Interconnects In Circuits Research Articles

“There are two sides to everything”: Re (locating) vulnerability in the surrogacy industry in India

Vulnerability is a pivotal concept for understanding transnational commercial surrogacy and the ethics of reproductive travel. While implicitly recognizing vulnerability as important, existing scholarship falls short of understanding the dynamism of vulnerability. Placing our empirical analysis in conjunction with the rich theoretical literature on this concept, we explore vulnerability in surrogacy arrangements in India as a “mode of openness,” defined by its multilayeredness and context specificity. We focus on two retellings of vulnerability. In the first narrative, we analyse the journey of an intended parent who becomes an agent, while in the second narrative, we focus on the trajectory of a surrogate and egg donor becoming an agent. In both narratives, the layers of vulnerability across different interconnected circuits of reproduction—of intended parent, agent, and surrogate—are explicated. Our analysis illustrates the complex and conflicting meanings of vulnerability and illustrates vulnerability as an instigator of agency and resistance; how it can propel upward social mobility and animate attempts to transform an unjust system, but also how such individual agency and empowerment may serve to uphold exploitative relationships.

Comparison of Precursors for Self-Assembled Monolayers as Cu Barriers

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are the emerging materials as the candidate of barriers for application in back-end-of–line interconnects in advanced integrated circuits. In this study, SAMs derived from organic molecules with different structures are compared in terms of electrical characteristics, Cu diffusion inhibition, and Cu–SiO2 adhesion promotion. Experimental results indicated that all SAMs formed in this study enhanced the breakdown filed of SiO2 film, promote Cu–SiO2 adhesion, and prevent Cu-silicate formation under thermal annealing. Among the studied SAMs, APTMS–SAM derived from 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS) has the most pronounced enhancement. Moreover, APTMS–SAM blocks the drift of Cu under electrical stress. The terminal group −NH2 attached to Cu layer in the APTMS is the key for the improvement.

Alkyl-quinolone-dependent quorum sensing controls prophage-mediated autolysis in Pseudomonas aeruginosa colony biofilms.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a model quorum sensing (QS) pathogen with three interconnected QS circuits that control the production of virulence factors and antibiotic tolerant biofilms. The pqs QS system of P. aeruginosa is responsible for the biosynthesis of diverse 2-alkyl-4-quinolones (AQs), of which 2-heptyl-4-hydroxyquinoline (HHQ) and 2-heptyl-3-hydroxy-4(1H)-quinolone (PQS) function as QS signal molecules. Transcriptomic analyses revealed that HHQ and PQS influenced the expression of multiple genes via PqsR-dependent and -independent pathways whereas 2-heptyl-4-hydroxyquinoline N-oxide (HQNO) had no effect on P. aeruginosa transcriptome. HQNO is a cytochrome bc 1 inhibitor that causes P. aeruginosa programmed cell death and autolysis. However, P. aeruginosa pqsL mutants unable to synthesize HQNO undergo autolysis when grown as colony biofilms. The mechanism by which such autolysis occurs is not understood. Through the generation and phenotypic characterization of multiple P. aeruginosa PAO1 mutants producing altered levels of AQs in different combinations, we demonstrate that mutation of pqsL results in the accumulation of HHQ which in turn leads to Pf4 prophage activation and consequently autolysis. Notably, the effect of HHQ on Pf4 activation is not mediated via its cognate receptor PqsR. These data indicate that the synthesis of HQNO in PAO1 limits HHQ-induced autolysis mediated by Pf4 in colony biofilms. A similar phenomenon is shown to occur in P. aeruginosa cystic fibrosis (CF) isolates, in which the autolytic phenotype can be abrogated by ectopic expression of pqsL.

