A compact dual-band Planar Inverted-F Antenna (PIFA) working in both the DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial) and the WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) IEEE 802.11b,g frequency bands is presented. It is designed to be integrated in a monitor-equipped device, and exhibits reduced electrical size with respect to similar PIFA configurations. A reflection coefficient less than 6 dB and 10 dB was obtained in the 470–862 MHz (59% percentage bandwidth) DVB-T and the 2400–2484 MHz (2.7% percentage bandwidth) WLAN bands, respectively. An antenna gain of almost 3 dBi and 4.5 dBi, with more than 95% radiation efficiency, was obtained in the two frequency bands of interest. The PIFA fills an overall volume of and can be realized by a properly cut and fold single metal sheet. Measurements on prototypes have shown that the proposed layout is robust in terms of the impedance matching detuning that can be caused by the presence of metal parts nearby the antenna

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The integration of slot antennas in a class of commercial photovoltaic (PV) panels is addressed. The basic idea is to exploit the room available between adjacent solar cells, also taking advantage of the presence of the cover glass layer that gives a valuable miniaturization effect. As test cases, two antenna designs are presented for stand-alone communication systems operating in the GSM/UMTS (1710-2170 MHz) and WiMAX (3300-3800 MHz) frequency bands, respectively. At early design stage, antenna design has been performed by resorting to a simplified numerical model; afterwards, the effects on the antenna performance of nearby solar cells and DC bus wires have been numerically evaluated. The impedance tuning of the final antenna design has been carried out through a measurement campaign with slot antenna prototypes attached to real PV panels

A compact dual-band planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) working in the DVB-T (470–862 MHz) and WiMAX (3300–3800 MHz) frequency bands is presented. The antenna is designed to be integrated in a monitor-equipped device, like a television (TV) set, and meets strict space requirements. The final design fits a volume of 225X31X20 mm (LxWxH). It is composed of a series of branches, properly dimensioned and separated to generate the required resonances. A prototype has been realized with a 0.4-mm-thick aluminum foil, properly cut and folded. Results are shown in terms of reflection coefficient, radiation patterns, and gain. The antenna shows a reflection coefficient less then 6 and 10 dB, and a gain between 2.7 and 4.8 dBi and approximately equal to 3.7 dBi, in the DVB-T and WiMAX bands, respectively

In recent years applications such as mp3 players, SSD, digital cameras and video camcorders have driven the development of increasingly higher density NAND memories. In the presented 3b/cell memory the read and programming throughputs are been enhanced with the adoption of a quad-plane architecture and an industry standard even-odd bitline (BL) decoding scheme. The architecture, while featuring same page size of 16KB as recently disclosed ABL architectures [3,4], avoids the shortcomings such an ABL scheme exhibits in programming mode due to floating-gate-to-floating-gate coupling. The chip features both the newly developed synchronous DDR interface and the standard, asynchronous NAND flash interface. A 66-cell string is adopted to optimize the die size at 126mm 2 .The chip is divided into four 8Gb arrays. Each array consists of 684 blocks and each block consists of 384 pages. The page size is 4KB that can be extended to 16KB in quad-plane operation. The chips main features are summarized in Fig. 24.7.1.A technique called source-bias read/verify, consisting in raising the source voltage during read, is been implemented to widen the V T allocation window. A new sensing technique is adopted to ensure that the BL-to-source-voltage difference remains constant as the source voltage is raised during read. The LMU technique, consisting in programming lower (L), middle (M) and upper (U) pages in consecutive order, as shown in Fig. 24.7.2, is adopted to improve the precision of distribution placement by mitigating the floating-gate interference (FG-FG) [5]. The first pulse ramp technique [6][7], consisting in shaping the first program and erase pulse with an initial voltage ramp, is implemented to better preserve oxide integrity and, therefore, data retention. The final distributions achieved with all the above-mentioned techniques are shown in Fig 24.7.3.The chip supports asynchronous data I/O at 20ns cycle time and synchronous DDR access at an I/O rate of 6ns/byte. This read performance is achieved by using the data path architecture shown in Fig. 24.7.4. The architecture is based on the following key design points: four bytes simultaneous sensing in a plane, three stages pipeline and byte mux at I/O pads level. The first stage pipe is to account for RE# and column-address counter propagation; the second stage pipe is to account for address decoder, cache selection and second sensing (SSA) propagation; the third stage pipe is to account for plane mux and data propagation. Multi-plane operations are supported up to a maximum of four planes.The analog system features 10-bit resolution. A digital thermometer is developed for on-chip temperature compensation of array operation. Most of the 3b/c related features are implemented by enhancing the controllability of the analog block by the chip controller via dedicated control registers and by performing all accurate analog operations in precision low-voltage low-noise analog-signal-level (ASL) circuitry built around a 10-bit resistor ladder, as shown in Fig. 24.7.5. In this ap...

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<p>This paper is a contribution to the evaluation of ground deformations at Somma-Vesuvius volcano by means GPS measurements from 2001 to 2012. In this study we use a dataset from nine continuous GPS stations of the Neapolitan Volcanoes Continuous GPS network (NeVoCGPS), which covers the Neapolitan volcanic area, and is operated by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. The GPS data processing is performed by the Bernese software v. 5.0. The results of the data processing show that the dynamics of the Somma-Vesuvio volcano, between 2001 and 2012, is characterized by a general subsidence, with maximum values on the Gran Cono at BKNO (−11.7 ± 0.65 mm/year) and BKE1 (−4.92 ± 0.36 mm/year) stations. The subsidence decrease from the crater down to the coast and the horizontal displacements are concentrated in Gran Cono area, the youngest part of the volcano. The parameters of the principal strain components indicate that Somma-Vesuvius is affected by a predominant contraction phase, which is concentrated in the areas with the greatest altitudes.</p>

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