Alpha Eritrean Engineers Magazine

AUGUST 2013
VOL 4 NO. 2

CONSUMER DEFINES VALUE LOW POWER CLOCK MULTIPLIER DESIGN FOR HEART RATE MONITORING SYSTEM

We congratulate the new mathematician who developed three new theorem and called one of them, a + c = b as "Eritrean theorem". P.9
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MY TO DO LIST LIST OF ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITIES

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CONTENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS

CONSUMER DEFINES VALUE
BY E RMIAS

EDITORS
SEBLE GEBREMEDHIN, M.S. IN PSYCHOLOGY ADIAM WOLDEGERGISH, PH.D IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY SAMSON GONNETZ, B.A. IN CIVIL ENGINEERING FILIPOS ABRAHAM, M.S, IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND YOSIEF WOLDEMARIAM, B.A. IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

K AHSAY

LOW POWER CLOCK MULTIPLIER DESIGN FOR

HEART RATE MONITORING SYSTEM

BY

TEMESGHEN TEKESTE S AMSON G ONNETZ

MY TO DO LIST
BY

JOB OPPORTUNITIES BY F ILIPOS A BRAHAM & .. Y OSIEF W OLDEMARIAM

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Consumer Defines Value

company,

ENGINEER ERMIAS ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER ERMIAS

I did research looking at thin film (Electroluminescent) and light emitting diode (LED). The focus of this research was to discover which of these two electronics products would be better for back lighting on computers, televisions and mobile devices. As part of my research, I looked at Thin film electronic circuitry components that are etched onto a thin wafer of silicon. Thin film transistor liquid crystal display circuits which are made on a thin layer of specially formulated silicon applied to a glass plate. Each TFT LCD, Thin-Film-Transistor Liquid-Crystal-Display, unit contains the transistors, wiring and other components necessary to turn an LCD on or off, blocking or releasing light. Colors are thus produced with built-in color filters. Light Emitting Diodes (LED) is specially formulated semiconductors that produce light when their electrons are prompted into moving from a high-energy state to a lower one. Light is, as a result, produced with much less energy than light bulbs or CRTs, Cathode Ray Tube- a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns (a source of electrons or electron emitter) and a fluorescent screen used to view images. Like TFT LCDs, LED displays can contain thousands of units working together to form an image. Individual LED units can be colored and you can control the brightness of LED displays in the same way you can dim a light bulb. At the conclusion of my research, it is evident that LED for backlights improves the quality of display color and image contrast

Ever since I was young, I was interested in electricity, electrical circuits and gadgets. Growing up I always wished to alleviate the power shortage that our society, Developed and specially Developing Countries, faced and wished to improve the quality of life through technology. After migrating to Centralia which is in Washington State I initially attended a community college to receive an associate degree in general engineering. Soon after completing my associate degree, I realized how quickly modern technology was changing and decided to continue my education. I enrolled at Oregon State University (OSU) in Corvallis, Oregon and completed my degree focusing on electrical and computer engineering, specializing in semiconductor processing and manufacturing. During my third year at OSU, I worked with a company called Planar Systems, which manufactures medical, industrial and

~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER ERMIAS ~ AEEC ~ AEEC

commercial display. While working at the

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compared to thin film. LED backlights also allow thinner display packages, more tolerant viewing angles, less energy consumption and longer product life. As seen today, products that use LEDs such as flat panel LCD and LED TVs, mobile devices, calculators, and other medical and commercial products dominate the market presently. After completing my study at OSU, I worked as a product engineer in marketing and sales branch interacting directly with consumers to find out what requirements and needs were present in this fast growing technology sector. While I was working in marketing, I began to research and work on my Lean Six Sigma which is a set of tools and strategies for process improvement, or a powerful, proven method of improving processes efficiency and effectiveness that focuses customer satisfaction. During my research, I discovered a partner that had the same interest in Lean Six Sigma. We bother want to help customers get products they need as fast as possible and with full customers satisfaction. To do this, both my partner and I created an enterprise called Lean-Agile SERVICES INTERNATIONAL (LSI). Lean-Agile is a business strategy based on customer satisfaction and delivering quality products and service that are: 1) Exactly what the customer needs, 2) When the customer needs the product, 3) The amount the customer requires, 4) Based upon an agreed price and 5)Accomplished with minimum resources. The term 'Lean' in a business or manufacturing environment describes a philosophy that incorporates a collection of tools and techniques into the business process to optimize time, human

resources, assets, and productivity, while improving the quality level of products and services to the customers. Lean is also a principle that creates and maximizes value through the elimination of waste. Organizations thus rethink their end-to-end value chains and find ways to provide what their customers value better, faster and with significantly fewer resources than their competitors and can obviously develop an unassailable competitive advantage by utilizing the Lean principle.