Simulation of Solvent Extraction Circuits for the Separation of Rare Earth Elements

The separation of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) is an important step in the valorization of REE ore and aims at producing individual rare earth compounds for the market. The separation is carried out industrially by solvent extraction (SX) using interconnected circuits consisting of cascades of mixer-settlers. The design of a REE separation circuit implies the selection of the operating conditions and of the number of mixer-settlers required to achieve a target degree of purity for the separated elements. This design work is either carried out by piloting a circuit or using a mathematical simulation. Independent of the method, the world expertise in this area is limited. This paper describes a simulation method requiring a minimum of calibration effort, which can be used to design a complete REE separation plant. The simulation enables assessment of the effect of the number of mixer-settlers per extraction, the scrubbing and stripping stage, as well as the pH of the aqueous solution and organic-phase contents of free and loaded extractant on the purity of the separated REEs. The simulation tool presented here has been developed from a fundamental analysis of the chemical reactions involved in the solvent extraction process. Unlike most of the simulation methods documented in the literature, the method requires no empirical calibration. The proposed method is validated using data from laboratory batch tests and with published data from continuous pilot and industrial REE separation circuits. The application of the simulation tool is illustrated with the planning of the test conditions for a forthcoming pilot test work and with the simulation of a 9-REE product SX separation plant.

High spatiotemporal resolved imaging of ultrafast control of nondiffracting surface plasmon polaritons

Abstract Nondiffracting Bessel surface plasmon polariton (SPP) beams, which have unique self-healing, non-divergence, and linear transmission properties, have charming applications in plasmonic devices and on-chip interconnection circuits. Here we first realize, to the best of our knowledge, the ultrafast control and imaging of the Bessel SPP pulse on the nano-femto scale in the experiment. We demonstrate ultrafast control of Bessel SPP pulse switching by controlling the instantaneous polarization state of the excitation light. Moreover, this variation process is directly mapped on the nano-femto scale by time-resolved two-color photoemission electron microscopy. The results are well reproduced by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The current study of ultrafast control and spatiotemporally imaging the switching process establishes an experimental paradigm for revealing the complex mechanisms in ultrafast control of nondiffracting SPP and are useful for developing high-speed, highly-integrated nanophotonic devices, and on-chip circuits.

Seismic performance improvement using bolt-on isolators on interconnected slender electrical equipment

The slender electrical equipment in substations is fragile to damage during earthquakes owing to the seismically sensitive structure, low material strength, and coupling effects from interconnected equipment. To improve the seismic performance of the slender electrical equipment in the interconnected circuit system, the design and characterization of an assembled isolation system were recommended. The solution was based on a novelty combination application of bolt-on isolators and a support block by reducing the bending stiffness of slender equipment to achieve vibration isolation function. The isolation function test was performed on isolators from characteristics of stiffness variation and damping. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed isolation system was proved in seismic performance improvement of interconnected slender electrical equipment using a comparison shaking table test, which was performed on a full-scale interconnected circuit, consisting of two ±800kV composite pillar insulators connected by a tubular busbar. Therefore, thus isolation system can provide effective seismic protection for interconnected slender equipment in proper design.

High Chern number in strained thin films of dilute magnetic topological insulators

The quantum anomalous Hall effect was first observed experimentally by doping the ${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Se}}_{3}$ materials family with chromium, where 5% doping induces an exchange field of around 0.1 eV. In ultrathin films, a topological phase transition from a normal insulator to a Chern insulator can be induced with an exchange field proportional to the hybridization gap. Subsequent transitions to states with higher Chern numbers require an exchange field larger than the (bulk) band gap, but are prohibited in practice by the detrimental effects of higher doping levels. Here, we show that threshold doping for these phase transitions in thin films is controllable by strain. As a consequence, higher Chern states can be reached with experimentally feasible doping, sufficiently dilute for the topological insulator to remain structurally stable. Such a facilitated realization of higher Chern insulators opens prospects for multichannel quantum computing, higher-capacity circuit interconnects, and energy-efficient electronic devices at elevated temperatures.

