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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The 10th International Conference on Modern Circuit and System Technologies on Electronics and Communications (MOCAST 2021) will take place in Thessaloniki, Greece, from 5 to 7 July, 2021. The MOCAST technical program includes all aspects of circuit and system technologies from modeling, design, and verification to implementation and application in the area of Electronics and Communications. This Special Issue aims at publishing extended versions of top-ranked papers in the conference. The topics of MOCAST include:

Analog/RF and mixed signal circuits;
Digital circuits and systems design;
Nonlinear circuits and systems;
Device and circuit modeling;
Systems and applications;
Communication systems;
Network systems;
Power management;
Imagers, MEMS, medical, and displays;
Radiation front ends (nuclear and space application);
Education in circuits, systems, and communications.

Prof. Dr. Spiros Nikolaidis
Dr. Alon Ascoli
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

electronics
communications
circuits and systems
systems and applications

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review

14 pages, 658 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Design Space Exploration on High-Order QAM Demodulation Circuits: Algorithms, Arithmetic and Approximation Techniques

by Ioannis Stratakos, Vasileios Leon, Giorgos Armeniakos, George Lentaris and Dimitrios Soudris

Electronics 2022, 11(1), 39; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics11010039 - 23 Dec 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2355

Abstract

Every new generation of wireless communication standard aims to improve the overall performance and quality of service (QoS), compared to the previous generations. Increased data rates, numbers and capabilities of connected devices, new applications, and higher data volume transfers are some of the key parameters that are of interest. To satisfy these increased requirements, the synergy between wireless technologies and optical transport will dominate the 5G network topologies. This work focuses on a fundamental digital function in an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) baseband transceiver architecture and aims at improving the throughput and circuit complexity of this function. Specifically, we consider the high-order QAM demodulation and apply approximation techniques to achieve our goals. We adopt approximate computing as a design strategy to exploit the error resiliency of the QAM function and deliver significant gains in terms of critical performance metrics. Particularly, we take into consideration and explore four demodulation algorithms and develop accurate floating- and fixed-point circuits in VHDL. In addition, we further explore the effects of introducing approximate arithmetic components. For our test case, we consider 64-QAM demodulators, and the results suggest that the most promising design provides bit error rates (BER) ranging from

10^{- 1}

10^{- 4}

for SNR 0–14 dB in terms of accuracy. Targeting a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ ZCU106 (XCZU7EV) FPGA device, the approximate circuits achieve up to

98 %

reduction in LUT utilization, compared to the accurate floating-point model of the same algorithm, and up to a

122 %

increase in operating frequency. In terms of power consumption, our most efficient circuit configurations consume 0.6–1.1 W when operating at their maximum clock frequency. Our results show that if the objective is to achieve high accuracy in terms of BER, the prevailing solution is the approximate LLR algorithm configured with fixed-point arithmetic and 8-bit truncation, providing

81 %

decrease in LUTs and

13 %

increase in frequency and sustains a throughput of 323 Msamples/s. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 10th International Conference Modern Circuit and Systems Technologies (MOCAST 2021))

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Review

Jump to: Research

36 pages, 1998 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

Analog Gaussian Function Circuit: Architectures, Operating Principles and Applications

by Vassilis Alimisis, Marios Gourdouparis, Georgios Gennis, Christos Dimas and Paul P. Sotiriadis

Electronics 2021, 10(20), 2530; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics10202530 - 17 Oct 2021

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4349

Abstract

This review paper explores existing architectures, operating principles, performance metrics and applications of analog Gaussian function circuits. Architectures based on the translinear principle, the bulk-controlled approach, the floating gate approach, the use of multiple differential pairs, compositions of different fundamental blocks and others are considered. Applications involving analog implementations of Machine Learning algorithms, neuromorphic circuits, smart sensor systems and fuzzy/neuro-fuzzy systems are discussed, focusing on the role of the Gaussian function circuit. Finally, a general discussion and concluding remarks are provided. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 10th International Conference Modern Circuit and Systems Technologies (MOCAST 2021))

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