BRUNO NERI - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by BRUNO NERI

Research paper thumbnail of Microwave Circuit Conditional Stability: Two-Parameter Criteria

IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, 2020

This paper describes operating results with vehicle-solar-grid integration at the GridSTAR facili... more This paper describes operating results with vehicle-solar-grid integration at the GridSTAR facility of Pennsylvania State University. A Ford F-150 converted to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle was interfaced with the grid via an electric vehicle photovoltaic (EVPV) installation. The EVPV used the vehicle battery to provide frequency regulation ancillary service to the grid overnight when the solar energy of a hypothetical solar array was less valuable than the ancillary service, and the vehicle battery and the solar inverter were otherwise underutilized. The objective is to create an incentive for electric vehicle and solar PV ownership by fully utilizing the vehicle battery and the PV inverter net metering connection to support the grid and earn revenue. The test plan simulated operation of a school bus, which appears to be a particularly suitable application of this technology. The results showed that the vehicle could provide frequency regulation service that meets the technical requirements for revenue generation.

Research paper thumbnail of Design exploration for millimeter-wave short-range industrial wireless communications

IECON 2016 - 42nd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, 2016

This work proposes models and a link design method to exploit the potentiality of millimeter wave... more This work proposes models and a link design method to exploit the potentiality of millimeter waves (mmW) as physical layer of industrial networking protocols. This work shows that, even taking into account harsh operating conditions, a transmitted power of 10 dBm allows for reliable connections at a distance of tens of meters. With respect to traditional sub-3 GHz wireless connections used in indoor industrial environments, mmW links feature worldwide-unlicensed ISM (Industrial Scientific Medical) wideband. This can be exploited to implement frequency-hopping and frequency-diversity techniques to increase link robustness. Operating at mmW allows for inherent interference separation from operating frequencies of electrical machine, power switching converters and other wireless connections. Implementation results of key hardware building blocks with CMOS and PCB technologies prove the feasibility of mmW nodes with low-power and low size.

Research paper thumbnail of RFID Systems: Passive versus Active and a Novel Low-Power RF Transceiver for IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee) Standard Based Applications

Journal of Low Power Electronics, 2007

Research paper thumbnail of Low-frequency resistance fluctuation measurements on conducting polymer thin-film resistors

Journal of Applied Physics, 1994

ABSTRACT

Research paper thumbnail of A Short Term Simulator for Vessel Manoeuvres Prediction

Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, 2017

This paper presents a methodology for vessels manoeuvring prediction during navigation. The propo... more This paper presents a methodology for vessels manoeuvring prediction during navigation. The proposed algorithm allows to estimate future position and heading of the vessel on the basis of present position, velocity, propeller speed and rudder angle. The prediction algorithm, which can be very useful in emergency manoeuvres, uses a short term simulator which has been tuned up and validated in the framework of the Costa Concordia cruise ship trial. However, the methodology could be applied to any kind of ship, since it just requires a set of data recorded during a set of mandatory sea trials performed before the delivery of the ship. The prediction algorithm shows, on the electronic navigation chart, the foreseen position of the ship in the next 30–40 s, provided that helm and power settings remain unchanged, allowing the helmsman to check in advance the effect of the commands and to eventually modify the trajectory.

Research paper thumbnail of mm-wave integrated wireless transceivers: Enabling technology for high bandwidth connections in IoT

2015 IEEE 2nd World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT), 2015

Many application scenarios for IoT (Internet of Things) require the interconnection of high speed... more Many application scenarios for IoT (Internet of Things) require the interconnection of high speed sensing nodes with data rates of Gbps. As an example surveillance or smart mobility applications adopt multiple photo and video cameras working at different spectral range (visible, near infrared, far infrared) and covering different fields of view, or they exploit arrays of radio/light detection and ranging (Radar/Lidar) sensors to detect the presence of targets, of their speeds, distance and direction. Even the access of distributed nodes in IoT towards a centralized cloud storage/processing center requires high data rate connections. Since low size and low weight of the nodes are needed, IoT can benefit from the high communication data rate, several Gbps, that can be provided by fully integrated mm-wave wireless transceivers. The wavelength at such frequency is few mm and hence the whole transceiver including the antenna can be integrated in a single chip. To this aim, this paper presents the design of 60 GHz transceiver key blocks (Low Noise Amplifier, Power Amplifier, Antenna) to ensure connection distances up to 10 m and data rate of several Gbps. Around 60 GHz worldwide there are freely-available (unlicensed) several GHz of bandwidth. By using a CMOS SOI technology RF, analog and digital baseband circuitry can be integrated in the same chip minimizing noise coupling. Even the antenna is integrated on chip reducing cost and size vs. classic off-chip antenna solutions. The proposed transceiver allows for the implementation of low cost nodes for IoT systems with data rates of several Gbps and with a 10 m link distance. These specifications are suitable for home/office scenarios, or for body area networks (healthcare, wellness) or for applications on board vehicles (cars, trains, ships, airplanes).