Liquid Metal Coated Textiles with Autonomous Electrical Healing and Antibacterial Properties

AbstractConductive textiles are promising for human–machine interfaces and wearable electronics. A simple way to create conductive textiles by coating fabric with liquid metal (LM) particles is reported. The coating process involves dip‐coating the fabric into a suspension of LM particles at room temperature. Despite being coated uniformly after drying, the textiles remain electrically insulating due to the native oxide that forms on the LM particles. Yet, they can be rendered conductive by compressing the textile to rupture the oxide and thereby percolate the particles. Thus, compressing the textile with a patterned mold can pattern conductive circuits on the textile. The electrical conductivity of these circuits increases by coating more particles on the textile. Notably, the conductive patterns autonomously heal when cut by forming new conductive paths along the edge of the cut. The textiles prove to be useful as circuit interconnects, Joule heaters, and flexible electrodes to measure ECG signals. Further, the LM‐coated textiles provide antimicrobial protection against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Such simple coatings provide a route to convert otherwise insulating textiles into electrical circuits with the ability to autonomously heal and provide antimicrobial properties.

SBCT-NoC: Ultra Low-Power and Reliable Simultaneous Bi-Directional Current-Mode Transceiver for Network-on-Chip Interconnects

The performance of Network-on-Chip depends a lot on the routers and interconnect circuits used in them. The gradual movement of technology towards nanometer scales has increased the core abilities, leading to an increase in delays and interconnect power consumption. As a result, %60 of the total current chip power consumption is related to the interconnect circuits. This paper has presented a simultaneous Bi-directional current-mode transceiver (SBCT-NoC) with two modes of operation, transmitter, and receiver. Two transceivers connected at both ends of an interconnect can use two-way communication through the same link. The proposed transceiver can significantly reduce the delay and power consumption of Network-on-Chip interconnects and increase the reliability using differential logic. This paper has simulated the circuits using 32-nanometer technology while considering the crosstalk noise effect. The results show the considerable advantage of the proposed method compared to previous interconnected circuit methods.

ISSCC 2023 Evening Event: Interconnected Circuits in an Interconnected World [Conference Reports

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Fast electromigration stress analysis using Low-Rank Balanced Truncation for general interconnect and power grid structures

Electromigration (EM) has become one of the most significant challenges considering longterm reliability in integrated circuit design. The problem is caused by the large current density in circuit interconnections. However, in most cases, we are interested in the EM stress at specific points of the interconnect, such as vias, junctions and boundaries. As a result, Model Order Reduction (MOR) techniques can provide attractive methodologies to reduce the complexity of the original systems. System-theoretic techniques like Balanced Truncation (BT) offer very reliable bounds for the approximation error, compared to moment-matching methods. In this paper, we apply a computationally efficient Low-Rank BT procedure based on the extended Krylov subspace method, that can handle large-scale models and significantly accelerate the EM stress analysis for any general interconnect or power grid structure. For the experimental evaluation, we first consider a general structure interconnect tree to demonstrate the generalizability of the proposed method and then we employ our method on the industrial IBM power grid benchmarks where the its scalability is shown. For the latter, we demonstrate that our method can achieve a speedup up to 238× over a standard transient analysis method and a speedup up to 15× over COMSOL, while exhibiting negligible error.

Application of Integrated Logistics in Foreign Economic Business Processes of Enterprises of the Processing Industry

The article deals with the problems of efficient management of modern business processes, which require system optimization of interconnected circuits: the process of supply, production process, sales of products, and others. Presented modern concepts of business process management in the processing industry. The information concept of logistics is to formulate the general problem of managing material flows within an industry or a separate business process. The marketing concept of logistics focuses on the organization of the logistics process in the field of distribution and distribution of products. The concept of integrated logistics is to use in the management of a system tool to regulate material flows to achieve business goals.

