Novel Approach to Measure Internal Power Domain PG Route Weakness

Grid weakness measurement is an extremely important process in the modern-day VLSI design flow. In designs that contain power gating switches, there are additional challenges. It is desirable to find the PG grid weakness of only the gated domain. The tools used in the industry typically measure the total voltage drops from the bump location to the transistor pin. This voltage drop is the summation of the voltage drops in the external domain, switch pin network, and internal domain. This paper explores the ways to measure the internal pin domain voltage exclusively. Ansys Totem tool is used for simulation. Finally, the simulation results are presented to propose the effectiveness and accuracy of the given solution.

Early reduction of sensory processing within the extrastriate visual cortex when switching from internal to external attention

Attention flexibility is a fundamental ability, which has been explored extensively in the past. However, neurocognitive mechanisms underlying switches of attention between working memory (WM) and perceptual stimuli are still poorly understood. Previous research has found that when participants occasionally switch attention either between two perception-based tasks (within-domain switches), or between a WM- and a perception-based task (between-domain switches), a substantial and similar processing cost is elicited in both cases compared to their mere repetition (Verschooren, Schindler, De Raedt, & Pourtois, 2019). These behavioural results, however, did not inform directly about potentially different mechanisms giving rise to the similar cost observed. In this study, we addressed this question by recording 64-channel EEG while participants carried out within- versus between-domain switches of attention. ERP results showed that during early sensory processing a marked P1 attenuation was associated with both switch types, suggesting that switching influenced an early stage of information processing in this situation. Complementing source localization results confirmed that this attention effect had an extrastriate origin. Crucially, this early gating effect associated with task switching was stronger for the between compared to the within-domain switch, despite their similar behavioural cost. These new findings add to the literature by demonstrating that, even though between- and within-domain switches are associated with a similar behavioural cost, different neurocognitive mechanisms give rise to them. As such, they can inform existing cognitive and neuro-anatomical models of selective attention and flexibility, where in the past the focus has often been on within-domain switches.

Direct and converse nonlinear magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroic composites with ferromagnetic and ferroelectric phases

In this paper, we develop a theoretical principle to calculate the direct and converse magnetoelectric (ME) coupling response of ferromagnetic/ferroelectric composites with 2–2 connectivity. We first present an experimentally based constitutive equation for Terfenol-D, and then build the mechanism of domain switch for the ferroelectric phase. In the latter, the change of Gibbs free energy, thermodynamic driving force and kinetic equations for domain growth are also established. These two sets of constitutive equations are shown to capture the experimental data of Terfenol-D and PZT, respectively, well. For the direct effect under an applied magnetic field, the induced electric field and the overall ME coupling coefficient are determined. For the converse effect under an applied electric field, the induced magnetization and the excited magnetic field are obtained. Both the induced electric filed under direct effect and the excited magnetic field under converse effect are shown to display the hysteretic characteristics, and also in good agreement with experiments. We conclude that the developed theory can both qualitatively and quantitatively reflect the essential features of nonlinear direct and converse ME coupling of the multiferroic composites.

Switching attention from internal to external information processing: a review of the literature and empirical support of the resource sharing account

Despite its everyday ubiquity, not much is currently known about cognitive processes involved in flexible shifts of attention between external and internal information. An important model in the task-switching literature, which can serve as a blueprint for attentional flexibility, states that switch costs correspond to the time needed for a serial control mechanism to reallocate a limited resource from the previous task context to the current one. To formulate predictions from this model when applied to a switch between perceptual attention (external component) and working memory (WM; internal component), we first need to determine whether a single, serial control mechanism is in place and, subsequently, whether a limited resource is shared between them. Following a review of the literature, we predicted that a between-domain switch cost should be observed, and its size should be either similar or reduced compared to the standard, within-domain, switch cost. These latter two predictions derive from a shared resource account between external and internal attention, or partial independence among them, respectively. In a second phase, we put to the test these opposing predictions in four successive behavioral experiments by means of a new paradigm suited to compare directly between- (internal to external) and within-domain (external to external) switch costs. Across them, we demonstrated the existence of a reliable between-domain switch cost whose magnitude was similar to the within-domain one, thereby lending support to the resource sharing account.