ENGINEER ERMIAS ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER ERMIAS ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER ERMIAS ~ AEEC ~ AEEC

My partner and I, further developed and are able to offer what we believe to be the most effective, powerful, user friendly, and affordable lean data management software called Lean Data System (LDS) or Supplier Quality System. LDS is developed as a primary tool designed to promote a truly lean, effective and uniform supplier quality effort. It is also meant as a single source of supplier quality issue details, lessons learned, and data to support key metrics used to identify what issues and

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concerns suppliers need to address and in what order based on cost and schedule impact or both. Lean Data System helps companies identify and resolve their issues within a fraction of the time. LDS allows companies to focuses on what matters the most, Safety, Quality, Cost and Schedule in order to give the best service and product to the consumer. The essential idea of our company (LSI) is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste.

Lean creates more value for customers with fewer resources.

ENGINEER ERMIAS ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER ERMIAS

At the end of the day, companies, large, medium or small, who will be using this fast growing technology, will be defined by their customers, the value of their products and services. ~ Engineer Ermias Kahsay

Hard to reach doesnt have to mean hard to do

A E E C

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Bringing the best and the brightest together

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Comments & Suggestions

Page
It is every one's dream to connect and discuss as Eritrean professionals are spreading to all corners of the world as if to fill the map. As its name indicates Alpha Eritrean Engineers Magazine is the beginning to motivate other professionals outside engineering to find a means of connection. It is a brilliant idea to be Alpha. There is no green light ready to welcome any one whenever you live abroad. Hunting professional job is the most challenging. I admit that being focused and working hard will change Eritrean Diaspora's life sooner or later. But Alpha Eritrean Engineers Magazine is in the right track and wish to congratulate those who initiate the idea. Estifanos Asrat Geotechnical engineering Thanks for sharing brother. Its so up lifting to see Eritreans in such a diverse and intellectual field. I am not sure if the magazine is distributed and how many copies are printed but since I am in the printing industry, anything I can do to be any assistant to you and your peers, please, dont hesitate to let me know. Dr. Awet Gherezghiher

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ALPHA ERITREAN ENGINEERS

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Low power Clock multiplier design for heart rate monitoring system

Background

Born and raised in the capital city of Eritrea, I completed all my studies including my undergraduate degree in Asmara. I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Asmara. After I completed my studies, I joined the Eritrea Institute of Technology and worked as Graduate Teaching Assistant. While working, not only did I have the opportunity to learn the challenges of Electrical Engineering but I also gained experience within the academic sector. Although my interest in Electrical engineering goes back to my childhood, during my undergrad studies, I developed a specific interest in digital electronics and was eager to advance my studies. Thus, from September 2010 to May 2012, I studied Microsystems in Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and took numerous course related to the Middle East region. circuit design and microelectronic fabrication.

I was exposed to the challenges of designing and verification of custom analog and digital circuits. CAD tools from Synopsys, Cadence and Mentor graphics were extensively utilized while working on a chip. My research was to implement an ultra-low power clock multiplier to supply a LED driver with a 2MHz clock based on a 32 kHz reference. The circuit was part of an ultra-low power heart rate monitoring system which uses pulse oximetry technique. The system comprises of a photon to digital converter, LED driver and clock generator, (Figure 1). Three chips were designed and fabricated and it was an inspiring experience to design and test a chip at masters level. One of the outcomes of the research conducted was presented at the International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC 2013) [1]. Being part of the research group, I had the privilege to participate in the ISSCC 2013 conference which was held on February, 2013 in San Francisco. I also fully custom designed chip to appear in the conference from

~ ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC AEEC ~

I was very fascinated and encouraged to do research in circuit design after I successfully designed and tested a chip during my graduate research work. My The novel aspect of the clock multiplier is that it has research involved digitally assisted analog/mixed digital intensive implementation based on a Frequency Locked Loop (FLL) architecture which signal circuit design. allows operation at 0.5V supply voltage with less than 10 micro Amps of current consumption.

Figure1 Heartrate monitoring system based on pulse oximetry

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Power consumption is crucial in low power CMOS circuit design especially for portable and mobile devices. Scaling the supply voltage is one of the best techniques to lower the power dissipation. That is why the systems power supply was limited to 0.5V. Another reason is that this voltage is also available directly from a tiny solar cell. The problems encountered when designing clock generators at low supply voltage is the susceptibility to process, temperature and supply voltage (PVT) variations.

The main parameter tracked in the feedback loop is the frequency of the output clock. The system constantly keeps track of the output frequency and generates an error signal by comparing it with a reference word. The system does frequency multiplication given by FOUT = FREF N where FREF is reference frequency, FOUT is the output frequency and N is an integer.