An overview of frequency‐based power split strategies in electric vehicles with battery/supercapacitor hybrid energy storage system

AbstractEnergy management in hybrid energy storage systems (HESSs) consisting of battery and supercapacitor packages has an essential role in the efficient and safe use of energy storage devices. In the mentioned HESSs, with frequency separation‐based energy management, the source with slow dynamics (eg, batteries) is supported by other sources with fast dynamics (eg, supercapacitors). To realize power sharing in the battery/supercapacitor HESS, the load current is divided into low‐ and high‐frequency components and supplied/allocated from energy storage devices. This review touches on the historical development of electric vehicles and includes extensive information about the battery and supercapacitor. It also comprehensively analyzes frequency separation‐based power allocation strategies for battery/supercapacitors HESS. These strategies were investigated in detail regarding their features, advantages, and restrictions. In addition, interconnection circuit topologies and control techniques used in frequency‐based power allocation were explained comprehensively. As a result, this study will serve as a guide on frequency‐based power separation principles in HESS.

High-strength and high-conductivity Cu-Cu bonding fabricated by resistance micro-welding with amorphous Ni-P coatings and multi-pulse discharging

Fabricating high-quality bonding with a wide operating temperature range while minimizing thermal damage to substrates during welding is critical for the reliability of circuit interconnections but also challenging. A method was proposed to resolve this challenge by resistance micro-welding with amorphous Ni-P coatings and multi-pulse discharging. With this technology, high-strength, and high-conductivity Cu-Cu joints were prepared while keeping the Cu solid. The Ni-P coatings evolved into a purified faying interface dominated by Ni-alloy crystals, contributing to superior mechanical and electrical properties and enabling joints to work at low and high temperatures. Further investigation revealed that the discharging-induced electromigration of nickel ions resulted in the accelerated growth of Ni-alloy grains on the anode-side Cu substrate and the concentration of P in Ni-P near the cathode side. The liquid P-rich Ni-P was squeezed out by electrode force, and the Ni-alloy grains were retained, which finally formed the purified interface.

Application of a Machine Learning Algorithm for Evaluation of Stiff Fractional Modeling of Polytropic Gas Spheres and Electric Circuits

Fractional polytropic gas sphere problems and electrical engineering models typically simulated with interconnected circuits have numerous applications in physical, astrophysical phenomena, and thermionic currents. Generally, most of these models are singular-nonlinear, symmetric, and include time delay, which has increased attention to them among researchers. In this work, we explored deep neural networks (DNNs) with an optimization algorithm to calculate the approximate solutions for nonlinear fractional differential equations (NFDEs). The target data-driven design of the DNN-LM algorithm was further implemented on the fractional models to study the rigorous impact and symmetry of different parameters on RL, RC circuits, and polytropic gas spheres. The targeted data generated from the analytical and numerical approaches in the literature for different cases were utilized by the deep neural networks to predict the numerical solutions by minimizing the differences in mean square error using the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. The numerical solutions obtained by the designed technique were contrasted with the multi-step reproducing kernel Hilbert space method (MS-RKM), Laplace transformation method (LTM), and Padé approximations. The results demonstrate the accuracy of the design technique as the DNN-LM algorithm overlaps with the actual results with minimum percentage absolute errors that lie between 10−8 and 10−12. The extensive graphical and statistical analysis of the designed technique showed that the DNN-LM algorithm is dependable and facilitates the examination of higher-order nonlinear complex problems due to the flexibility of the DNN architecture and the effectiveness of the optimization procedure.

Benzaldehyde derivatives on tin electroplating as corrosion resistance for fabricating copper circuit

Abstract Electrodeposited tin is a crucial corrosion-resistant metal to protect electronic interconnection and copper circuits in the manufacturing process of electronic products. The corrosion-resistant properties of electrodeposited tin can be improved with the addition of additives in electrodeposition. Three benzaldehyde derivatives including vanillin, ethyl vanillin, and veratraldehyde as brighteners were investigated for tin electrodeposition. Computational and experimental analyses were conducted to investigate the relationship between coating properties and the chemical factors including the molecular structure, adsorption process, and electrochemical behavior of the brighteners. The computational work demonstrated that all three brighteners could hold high reactivity and spontaneously absorb on the tin surface. The results of linear sweep voltammetry tests (LSV) illustrated that all three brighteners effectively increased the cathode polarization but ethyl vanillin exhibited the best inhibiting performance in the tin deposition. Besides, the adsorption behavior of brighteners on the tin layer also affected the grain morphology and preferred growth orientation of the crystal surface. The corrosion rate and side erosion results both indicated that ethyl vanillin could benefit to form a tin coating with good corrosion performance to meet the requirement of copper circuit fabrication of printed circuit board.