Research paper thumbnail of Advanced Model and RF-CMOS Design of the Boot-Strapped Inductor

2007 14th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems, 2007

This paper reports a new advanced design of the active circuit named Boot-Strapped Inductor (BSI)... more This paper reports a new advanced design of the active circuit named Boot-Strapped Inductor (BSI), which realizes an equivalent inductor with an high quality factor (Q). In particular, a new small-signal circuit model is proposed for an accurate design at high frequency in a modern RF CMOS process, also by taking into account the issues of an algorithmic and low-power consumption circuit design. A case study for 13-GHz low-power applications by using a standard for 90 nm CMOS process is reported. The BSI provides an equivalent inductance close to 1.6 nH with an associated quality factor Q close to 200.

Research paper thumbnail of Experimental analysis towards the application of RFID technologies in industrial marble machines

Abstract The paper presents an experimental characterization of RFID technologies applied to proc... more Abstract The paper presents an experimental characterization of RFID technologies applied to process control in the marble industry. The final aim is the automatic detection of the presence of a marble slab under the abrasive or cutting heads inside an industrial ...

Research paper thumbnail of Real-time FPGA-based radar imaging for smart mobility systems

Real-Time Image and Video Processing 2016, 2016

The paper presents an X-band FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) Radar Imaging system, cal... more The paper presents an X-band FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) Radar Imaging system, called X-FRI, for surveillance in smart mobility applications. X-FRI allows for detecting the presence of targets (e.g. obstacles in a railway crossing or urban road crossing, or ships in a small harbor), as well as their speed and their position. With respect to alternative solutions based on LIDAR or camera systems, X-FRI operates in real-time also in bad lighting and weather conditions, night and day. The radio-frequency transceiver is realized through COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) components on a single-board. An FPGA-based baseband platform allows for real-time Radar image processing.

Research paper thumbnail of MM-Wave Integrated Wireless Transceiver: Enabling Technology for High Bandwidth Short-Range Networking in Cyber Physical Systems

Microsystem Technologies, 2016

Emerging application scenarios for Cyber Physical Systems often require the networking of sensing... more Emerging application scenarios for Cyber Physical Systems often require the networking of sensing and actuation nodes at high data rate and through wireless links. Lot of surveillance and control systems adopt as input sensors distributed video cameras operating at different spectral ranges and covering different fields of view. Arrays of radio/light detection and ranging (Radar/Lidar) sensors are often used to detect the presence of targets, of their speeds, distance and direction. The relevant bandwidth requirement amounts to some Gbps. The wireless connection is essential for easy and flexible deployment of the sensing/actuation nodes. A key technology to keep low the size and weight of the nodes is the fully integration at mm-waves of wireless transceivers sustaining Gbps data rate. To this aim, this paper presents the design of 60 GHz transceiver key blocks (Low Noise Amplifier, Power Amplifier, Antenna) to ensure connection distances up to 10 m and data rate of several Gbps. Around 60 GHz there are freely-available (unlicensed) worldwide several GHz of bandwidth. By using a CMOS Silicon-on-Insulator technology RF, analog and digital baseband circuitry can be integrated single-chip minimizing noise coupling. At mm-wave the wavelength is few mm and hence even the antenna is integrated on chip reducing cost and size vs. off-chip antenna solutions. The proposed transceiver enables at physical layer the implementation in compact nodes of links with data rates of several Gbps and up to 10 m distance; this is suited for home/office scenarios, or on-board vehicles (cars, trains, ships, airplanes) or body area networks for healthcare and wellness.

