Search

Abstract Background Despite centuries of traditional use of silymarin for hepatoprotection, current randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies on the effectiveness of silymarin in managing metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) are limited and inconclusive, particularly when it is administered alone. The low bioavailability of silymarin highlights the possible influence of gut microbiota on the effectiveness of silymarin; however, no human studies have investigated this aspect. Objective To determine the potential efficacy of silymarin in improving MASLD indicators and to investigate the underlying mechanisms related to gut microbiota. Method In this 24-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 83 patients with MASLD were randomized to either placebo (n = 41) or silymarin (103.2 mg/d, n = 42). At 0, 12, and 24 weeks, liver stiffness and hepatic steatosis were assessed using FibroScan, and blood samples were gathered for biochemical detection, while faecal samples were collected at 0 and 24 weeks for 16S rRNA sequencing. Results Silymarin supplementation significantly reduced liver stiffness (LSM, -0.21 ± 0.17 vs. 0.41 ± 0.17, P = 0.015) and serum levels of γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT, -8.21 ± 3.01 vs. 1.23 ± 3.16, P = 0.042) and ApoB (-0.02 ± 0.03 vs. 0.07 ± 0.03, P = 0.023) but had no significant effect on the controlled attenuation parameter (CAP), other biochemical indicators (aminotransferases, total bilirubin, glucose and lipid parameters, hsCRP, SOD, and UA), physical measurements (DBP, SBP, BMI, WHR, BF%, and BMR), or APRI and FIB-4 indices. Gut microbiota analysis revealed increased species diversity and enrichment of Oscillospiraceae in the silymarin group. Conclusion These findings suggest that silymarin supplementation could improve liver stiffness in MASLD patients, possibly by modulating the gut microbiota. Trial registration The trial was registered at the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2200059043).

In the low earth orbit (LEO) uplink communication scenario, aiming at the different needs of different users for high capacity transmission (HCT) and high reliability transmission (HRT), the spectrum of two users with different needs was shared, a resource allocation model for maximizing the total capacity of HCT users under the constraint of HRT users was established, and the user power and channel resources were optimized.Based on the statistical characteristics of channel fading, the power allocation was carried out to deal with the uncertainty challenge caused by the randomness of channel fading.On the basis of power allocation, the Hungarian algorithm was used to pair users to share the same channel.In order to improve the fairness of HCT users, the maximization of minimum ergodic capacity was included in the optimization goal, and a balance matrix was introduced to solve the problem based on the existing algorithms.Simulation results show that the total capacity of HCT users of the proposed algorithm is higher than that of other algorithms under the same HRT user outage probability, and the improved algorithm also has a significant effect on improving the fairness and robustness of HCT users.

To address the requirements of sonar imaging, such as high receiving sensitivity, a wide bandwidth, and a wide receiving angle, an AlN PMUT with an optimized ratio of 0.6 for the piezoelectric layer diameter to backside cavity diameter is proposed in this paper. A sample AlN PMUT is designed and fabricated with the SOI substrate-based bulk MEMS process. The characterization test result of the sample demonstrates a −6 dB bandwidth of approximately 500 kHz and a measured receiving sensitivity per unit area of 1.37 V/μPa/mm2, which significantly surpasses the performance of previously reported PMUTs. The −6 dB horizontal angles of the AlN PMUT at 300 kHz and 500 kHz are measured as 68.30° and 54.24°, respectively. To achieve an accurate prediction of its characteristics when being packaged and assembled in a receive array, numerical simulations with the consideration of film stress are conducted. The numerical result shows a maximum deviation of ±7% in the underwater receiving sensitivity across the frequency range of 200 kHz to 1000 kHz and a deviation of about 0.33% in the peak of underwater receiving sensitivity compared to the experimental data. By such good agreement, the simulation method reveals its capability of providing theoretical foundation for enhancing the uniformity of AlN PMUTs in future studies.

