 25 µm, allowing it to become surgically compatible with intraoperative instruments and equipment, while remaining optics-free.

Study of self‐organised criticality in a coaxial plasma source with gridded cathode

AbstractMultiple luminous sheath structures develop in the localised plasma formation inside a cylindrical gridded cathode plasma source. These structures gradually expand into the whole vessel and undergo a critical state through self‐organised criticality (SOC) along with pronounced sheath oscillations during the variation of anode potential. The present investigation emphasises the stability properties associated with the oscillations of the sheath potential structures in the cylindrical‐gridded cathode in glow discharge regime through SOC phenomena through non‐linear time series analysis. The non‐linear temporal and spatial analysis of potential structure and dynamics of charged particles are correlated with SOC in cylindrical‐gridded cathode in glow discharge regime through the dynamics of multiple sheath structure formations. The existence of flicker noise and long‐range correlation in the time series suggests the existence of SOC behaviour in the system, the multiple sheath structures evolve through reduction and addition of layers. Cylindrical‐gridded cathode discharge initiation during formations of multiple sheath structures, switching of discharge regimes with anode potential, layer reduction and addition inside the sheath structures through SOC behaviour, renders uniqueness to the present regime of investigation. Self‐organised pattern formations and self‐organised criticality behaviour investigated in the present glow discharge regime using the cylindrical‐gridded cathode source are of prime importance to understand the complex behaviour of plasmas in the field of hollow cathode discharges.

Role of gate electrode in influencing interface trap sensitivity in SOI tunnel FETs

This article reports the response of a silicon-on-insulator tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) to the presence of semiconductor/ gate dielectric interface traps. A systematic strategy is designed keeping in view different parameters which are related to the gate of the device. Acceptor-like traps, and donor-like traps with Gaussian distribution are considered at the said interface for the entire analysis. Sensitivity % is taken as a figure of merit which measures the deviation of the drain current in presence of traps from the cases with no traps. The effect of temperature on interface traps, and the effect of interface traps on gate leakage current are analyzed. The acceptor-like traps are found to affect the on-state regime, and the donor-like traps are found to affect the ambipolar regime. Analyses on gate–drain underlap, gate–source overlap, shift of entire gate over the device, and gate work-function suggest that the gate electrode plays an important role in determining the sensitivity of the TFETs. Furthermore, noise spectral densities in presence of flicker, diffusion, and monopolar generation-recombination noise sources, and interface traps are reported.

A new approach considering temporal correlations for GPS campaign time series

GPS campaign-mode surveys are periodically collected measurements and their time series has a considerable percentage of data gaps unlike continuous time series. Studying error characteristics of a time series is imperative to compute reliable parameter uncertainties. The power-law process can best describe the background noise for a GPS continuous time series and may be introduced into the analysis through well-known methods. However, the power-law process cannot be applied successfully over GPS campaign time series due to the constraints mentioned above. Here we demonstrate a new approach enabling one to project the stochastic properties of campaign time series into the stochastic domain of the permanent stations of International GNSS Service (IGS) network. The stochastic domain, the combination of white noise (WN) and flicker noise (FN), was obtained from the power spectrum of a continuous time series consisting of truncated daily RINEX observations. We implemented it in the Python3 environment as an open-source package called GPS/GNSS campaign time series analysis (GCTS v1.0). The analysis showed that the velocity uncertainties may be, on average, underestimated by a factor of 2 when assuming the WN-only noise model using campaign data from the UNAVCO data archive collected in San Bernardino and its vicinity. Moreover, to reveal the progress of the new approach, we modelled buried screw dislocations of the San Jacinto, the San Andreas, and parallel faults in their vicinity in elastic half-space. When using the new approach with the combination of WN and FN instead of the WN-only model, we achieved a significant improvement of 15% on average in the chi-square value. Our outcomes showed that the noise process should be considered even for campaign time series. The proposed approach facilitates the analysis of GPS campaign time series even if they include considerable data gaps.

On the asymmetry of the DC and low-frequency noise characteristics of vertical nanowire MOSFETs with bulk source contact

In this work, the impact of switching the source and drain on the low-frequency noise of Gate-All-Around (GAA) Vertical Nanowire (VNW) n- and pMOSFETs fabricated on bulk silicon wafers is investigated. Switching the role of the electrodes results in an increase in the absolute value of the threshold voltage, a higher subthreshold slope and maximum transconductance. For the p-channel devices, significantly lower 1/f noise is observed in reverse operation compared with the normal forward configuration. Considering the mobility fluctuations origin of the 1/f noise, this indicates a pronounced impact of the choice of the source/drain contact on the conduction in the p-type silicon nanowires. On the other hand, little effect on the noise behaviour has been found from the in-situ boron doping density in the NWs. For the n-channel FETs, qualitatively similar results have been obtained with respect to the 1/f noise PSD. At the same time, the dominant flicker noise mechanism changes from Δμ dominated in F operation to rather Δn in R mode.