Research paper thumbnail of The disaster of Costa Concordia cruise ship: An accurate reconstruction based on Black Box and automation system data

2015 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (ICT-DM), 2015

In this paper, an accurate reconstruction of the events preceding the January 13 th , 2012 impact... more In this paper, an accurate reconstruction of the events preceding the January 13 th , 2012 impact of the Costa Concordia cruise ship with the rocks of Isola del Giglio is presented, along with the emergency countermeasures activated by the ship automation system after the impact. The reconstruction is entirely based on data recorded by the information systems of the ship and demonstrates the importance of this kind of data from a scientific and forensics point of view. First the authors, three of whom have served as consultants in the trial in Grosseto, Italy, show how information stored in the Voyage Data Recorder, the so called "Black Box", has been used to calculate the exact time and coordinates of the impact point. An accurate evaluation of these data represents a "conditio sine qua non" to ascertain the effects of the helmsman's error, who allegedly misunderstood the Master's orders just 20 seconds before the impact. Then, these effects were studied by means of a purposely developed short term manoeuvring simulator, whose results are also briefly summarized in the paper. Moreover, information stored in the hard disk of the automation system of the ship, concerning the activation of emergency source of energy, have been examined and some results are briefly reported in the paper. The most important data are those concerning the watertight doors, the passenger elevators and the Emergency Diesel Generator. According to the results of our investigations, i) the helmsman's error appears to have been determinant in the accident; ii) the emergency procedure, which started automatically after blackout of the main power source, does not appear to have performed correctly. In our opinion, both these facts could have influenced the outcome of the last phase of the ship evacuation, during which most of the victims lost their lives.

Research paper thumbnail of On-off fluctuations of the tunnel current before breakdown of thin oxide MOS devices

ABSTRACT The on-off fluctuations of the tunnel current in thin oxide MOS structures before breakd... more ABSTRACT The on-off fluctuations of the tunnel current in thin oxide MOS structures before breakdown is a well known phenomenon since 1985. Notwithstanding this, most of the models proposed in the last years to justify the failure of the structure ignore this phenomenon. The physical mechanism responsible for it is not completely clear, even if some possible explanations have been proposed. Some new results, obtained by using a novel characterization tool, are presented in this paper. These results could open new perspectives in the comprehension of the final stage of time dependent breakdown of thin oxides. .

Research paper thumbnail of Design of a Low Noise Amplifier with integrated antenna for 60 GHz wireless communications

ABSTRACT The integration of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with on-chip antenna for 60 GHz short-ran... more ABSTRACT The integration of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with on-chip antenna for 60 GHz short-range wireless applications is discussed in the paper. A 65 nm CMOS Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology has been selected as target. With respect to the state of the art, the on-chip co-design of LNA and antenna permits avoiding a pre-defined constraint of 50 Ohm impedance matching. By relaxing the impedance matching specification a LNA with only two amplification stages has been designed to reach the desired power gain (>;20 dB) and noise figure (

Research paper thumbnail of Analysis and Design of Integrated Blocks for a 6.25 GHz Spacefibre PLL

Sensors

The design of a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) to generate the clock reference for the new Spacefibre st... more The design of a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) to generate the clock reference for the new Spacefibre standard is presented in this paper. Spacefibre has been recently released by the European Space Agency (ESA) and supports up to 6.25 Gbps for on-board satellite communications. Taking as a starting point a rad-hard 6.25 GHz Voltage Controlled Oscillator in 65 nm technology, this work presents the design of the key blocks for an integrated PLL: a Triple Modular Redundancy Phase/Frequency Detector, a Charge Pump, and a passive Loop Filter. The modeling activities carried out in an Advanced Design System have proven that the proposed PLL can be completely integrated on-chip, with a Loop Filter area consumption of only 6000 µm2 (considering the 65 nm technology). The design of active circuits has been carried out at the transistor level in a Cadence Virtuoso environment, implementing both system and layout rad-hard techniques, and different solutions are discussed in this paper. As a result, ...

