The perception of pitch and engagement in melodic singing significantly contribute to the appreciation and comprehension of music. Notably, for hard-of-hearing individuals, perceiving pitch and singing play crucial roles as effective aids in auditory rehabilitation. However, the limited perception of pitch, stemming from the constraints of hearing devices, poses challenges in the learning process of recognizing and vocalizing melodies. In this study, we developed a wearable vibrotactile glove, TTS+, designed to convert musical tones into the corresponding vibrotactile patterns, complemented by an associated training application. After ten training sessions with our system, the participants exhibited notable improvements in pitch perception and the capacity to reproduce melodies through singing compared with their pre-test baseline without vibrotactile feedback. Beyond quantitative outcomes, findings from user experiences obtained through user feedback during training and post-test interviews offer valuable perspectives and constraints for our study, which may be further investigated in future studies.

This study proposes new physics-based terminal capacitance models derived from the select gate (SG) channel potential in the gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL)-assisted 3-D NAND Flash string. These models accurately predict the transient behavior of the string across various SG voltage (VSG) ramps, showing good agreement with computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation results. Their closed-form solutions eliminate iterative calculations, ensuring Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) compatibility and enabling Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations that account for various process variations and voltage ramp conditions. This approach provides critical insights into optimizing GIDL-assisted erase performance, advancing both the reliability and efficiency of next-generation 3-D NAND Flash memory.

In this article, we introduce a model to calculate the threshold voltage of the victim transistor attacked by the neighbor transistors with a macaroni structure. Using this model, we investigate the shift of the victim threshold voltage to get insight into the interference effect of NAND cells in a string with different structural parameters and biases. The fitting between simulations and calculations confirms the validity of these models.

In this article, a novel read scheme using gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) current is proposed to suppress read disturbance in 3-D NAND flash memories. The proposed read scheme is demonstrated through the technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation. In the selected string, GIDL current is not generated due to the low potential difference. On the other hand, in the unselected string, holes are accumulated under the selected cell and potential of the selected cell is enhanced due to the GIDL current before the read operation. The potential differences between the selected and adjacent cells are decreased and the maximum electric field ($E_{m}$) is decreased. Therefore, soft programming in the selected cell during the read operation is decreased and hot carrier injection (HCI) between selected and adjacent cells is reduced completely. The proposed read scheme can be applied to high stacked word-line layers over 200 layers.

Cochlear implantation is an effective tool in speech perception. However, activities such as listening to music and singing remain challenging for cochlear implant (CI) users, due to inaccurate pitch recognition. In this study, we propose a method for CI users to recognize precise pitch differences through tactile feedback. The proposed system encodes real-time audio signals to 36 musical tones (from C3 to B5), represented by tactile codes using nine vibration motors in a glove-type device. Two CI users participated in 15 h of training using our system and showed significant improvement in pitch accuracy while singing. In addition to the quantitative results, both participants expressed satisfaction in distinguishing and vocalizing musical tones, which led to increased interest in music. This study provides opportunities for CI users to engage more deeply and participate in musical education as well as achieve improved aural rehabilitation.

This article presents a method for extracting a channel thermal noise (Sid) using analytical equations and measured noise parameters. Among the four noise parameters considered (Rn, Gopt, Bopt, and NFmin), the equations of Rn and NFmin were used to extract Sid, since the Sid extracted from Gopt and Bopt was affected more by measurement variations. NTNOI, the noise enhancement factor of the charge-based thermal model of a Berkeley short-channel IGFET model 4 (BSIM4), was modeled as a gate-bias-dependent function to reproduce Sid extracted from the measured noise parameters. Regarding the accuracy of the proposed model, while the error rate was found to vary slightly depending on the device dimensions (finger number), the new model showed only 4% error for rn, compared to the default model's error of 41% obtained with NTNOI fixed at 1. In addition, the accuracy of Gopt, Bopt, and NFmin is substantially higher than that of the default model. Finally, the modeling technique using the holistic model, another BSIM4 thermal noise model, was briefly discussed.

We propose a new high speed and low power SOI inverter that can operate with efficient body-bias control and free supply voltage. The performance of the proposed circuit is evaluated by both the BSIM3SOI circuit simulator and the ATLAS device simulator, and then compared with other reported SOI circuits. The proposed circuit is shown to have excellent characteristics. At the supply voltage of 1.5V, the proposed circuit operates 27% faster than the conventional SOI circuit with the same power dissipation.