Impact of Phase‐Change Memory Flicker Noise and Weight Drift on Analog Hardware Inference for Large‐Scale Deep Learning Networks

The analog AI core concept is appealing for deep‐learning (DL) because it combines computation and memory functions into a single device. Yet, significant challenges such as noise and weight drift will impact large‐scale analog in‐memory computing. Here, effects of flicker noise and drift on large DL systems are explored using a new flicker‐noise model with memory, which preserves temporal correlations, including a flicker noise figure of merit (FOM) to quantify impacts on system performance. Flicker noise is characterized for (GST) based phase‐change memory (PCM) cells with a discovery of read‐noise asymmetry tied to shape asymmetry of mushroom cells. This experimental read polarity dependence is consistent with Pirovano's trap activation and defect annihilation model in an asymmetric GST cell. The impact of flicker noise and resistance drift of analog PCM synaptic devices on deep‐learning hardware is assessed for six large‐scale deep neural networks (DNNs) used for image classification, finding that the inference top‐1 accuracy degraded with the accumulated device flicker noise and drift as , and , respectively, where ν is the drift coefficient. These negative impacts could be mitigated with a new hardware‐aware (HWA) (pre)‐training of the DNNs, which is applied before programming to the analog arrays.

Experimental Study of AM and PM Noise in Cascaded Amplifiers

An experimental study of amplitude modulation (AM) and phase modulation (PM) noise spectra in cascaded amplifiers was carried out as a function of the number of amplification stages and the input power. Flicker and white noise contributions were determined, as well as effective noise figure (NF) from AM and PM noise spectra from small-signal to large-signal regimes. Simultaneous measurements of AM and PM noise were performed, and associated correlation was measured as a function of the offset frequency from the carrier. Measurements exhibited, in general, quite low AM–PM correlation levels both in the flicker and white noise parts of the spectrum. In some particular amplifier configurations, however, measurements showed some peaks in the correlation at some specific input power levels in the transition zone, from a quasi-linear to strong compression. The results show that the effective noise figure decreases with the number of stages for a given carrier output power level.

The Charge-Based Flicker Noise Model for HEMTs

The flicker noise modeling is of great significance in many applications of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) in low noise circuits. In this letter, a novel charge-based flicker noise model for HEMTs is proposed, which introduces the trap-charge fluctuation-based flicker noise modeling method to the charge-based MIT virtual source (MVS) HEMT model. This model is highly compatible with the MVS HEMT model. It can predict the flicker noise performance in a physically rigorous and accurate way. This model is verified by the excellent agreement between simulations and measurement results.

A Compact 0.2–0.3-V Inverse-Class-F23 Oscillator for Low 1/f 3 Noise Over Wide Tuning Range

We introduce a new mode of oscillation in an <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LC</i> -tank: an inverse class-F <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">23</sub> . In contrast to the conventional class-F oscillators, in which a high value of the real impedance (i.e., resistance) is presented to the third (in class-F <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> ) or/and to the second (in class-F <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> /class-F <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">23</sub> ) oscillator harmonics via an auxiliary resonance, here low resistive impedances (resembling a non-ideal short) are presented at both the second and third harmonics. This is made possible by tight magnetic coupling in the differential and common modes, respectively, afforded by a new compact 2:3 transformer. Being largely free from the harmonics in the voltage waveform and their possible deleterious phase shift effects on the flicker noise up-conversion, the phase noise performance in the flicker and thermal regions is further improved by narrowing the conduction angle. The 2:3 step-up transformer also provides a high passive gain to help with the startup in face of low supply. The switched-capacitor banks and cross-coupled transistor pair are carefully integrated under the transformer with a special arrangement of native (high-resistivity) substrate layer to mitigate their effect on the oscillation while reducing the area by 30%. The proposed digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) is implemented in 28-nm CMOS and achieves −95 dBc/Hz and −118 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz and 1 MHz offsets, respectively, while operating at a 0.3 V supply. The measured <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1/f^{3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> corner stays within 60 to 100 kHz over the 35% tuning range (TR) (from 2.02 to 2.87 GHz). This results in a figure-of-merit (FoM) with normalized TR (FoM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> ) of −196 and −199 dB at 100 kHz and 1 MHz offsets, respectively, is a record in the space of ≤0.5 V and ≤1 mW.