Research paper thumbnail of How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing

Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2018

The psycho-physiological changes in brain-body interaction observed in most of meditative and rel... more The psycho-physiological changes in brain-body interaction observed in most of meditative and relaxing practices rely on voluntary slowing down of breath frequency. However, the identification of mechanisms linking breath control to its psychophysiological effects is still under debate. This systematic review is aimed at unveiling psychophysiological mechanisms underlying slow breathing techniques (<10 breaths/minute) and their effects on healthy subjects. A systematic search of MEDLINE and SCOPUS databases, using keywords related to both breathing techniques and to their psychophysiological outcomes, focusing on cardio-respiratory and central nervous system, has been conducted. From a pool of 2,461 abstracts only 15 articles met eligibility criteria and were included in the review. The present systematic review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The main effects of slow breathing techniques cover autonomic and cent...

Research paper thumbnail of Transients during pre-breakdown and hard breakdown of thin gate oxides in metal–SiO2–Si capacitors

Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing

Research paper thumbnail of Long term noise measurements to characterize electromigration in metal lines of ICs

Proceedings of the 1999 7th International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits (Cat. No.99TH8394)

In this paper, the results obtained by performing noise measurements during lifetime tests of met... more In this paper, the results obtained by performing noise measurements during lifetime tests of metal lines subject to electromigration are presented. One of the aims of this work is to investigate the possibility of establishing a new failure criterion based on noise measurement capable of providing, in a shorter time, the same type of information normally obtained from MTF (median time to failure) tests

Research paper thumbnail of Exploiting mm-Wave Communications to Boost the Performance of Industrial Wireless Networks

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Design of compact and low-power X-band Radar for mobility surveillance applications

Computers & Electrical Engineering, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of 60-GHz Single-Chip Integrated Antenna and Low Noise Amplifier in 65-nm CMOS SOI Technology for Short- range Wireless Gbits/s Applications

2011 International Conference on Applied Electronics, 2011

The single-chip integration of antenna and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) for 60 GHz short-range wirel... more The single-chip integration of antenna and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) for 60 GHz short-range wireless transceivers is presented in this work. A 65 nm CMOS Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology has been selected as target; due to its high-resistivity substrate the losses are drastically reduced if compared with the bulk silicon technology and more energy will be provided to the on-chip antenna

Research paper thumbnail of Microwave Circuit Conditional Stability: Two-Parameter Criteria

IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, 2020

This paper describes operating results with vehicle-solar-grid integration at the GridSTAR facili... more This paper describes operating results with vehicle-solar-grid integration at the GridSTAR facility of Pennsylvania State University. A Ford F-150 converted to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle was interfaced with the grid via an electric vehicle photovoltaic (EVPV) installation. The EVPV used the vehicle battery to provide frequency regulation ancillary service to the grid overnight when the solar energy of a hypothetical solar array was less valuable than the ancillary service, and the vehicle battery and the solar inverter were otherwise underutilized. The objective is to create an incentive for electric vehicle and solar PV ownership by fully utilizing the vehicle battery and the PV inverter net metering connection to support the grid and earn revenue. The test plan simulated operation of a school bus, which appears to be a particularly suitable application of this technology. The results showed that the vehicle could provide frequency regulation service that meets the technical requirements for revenue generation.

Research paper thumbnail of Design exploration for millimeter-wave short-range industrial wireless communications

IECON 2016 - 42nd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, 2016

This work proposes models and a link design method to exploit the potentiality of millimeter wave... more This work proposes models and a link design method to exploit the potentiality of millimeter waves (mmW) as physical layer of industrial networking protocols. This work shows that, even taking into account harsh operating conditions, a transmitted power of 10 dBm allows for reliable connections at a distance of tens of meters. With respect to traditional sub-3 GHz wireless connections used in indoor industrial environments, mmW links feature worldwide-unlicensed ISM (Industrial Scientific Medical) wideband. This can be exploited to implement frequency-hopping and frequency-diversity techniques to increase link robustness. Operating at mmW allows for inherent interference separation from operating frequencies of electrical machine, power switching converters and other wireless connections. Implementation results of key hardware building blocks with CMOS and PCB technologies prove the feasibility of mmW nodes with low-power and low size.