Comparative Analysis of Genome-Scale Gene Regulatory Networks in Human Hematopoietic Stem and Myeloid Progenitor Fractions

Background: Dynamic remodelling of gene regulatory networks (GRN) guides cell state changes during differentiation to establish and maintain cell identity and gene expression. We previously described combinatorial binding of 7 transcription factors (TF (heptad: FLI1, ERG, GATA2, RUNX1, TAL1, LYL1 and LMO2)) which form an autoregulatory network in human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC: Beck et al Blood 2013, Thoms et al Blood 2021). Here we mapped genome-wide binding of TFs and chromatin regulators and explored their roles in establishing and maintaining cell type specific GRNs across human hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) differentiation. Methods: We flow sorted cryopreserved CD34+ LIN- cells collected by apheresis into HSCs (CD38loCD45RA-), common myeloid progenitors (CMP: CD38hiCD45RA-CD123+), granulocyte monocyte progenitors (GMP: CD38hiCD45RA+CD123+) and megakaryocyte erythroid progenitors (MEP: CD38hiCD45RA-CD123-). Active regulatory regions (Fig A) were identified by a) chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)/ChIPmentation for genome wide identification of active (H3K27ac, H3K4me3) and inactive (H3K27me3) histone marks, and TF and co-factor (heptad, PU.1, STAG2, CTCF) binding, b) HiC to broadly classify high order 3D genome structures and c) H3K27ac HiChIP at 5kb. Results: Combinatorial binding of heptad TFs in all cell types was confirmed, with the most overrepresented pattern being co-binding of all 7 factors. However, certain multifactor combinations were identified in restricted cell types or associated with lineage specific gene promoters. For example, the master erythroid TF GATA1 showed combinatorial binding in CMPs and MEPs, while the myeloid TF MPO showed combinatorial binding in CMPs and GMPs. Chromatin looping was highly variable across the four cell types, although high order genome architecture was conserved. We first focussed on HiChIP interactions involving promoters of the heptad genes and observed chromatin looping patterns consistent with an interconnected circuit. Promoter looping patterns were dynamic across cell types, and we found multiple distal regions, each with specific patterns of TF binding, connected to each heptad promoter (Fig B). Many of the distal regions were previously undescribed and may constitute novel regulators of heptad genes. To further understand the role of heptad TFs in regulating cell type specific gene expression, we used our HiChIP data to link promoters to candidate distal regulatory regions and focussed on promoter-regulator pairs with differential heptad binding across the cell types. In general, differential binding was accompanied by differential gene expression. Genes with high heptad binding in MEPs were enriched for pathways related to erythroid cells (e.g., ferroptosis signalling) while genes with high heptad binding in GMPs were enriched for pathways related to myeloid cells (e.g., TREM1 signalling). We then focussed on promoter-regulator pairs corresponding to genes expressed in mature erythroid and myeloid cells and observed cell specific patterns of TF binding. At erythroid genes we saw increasing GATA2/TAL1/LYL1/LMO2 binding and decreasing ERG binding along the HSC to MEP trajectory, while at myeloid genes we saw high GATA2/LYL1/LMO2 binding and low TAL1 binding along the HSC to GMP trajectory. To conduct an unbiased genome wide analysis of HSPC GRNs we used our data to annotate and cluster the 85,100 accessible chromatin regions present in HSPCs (Corces et al Nature Genetics 2016). Accessible regions clustered broadly as promoters, regulatory regions, or CTCF-bound. Regions with high heptad binding in either MEPs or GMPs were located in different subclusters, suggesting dynamic reorganisation of heptad TFs across the genome as HSCs proceed along differentiation trajectories. Taken together our data strongly supports a mechanistic link between differential heptad TF binding and cell type specific expression patterns and provides insight into how expression of multiple genes is coordinated during cell state transitions. Conclusion: This study provides a comprehensive characterisation of the gene regulatory landscape in rare subpopulations of human HSPCs and will be a key resource for understanding adult hematopoiesis. Our work provides a framework for analysing aberrant regulatory networks in leukemic cells and leveraging these to devise novel therapeutic strategies. Figure 1View largeDownload PPTFigure 1View largeDownload PPT Close modal