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Figure2 Architecture of the designed FLL

The designed clock multiplier is robust in the presence of process, temperature, and supply voltage variations while avoiding complex calibration or analog circuits such as band gap voltage references (Figure 2). It is an integer N-frequency multiplier based on a Frequency Locking Technique. The main distinction between Frequency Locked Loop and Phase Locked Loop is that in FLL the error signal generated in the loop represents frequency rather than phase error. In case of PLL the error signal would be proportional to phase. Generally the system could be described as a negative feedback system in which a change in the output frequency would be counteracted by the restoring behavior of The FLL is designed to generate a clock with the feedback. frequency of 2.096 MHz generated by a digitally

The forward path of the loop comprises of the digital comparator followed by a set of filters and a digitally controlled oscillator. The feedback path is formed by a frequency detector which generates a digital word equivalent to the frequency of the output of the DCO. The frequency detector is analogous to a divider that generates a phase equivalent to the output in digital phase locked loop. Digital circuits were heavily utilized when implementing the system. Digital circuits are immune to PVT variations as they only have to determine digital logic levels of 0 or 1. With technology change the digital circuits could be retained. The analog part in the design was the Digitally Controlled Oscillator, and this part might be required to be redesigned when moving to another technology.

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controlled oscillator (DCO) as revealed in Figure 2. The DCO is formed by a digital to analog converter (DAC) and a current controlled ring oscillator. It is controlled by a 31 level thermometer coded word. The thermometer code essentially controls a set of PMOS switches of the DAC, and by turning on or off more switches the output phase and frequency of the DCO is modulated. Since the system is designed to keep track of the output frequency, a frequency detector (FD) based on counters is implemented. The frequency detector counts the number of full cycles of output clock in one period of the reference clock. The output of the frequency detector is a 9-bit word and is added with a reference control word so as to generate a frequency error signal. A value 32 is chosen as a reference word that corresponds to the number of full cycles of 1.048 MHz output clock in one period of the reference clock with frequency 32.768kHz (note that this frequency is available from a commercial crystal oscillators). The 1.048MHz signal is obtained by dividing the 2.096MHz clock from the DCO.

All the clock signals All the clock signals that operate the logical circuits are obtained from the reference clock and the output of the DCO. The Sigma Delta is made to run at a higher frequency from the output of the DCO to enhance the noise performance of the system. Synchronization circuits are added in the system so as not to lose any information when the signals are traveling across the loop.

In summary, proposed system was PVT tolerant frequency locked loop based clock multiplier for heart rate monitoring system operating at ultra-low power. All the circuit required were simulated at a transistor level and the circuit layout was created. A chip was fabricated and tested. A test board was designed as shown in Figure 3a below and the output of the chip is shown in Figure 3b and 3c. The chip had the desired performance with results similar to the post layout simulations. Furthermore, an important tool that was used in developing this model system is called CppSim (www.cppsim.com) which offers fast behavioral simulation systems. It is built in c++ based modules and various user defined The frequency error is accumulated and filtered to modules can easily be integrated into its platform. tune the DCO to the desired frequency. The first This tool is helpful for Electrical Engineers especially accumulator followed by an adder form a lead lag those working in circuit design. filter. In addition to accumulating the error signal the lead lag filter helps reduce the in band phase noise and quantization error. The output of the lead lag filter is fed to a second 18bit accumulator. The output of the accumulator drives a first order Sigma Delta modulator. The Sigma Delta modulator has an input of 18bits and output of 5bits. By its dithering behavior, the Sigma Delta provides a digital word with average value that tracks the input 18bit word. Prior to driving the DCO, the 5bit binary word from the Sigma Delta is converted to a thermometer code. The binary to thermometer decoder has a behavior to change only one bit when its input changes by only one value, thus insuring monotonicity. The DCO has a CCO which integrates the filtered control signal to an output clock phase ( ). Figure 3a

ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC AEEC ~

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The tool is called CppSim (www.cppsim.com) which offers a fast behavioral simulation of systems. It has built in c++ based modules and various user defined modules could be easily integrated in to its platform. It is a helpful tool for Electrical Engineers especially for those working in circuit design. Figure 3c References

[1] Alhawari M. et al, 0.5V <4W CMOS photoplethysmographic heart-rate sensor IC based on a nonuniform quantizer, ISSCC 2013, Sanfrancisco, CA.

ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER TEMESGHEN ~ AEEC AEEC ~

Figure 3b

~ Engineer Temesghen Tekeste

Simple facts

Figure 2b

The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist. (wiki.answers.com) Three new and latest mathematical theorems were developed by an Eritrean high school student Saied Mohammed Ali, who was a student at Warsay Yekealo Senior Secondary School. (TesfaNews) An early form of circuit breaker was described by Thomas Edison in an 1879 patent application. (Wikipedia) The compass, a tool used to help aid in finding direction, was invented in China, during the Han Dynasty between the 2nd century BC and first century AD. The first compasses were made of lodestone, a naturally magnetized ore of iron. William Sturgeon invented the modern compass, which is still used today. (Wikipedia & invention.yukozimo.com)

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Civil engineering at its best!