Research paper thumbnail of RFID Systems: Passive versus Active and a Novel Low-Power RF Transceiver for IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee) Standard Based Applications

Journal of Low Power Electronics, 2007

Research paper thumbnail of Low-frequency resistance fluctuation measurements on conducting polymer thin-film resistors

Journal of Applied Physics, 1994

ABSTRACT

Research paper thumbnail of A Short Term Simulator for Vessel Manoeuvres Prediction

Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, 2017

This paper presents a methodology for vessels manoeuvring prediction during navigation. The propo... more This paper presents a methodology for vessels manoeuvring prediction during navigation. The proposed algorithm allows to estimate future position and heading of the vessel on the basis of present position, velocity, propeller speed and rudder angle. The prediction algorithm, which can be very useful in emergency manoeuvres, uses a short term simulator which has been tuned up and validated in the framework of the Costa Concordia cruise ship trial. However, the methodology could be applied to any kind of ship, since it just requires a set of data recorded during a set of mandatory sea trials performed before the delivery of the ship. The prediction algorithm shows, on the electronic navigation chart, the foreseen position of the ship in the next 30–40 s, provided that helm and power settings remain unchanged, allowing the helmsman to check in advance the effect of the commands and to eventually modify the trajectory.

Research paper thumbnail of mm-wave integrated wireless transceivers: Enabling technology for high bandwidth connections in IoT

2015 IEEE 2nd World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT), 2015

Many application scenarios for IoT (Internet of Things) require the interconnection of high speed... more Many application scenarios for IoT (Internet of Things) require the interconnection of high speed sensing nodes with data rates of Gbps. As an example surveillance or smart mobility applications adopt multiple photo and video cameras working at different spectral range (visible, near infrared, far infrared) and covering different fields of view, or they exploit arrays of radio/light detection and ranging (Radar/Lidar) sensors to detect the presence of targets, of their speeds, distance and direction. Even the access of distributed nodes in IoT towards a centralized cloud storage/processing center requires high data rate connections. Since low size and low weight of the nodes are needed, IoT can benefit from the high communication data rate, several Gbps, that can be provided by fully integrated mm-wave wireless transceivers. The wavelength at such frequency is few mm and hence the whole transceiver including the antenna can be integrated in a single chip. To this aim, this paper presents the design of 60 GHz transceiver key blocks (Low Noise Amplifier, Power Amplifier, Antenna) to ensure connection distances up to 10 m and data rate of several Gbps. Around 60 GHz worldwide there are freely-available (unlicensed) several GHz of bandwidth. By using a CMOS SOI technology RF, analog and digital baseband circuitry can be integrated in the same chip minimizing noise coupling. Even the antenna is integrated on chip reducing cost and size vs. classic off-chip antenna solutions. The proposed transceiver allows for the implementation of low cost nodes for IoT systems with data rates of several Gbps and with a 10 m link distance. These specifications are suitable for home/office scenarios, or for body area networks (healthcare, wellness) or for applications on board vehicles (cars, trains, ships, airplanes).

Research paper thumbnail of Advanced Model and RF-CMOS Design of the Boot-Strapped Inductor

2007 14th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems, 2007

This paper reports a new advanced design of the active circuit named Boot-Strapped Inductor (BSI)... more This paper reports a new advanced design of the active circuit named Boot-Strapped Inductor (BSI), which realizes an equivalent inductor with an high quality factor (Q). In particular, a new small-signal circuit model is proposed for an accurate design at high frequency in a modern RF CMOS process, also by taking into account the issues of an algorithmic and low-power consumption circuit design. A case study for 13-GHz low-power applications by using a standard for 90 nm CMOS process is reported. The BSI provides an equivalent inductance close to 1.6 nH with an associated quality factor Q close to 200.

Research paper thumbnail of Experimental analysis towards the application of RFID technologies in industrial marble machines

Abstract The paper presents an experimental characterization of RFID technologies applied to proc... more Abstract The paper presents an experimental characterization of RFID technologies applied to process control in the marble industry. The final aim is the automatic detection of the presence of a marble slab under the abrasive or cutting heads inside an industrial ...