Construction of an Electrical Conductor, Strain Sensor, Electrical Connection and Cycle Switch Using Conductive Graphite Cotton Fabrics.

Researchers in science and industry are increasingly interested in conductive textiles. In this article, we have successfully prepared conductive textiles by applying a graphite dispersion to cotton fabric using a simple brush-coating-drying method and the solvents of dimethyl sulfoxide, dimethyl formamide, and a solvent mixture of both. The sheet resistance of the resulting cotton fabrics could be influenced by the type of polar solvent used to prepare the graphite dispersion and the concentration of graphite. In addition, the graphite cotton fabrics showed semiconductive behavior upon studying the resistance at different temperatures. A flexible strain sensor was fabricated using these graphite cotton fabrics for human motion detection. Most importantly, the resulting strain sensor functions even after 100 bending cycles, indicating its excellent reproducibility. In addition, our results have also shown that these graphite cotton fabrics can be used as electrical interconnects in electrical circuits without any visible degradation of the conductive cotton. Finally, a cotton electrical cycle switch was made using the graphite cotton fabrics and worked in the on and off state.

Quality Inspection Aspects of Hybrid Prototypes for the CMS Outer Tracker Upgrade at HL-LHC

At the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), the CMS experiment will need to operate at up to 200 interactions per 25 ns beam crossing time and with up to 4000 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. To achieve the physics goals the experiment needs to improve the tracking resolution and the ability to selectively trigger on specific physics events. The CMS tracker upgrade requires designing a new detector to cope with the HL-LHC conditions. The new Outer Tracker is based on two types of silicon modules (strip-strip and pixel-strip). Each module type has a few types of high-density interconnect hybrid circuits which house the front-end and auxiliary electronics. This paper introduces the technological choices for modules and hybrids and presents the quality inspection aspects of the first hybrid prototypes.

Missing pieces in decoding the brain oxytocin puzzle: Functional insights from mouse brain wiring diagrams.

The hypothalamic neuropeptide, oxytocin (Oxt), has been the focus of research for decades due to its effects on body physiology, neural circuits, and various behaviors. Oxt elicits a multitude of actions mainly through its receptor, the Oxt receptor (OxtR). Despite past research to understand the central projections of Oxt neurons and OxtR- coupled signaling pathways in different brain areas, it remains unclear how this nonapeptide exhibits such pleiotropic effects while integrating external and internal information. Most reviews in the field either focus on neuroanatomy of the Oxt-OxtR system, or on the functional effects of Oxt in specific brain areas. Here, we provide a review by integrating brain wide connectivity of Oxt neurons and their downstream circuits with OxtR expression in mice. We categorize Oxt connected brain regions into three functional modules that regulate the internal state, somatic visceral, and cognitive response. Each module contains three neural circuits that process distinct behavioral effects. Broad innervations on functional circuits (e.g., basal ganglia for motor behavior) enable Oxt signaling to exert coordinated modulation in functionally inter-connected circuits. Moreover, Oxt acts as a neuromodulator of neuromodulations to broadly control the overall state of the brain. Lastly, we discuss the mismatch between Oxt projections and OxtR expression across various regions of the mouse brain. In summary, this review brings forth functional circuit-based analysis of Oxt connectivity across the whole brain in light of Oxt release and OxtR expression and provides a perspective guide to future studies.