Eritrea purely magnificent

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A land of dreamers who walk confidently in the direction of their dreams February
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ENGINEER SAMSON ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER SAMSON ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER SAMSON ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER ~

My To-Do Lists
Each day, most of us have personal goals-say, preparing for an exam, throwing a house party or going somewhere to attend a family weeding etc, and we have different techniques of managing our time to increase our productivity, but at certain point it becomes so difficult that the tasks pile up and with never ending task lists you tend to procrastinate and frustrate. I have a problem with my to-do list. Do you? Even though I had a difficulty with organizing my day; I always have a to-do list. I find that if I write my tasks down, I'm far less stressed because I know I won't forget anything. It helps me to set priorities and when I'm done with one task, I can move right onto the next.

get distracted and I spend more time on some of the tasks that are not listed. So, something goes wrong with my todays tasks.

Consequently I can't finish my to-dos and I feel like I haven't done enough for the day. On the other hand, there are days that my to-do lists goes well and I feel that I achieved something and I feel contented. It boosts me to do more for the next day.

Im more organized at work than at home or more productive outside than at home. More organized when I am doing some other peoples business than my own. If cleaning or organizing my home is one of my short to-do lists, most of the time I procrastinate to do it unless someone is coming to I fall in to all kinds of traps with my to-do lists. I my house. I am sure most of us do, especially have lists all over the place. I put short and long single people homes are more clean and organized time lists and when I occasionally review them when they invite someone. with my pen against the finished ones I found most I think keeping your lists fairly short helps manage of them are not done or partially done. And the your tasks easily. Its so disappointing at the end of feeling that I wasn't accomplishing anything the day when I see my to do lists with a number of frustrates me some times. items on it has only a few or maybe none For instance, I always plan to start my day by accomplished. Being able to manage small achieve waking up at six in the morning, go to Gym or do more makes me very happy. It works for me and I some running and then do the rest according to my hope it will work for you too! to-do lists. But I found walking up at six is really ~ Engineer Samson Gonets difficult for me. I've been struggling with this for years. I dont know why it is always in the first of my to-do lists. I know I am not going to wake up but I write it as my first morning task. Why bother when I can't do it? In the morning I think that I can do all my to-do lists for the day. Once I start checking my e-mail I
Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone Pablo Picasso

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ENGINEER SAMSON ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER SAMSON ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER SAMSON ~ AEEC ~ ENGINEER ~

. Sense of humor from engineers prospective

Glass Half Full Someone who sees a partially filled glass as half full is an often cited definition of an optimist. Someone who sees the same glass as half empty is taken to be a pessimist. It has been said that someone who sets the glass as poorly designed, because it is twice as large as it needed to be, is surely an engineer.

Engineering-Humour.com

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Alpha Eritrean Engineers Magazine

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Current Job Opportunities

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Innovation Center Project Engineer 4/5, 13-1011857, Everett, WA; Multi-Function Project Manager/Integrator, 13-1011060, Everett, WA; Electrical Design and Analysis Engineer 3/4, 13-1014135, Hill AFB, UT Aerodynamics Engineer, 131010779, Huntington Beach, CA Propulsion Engineer 4/5, 13-1010025, North Charleston, SC Propulsion Engineer 3/4, 131010026, North Charleston, SC Software Engineer 2/3, 131013533, Herndon, VA Software Engineer, 13-1013176, Springfield, VA Software Engineer 2/3, 131012530, Saint Louis, MO Software Engineer 3, 13-1012576, Springfield, VA

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The authors
Ermias Kahsay enk4090@yahoo.com
Received AS from Centralia community College in General Enginering in 1994 & BS from Oregon State University in Elecrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering in 2002. Currently he owns company (business) called Lean Services International works as senior consultant and President of Operations.

Temesgen Tekeste temiet@yahoo.com

If you need an updated information, discussions or got an Engineering experiences that you want share your knowledge or ideas with your fellow professionals. You will find us on www.linkedin.com/groups/AlphaEritrean-Engineers-Community

received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Asmara & MS in Micro-systems in Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhab. Currently he is employed by Masdar Istitute of Science and Technology as a research engineer.

Samson Gonnetz

samigonnetz@yahoo.com received his B.S. in Civil

Engineering from San Francisco State University in California and currently he is studing and in a process of abtaining a Professional Engineer licence (PE).

AEEM

BE PART OF IT
IT CONNECTS IT INFORMS IT SHARES EXPERIENCES

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