Research paper thumbnail of Real-time FPGA-based radar imaging for smart mobility systems

Real-Time Image and Video Processing 2016, 2016

The paper presents an X-band FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) Radar Imaging system, cal... more The paper presents an X-band FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) Radar Imaging system, called X-FRI, for surveillance in smart mobility applications. X-FRI allows for detecting the presence of targets (e.g. obstacles in a railway crossing or urban road crossing, or ships in a small harbor), as well as their speed and their position. With respect to alternative solutions based on LIDAR or camera systems, X-FRI operates in real-time also in bad lighting and weather conditions, night and day. The radio-frequency transceiver is realized through COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) components on a single-board. An FPGA-based baseband platform allows for real-time Radar image processing.

Research paper thumbnail of MM-Wave Integrated Wireless Transceiver: Enabling Technology for High Bandwidth Short-Range Networking in Cyber Physical Systems

Microsystem Technologies, 2016

Emerging application scenarios for Cyber Physical Systems often require the networking of sensing... more Emerging application scenarios for Cyber Physical Systems often require the networking of sensing and actuation nodes at high data rate and through wireless links. Lot of surveillance and control systems adopt as input sensors distributed video cameras operating at different spectral ranges and covering different fields of view. Arrays of radio/light detection and ranging (Radar/Lidar) sensors are often used to detect the presence of targets, of their speeds, distance and direction. The relevant bandwidth requirement amounts to some Gbps. The wireless connection is essential for easy and flexible deployment of the sensing/actuation nodes. A key technology to keep low the size and weight of the nodes is the fully integration at mm-waves of wireless transceivers sustaining Gbps data rate. To this aim, this paper presents the design of 60 GHz transceiver key blocks (Low Noise Amplifier, Power Amplifier, Antenna) to ensure connection distances up to 10 m and data rate of several Gbps. Around 60 GHz there are freely-available (unlicensed) worldwide several GHz of bandwidth. By using a CMOS Silicon-on-Insulator technology RF, analog and digital baseband circuitry can be integrated single-chip minimizing noise coupling. At mm-wave the wavelength is few mm and hence even the antenna is integrated on chip reducing cost and size vs. off-chip antenna solutions. The proposed transceiver enables at physical layer the implementation in compact nodes of links with data rates of several Gbps and up to 10 m distance; this is suited for home/office scenarios, or on-board vehicles (cars, trains, ships, airplanes) or body area networks for healthcare and wellness.

Research paper thumbnail of The disaster of Costa Concordia cruise ship: An accurate reconstruction based on Black Box and automation system data

2015 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (ICT-DM), 2015

In this paper, an accurate reconstruction of the events preceding the January 13 th , 2012 impact... more In this paper, an accurate reconstruction of the events preceding the January 13 th , 2012 impact of the Costa Concordia cruise ship with the rocks of Isola del Giglio is presented, along with the emergency countermeasures activated by the ship automation system after the impact. The reconstruction is entirely based on data recorded by the information systems of the ship and demonstrates the importance of this kind of data from a scientific and forensics point of view. First the authors, three of whom have served as consultants in the trial in Grosseto, Italy, show how information stored in the Voyage Data Recorder, the so called "Black Box", has been used to calculate the exact time and coordinates of the impact point. An accurate evaluation of these data represents a "conditio sine qua non" to ascertain the effects of the helmsman's error, who allegedly misunderstood the Master's orders just 20 seconds before the impact. Then, these effects were studied by means of a purposely developed short term manoeuvring simulator, whose results are also briefly summarized in the paper. Moreover, information stored in the hard disk of the automation system of the ship, concerning the activation of emergency source of energy, have been examined and some results are briefly reported in the paper. The most important data are those concerning the watertight doors, the passenger elevators and the Emergency Diesel Generator. According to the results of our investigations, i) the helmsman's error appears to have been determinant in the accident; ii) the emergency procedure, which started automatically after blackout of the main power source, does not appear to have performed correctly. In our opinion, both these facts could have influenced the outcome of the last phase of the ship evacuation, during which most of the victims lost their lives.

Research paper thumbnail of On-off fluctuations of the tunnel current before breakdown of thin oxide MOS devices

ABSTRACT The on-off fluctuations of the tunnel current in thin oxide MOS structures before breakd... more ABSTRACT The on-off fluctuations of the tunnel current in thin oxide MOS structures before breakdown is a well known phenomenon since 1985. Notwithstanding this, most of the models proposed in the last years to justify the failure of the structure ignore this phenomenon. The physical mechanism responsible for it is not completely clear, even if some possible explanations have been proposed. Some new results, obtained by using a novel characterization tool, are presented in this paper. These results could open new perspectives in the comprehension of the final stage of time dependent breakdown of thin oxides. .

