a backtracking search tool for constructing combinatorial test suites

Combinatorial testing is an important testing method. It requires the test cases to cover various combinations of parameters of the system under test. The test generation problem for combinatorial testing can be modeled as constructing a matrix which has certain properties. This paper first discusses two combinatorial testing criteria: covering array and orthogonal array, and then proposes a backtracking search algorithm to construct matrices satisfying them. Several search heuristics and symmetry breaking techniques are used to reduce the search time. This paper also introduces some techniques to generate large covering array instances from smaller ones. All the techniques have been implemented in a tool called EXACT (EXhaustive seArch of Combinatorial Test suites). A new optimal covering array is found by this tool.

Investigation of spectral bandwidth of optical parametric amplification

The spectral bandwidth of three-wave-mixing optical parametric amplification has been investigated. A general mathematical model for evaluating the spectral bandwidth of optical parametric amplification is developed with parametric bandwidth and gain bandwidth via three-wave noncollinear interactions. The spectral bandwidth is determined by expanding the wave-vector mismatch in a Taylor series and retaining terms through second order. The model takes into account the effects of crystal length, noncollinear angle, group velocity, group-velocity dispersion and gain coefficient. The relation between parametric bandwidth and gain bandwidth is clearly defined. The model is applied to a BBO OPA, a LBO OPA and a CLBO OPA.

Thermal analysis and test for single concentrator solar cells

A thermal model for concentrator solar cells based on energy conservation principles was designed. Under 400X concentration with no cooling aid, the cell temperature would get up to about 1200℃.Metal plates were used as heat sinks for cooling the system, which remarkably reduce the cell temperature. For a fixed concentration ratio, the cell temperature reduced as the heat sink area increased. In order to keep the cell at a constant temperature, the heat sink area needs to increase linearly as a function of the concentration ratio. GaInP/GaAs/Ge triple-junction solar cells were fabricated to verify the model. A cell temperature of 37℃ was measured when using a heat sink at 400X concentratration.

A Wide-Band High-Linearity Down-Conversion Mixer for Cable Receptions

We analyze a wide-band,high-linearity down-conversion mixer for cable receptions that is implemented in 0. 35μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The bandwidth of the RF （radio frequency） input covers the range from 1 to 1.8GHz. The measured input power at the - 1dB compression point of the mixer reaches ＋ 14.23dBm. The highest voltage conversion gain is 8. 31dB, while the lowest noise figure is 19.4dB. The power consumed is 54mW with a 5V supply. The test result of the down-conversion mixer is outlined.

A Radial Stub Test Circuit for Microwave Power Devices

With the principles of microwave circuits and semiconductor device physics, two microwave power device test circuits combined with a test fixture are designed and simulated, whose properties are evaluated by a parameter network analyzer within the frequency range from 3 to 8GHz. The simulation and experimental results verify that the test circuit with a radial stub is better than that without. As an example, a C-band AlGaN/GaN HEMT microwave power device is tested with the designed circuit and fixture. With a 5.4GHz microwave input signal, the maximum gain is 8.75dB, and the maximum output power is 33.2dBm.

A 10-GHz Bandwidth Electroabsorption Modulated Laser by Ultra-Low-Pressure Selective Area Growth

A novel integration technique has been developed using band-gap energy control of InGaAsP/InGaAsP multiquantum-well (MQW) structures during simultaneous ultra-low-pressure (22 mbar) selective-area-growth (SAG) process in metal-organic chemical vapour deposition. A fundamental study of the controllability of band gap energy by the SAG method is performed. A large band-gap photoluminescence wavelength shift of 83nm is obtained with a small mask width variation (0-30μm). The method is then applied to fabricate an MQW distributed-feedback laser monolithically integrated with an electroabsorption modulator. The experimental results exhibit superior device characteristics with low threshold of 19mA, over 24 dB extinction ratio when coupled into a single mode fibre. More than 10 GHz modulation bandwidth is also achieved, which demonstrates that the ultra-low-pressure SAG technique is a promising approach for high-speed transmission photonic integrated circuits.

Two-port calibration of test fixtures with OSL method.

The open-short-load (OSL) method is very simple and widely used, for one-port test fixture calibration. In this paper, this method. is extended to the two-port calibration of test fixtures for the first time. The problem of phase uncertainty arising in this application has been solved. The comparison between our results and those obtained with the short-open-load-thru (SOLT) method shows that the method established is accurate enough for practical applications.

Frequency limitation in calibrating microwave test fixtures

The problem of frequency limitation arising in calibration of the test fixtures is investigated in this paper. It is found that at some frequencies periodically, the accuracy of the methods becomes very low, and. the denominators of the expressions of the required S-parameters approach zero. This conclusion can be drawn whether-the test fixtures, are symmetric or not. A good agreement between theory and experiment is obtained.

A novel polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier structure with large 3dB bandwidth

A novel approach to achieving a polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier is presented. The active layer consists of graded tensile strained bulk-like structure. which can not only enhance TM mode material gain and further realize polarization-insensitivity, but also get a large 3dB bandwidth due to different strain introduced into the active layer. 3dB bandwidth more than 40nm. 65nm has been obtained in die experiment and theory, respectively. The characteristics of such polarization insensitive structure have been analyzed, The influence of the amount of strain and of the thickness of strain layer on the polarization insensitivity has been discussed.

Scan test in 18x8 bits Booth Coding-Wallace Tree multiplier

Scan test can be inserted around hard IP cores that have not been designed with DFT approaches. An 18x18 bits Booth Coding-Wallace Tree multiplier has been designed with full custom approach with 0.61 m CMOS technology. When we reuse the multiplier in another chip, scan chain has been inserted around it to increase the fault coverage. After scan insertion, the multiplier needs 4.7% more areas and 24.4% more delay time, while the fault coverage reaches to 95%.

Investigation on integrated high speed DFB light source and narrow bandwidth RCE photodetector for WDM fiber communication network application

Electroabsorption (EA) modulator integrated with partially gain coupling distributed feedback (DFB) lasers have been fabricated and shown high single mode yield and wavelength stability. The small signal bandwidth is about 7.5 GHz. Strained Si1-chiGechi/Si multiple quantum well (MQW) resonant-cavity enhanced (RCE) photodetectors with SiO2/Si distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) as the mirrors have been fabricated and shown a clear narrow bandwidth response. The external quantum efficiency at 1.3 mum is measured to be about 3.5% under reverse bias of 16 V. A novel GaInNAs/GaAs MQW RCE p-i-n photodetector with high reflectance GaAs/ALAs DBR mirrors has also been demonstrated and shown the selectively detecting function with the FWHM of peak response of 12 nm.