Research paper thumbnail of Design of a Low Noise Amplifier with integrated antenna for 60 GHz wireless communications

ABSTRACT The integration of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with on-chip antenna for 60 GHz short-ran... more ABSTRACT The integration of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with on-chip antenna for 60 GHz short-range wireless applications is discussed in the paper. A 65 nm CMOS Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology has been selected as target. With respect to the state of the art, the on-chip co-design of LNA and antenna permits avoiding a pre-defined constraint of 50 Ohm impedance matching. By relaxing the impedance matching specification a LNA with only two amplification stages has been designed to reach the desired power gain (&gt;;20 dB) and noise figure (

Research paper thumbnail of Analysis and Design of Integrated Blocks for a 6.25 GHz Spacefibre PLL

Sensors

The design of a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) to generate the clock reference for the new Spacefibre st... more The design of a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) to generate the clock reference for the new Spacefibre standard is presented in this paper. Spacefibre has been recently released by the European Space Agency (ESA) and supports up to 6.25 Gbps for on-board satellite communications. Taking as a starting point a rad-hard 6.25 GHz Voltage Controlled Oscillator in 65 nm technology, this work presents the design of the key blocks for an integrated PLL: a Triple Modular Redundancy Phase/Frequency Detector, a Charge Pump, and a passive Loop Filter. The modeling activities carried out in an Advanced Design System have proven that the proposed PLL can be completely integrated on-chip, with a Loop Filter area consumption of only 6000 µm2 (considering the 65 nm technology). The design of active circuits has been carried out at the transistor level in a Cadence Virtuoso environment, implementing both system and layout rad-hard techniques, and different solutions are discussed in this paper. As a result, ...

Research paper thumbnail of How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing

Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2018

The psycho-physiological changes in brain-body interaction observed in most of meditative and rel... more The psycho-physiological changes in brain-body interaction observed in most of meditative and relaxing practices rely on voluntary slowing down of breath frequency. However, the identification of mechanisms linking breath control to its psychophysiological effects is still under debate. This systematic review is aimed at unveiling psychophysiological mechanisms underlying slow breathing techniques (<10 breaths/minute) and their effects on healthy subjects. A systematic search of MEDLINE and SCOPUS databases, using keywords related to both breathing techniques and to their psychophysiological outcomes, focusing on cardio-respiratory and central nervous system, has been conducted. From a pool of 2,461 abstracts only 15 articles met eligibility criteria and were included in the review. The present systematic review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The main effects of slow breathing techniques cover autonomic and cent...

Research paper thumbnail of Transients during pre-breakdown and hard breakdown of thin gate oxides in metal–SiO2–Si capacitors

Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing

Research paper thumbnail of Long term noise measurements to characterize electromigration in metal lines of ICs

Proceedings of the 1999 7th International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits (Cat. No.99TH8394)

In this paper, the results obtained by performing noise measurements during lifetime tests of met... more In this paper, the results obtained by performing noise measurements during lifetime tests of metal lines subject to electromigration are presented. One of the aims of this work is to investigate the possibility of establishing a new failure criterion based on noise measurement capable of providing, in a shorter time, the same type of information normally obtained from MTF (median time to failure) tests

Research paper thumbnail of Exploiting mm-Wave Communications to Boost the Performance of Industrial Wireless Networks

IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Design of compact and low-power X-band Radar for mobility surveillance applications

Computers & Electrical Engineering, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of 60-GHz Single-Chip Integrated Antenna and Low Noise Amplifier in 65-nm CMOS SOI Technology for Short- range Wireless Gbits/s Applications

2011 International Conference on Applied Electronics, 2011

The single-chip integration of antenna and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) for 60 GHz short-range wirel... more The single-chip integration of antenna and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) for 60 GHz short-range wireless transceivers is presented in this work. A 65 nm CMOS Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology has been selected as target; due to its high-resistivity substrate the losses are drastically reduced if compared with the bulk silicon technology and more energy will be provided to the on-chip antenna