Epilepsy is a prevalent neurological disorder, rendering the development of automated seizure detection systems imperative. While complex machine learning models are powerful, their training and hardware deployment remain challenging. The reservoir computing system offers a low-cost solution in terms of both hardware requirements and training. In this paper, we introduce a compact reservoir computing system for seizure detection, based on the α-In2Se3 dynamic memristors. Leaky integrate-and-fire neurons are used for post-processing the output of the system, and experimental results indicate their effectiveness in suppressing erroneous outputs, where both accuracy and specificity are enhanced by over 2.5%. The optimized compact reservoir system achieves 96.40% accuracy, 86.34% sensitivity, and 96.56% specificity in seizure detection tasks. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using reservoir computing for seizure detection and shows its potential for future application in extreme edge devices.

This paper proposes a system-in-package combination navigation chip. We used wire bonding, chip stacking, surface mount, and other processes to integrate satellite navigation chips, inertial navigation chips, microprocessor chips, and separation devices. Finally, we realized the hardware requirements for combined navigation in a 20 mm × 20 mm chip. Further, we performed a multi-physics simulation analysis of the package design. For antenna signals, the insertion loss was greater than −1 dB@1 GHz and the return loss was less than −10 dB@1 GHz. The amplitude of these noises of the signal between the MCU and the IMU was approximately 20%, and the maximum value of the coupling coefficient between signal lines on the top surface was 13.4174%. The ninth mode of the power plane yielded a maximum voltage of 55 mV, and all power delivery networks had a DC voltage drop of less than 2%. The highest temperature in the microsystem was approximately 42 °C. These results show that our design performed well in terms of signal, power, and thermal performance.

The decreasing-width, increasing-aspect-ratio RDL presents significant challenges to the design for reliability (DFR) of an advanced package. Therefore, this paper proposes an ML-based RDL modeling and simulation method. In the method, RDL was divided into blocks and subdivided into pixels of metal percentage, and the RDL was digitalized as tensors. Then, an ANN-based surrogate model was built and trained using a subset of tensors to predict the equivalent material properties of each block. Lastly, all blocks were transformed into elements for simulations. For validation, line bending simulations were conducted on an RDL, with the reaction force as an accuracy indicator. The results show that neglecting layout impact caused critical errors as the substrate thinned. According to the method, the reaction force error was 2.81% and the layout impact could be accurately considered with 200 × 200 elements. For application, the TCT maximum temperature state simulation was conducted on a CPU chip. The simulation indicated that for an advanced package, the maximum stress was more likely to occur in RDL rather than in bumps; both RDL and bumps were critically impacted by layouts, and RDL stress was also impacted by vias/bumps. The proposed method precisely concerned layout impacts with few resources, presenting an opportunity for efficient improvement.

Abstract A through‐silicon via (TSV)‐based, common‐mode, noise‐suppressing filter (TSV‐CMF) with the silicon interposer process is proposed to improve the electromagnetic compatibility in 3D integrated circuits. A differential fifth‐order T‐model low‐pass filter prototype circuit for transmission lines with common inductance is used to characterize and design the stopband and the corresponding two transmission zeros for the common mode (CM). The circuit parameters are carefully designed and calculated to fit the performance requirement. The TSV‐CMF is implemented in an interposer process with TSV as the vertical connect and redistribution layer (RDL) as the capacitance and inductance. TSV‐CMF samples are tested, and the measurement results match those of the full‐wave simulation. The differential cut‐off frequency of the TSV‐CMF can reach 16 GHz, and the CM stopband is around 5.3–16.0 GHz with 100% fractional bandwidth.

This work focuses on quantitatively investigating the relationship between creep and stress relaxation of 7050 aluminum alloy at ageing temperatures. The creep strain rates, creep exponent, n, and activation energy were extracted from both the creep and stress relaxation curves to explore the creep mechanisms. Results showed that higher applied stress promotes the creep and stress relaxation extents. The calculated creep strain rates from creep and stress relaxation curves located in similar ranges and share similar n values (n = 3.7 for creep and n = 3.5 for stress relaxation), indicating that both tests are dominated by the dislocation slip mechanism. Additionally, the n value for creep tests is a constant throughout the tests, indicating that the dominant creep mechanism is unchanged. However, the activation energy changes from 123 kJ/mol to 139 kJ/mol, possibly due to evolved dislocations. Such a new finding could provide a supporting mechanism for building constitutive equations depending on the evolved A value. Furthermore, compared to the single-stage creep ageing, no primary creep was observed in T74 multi-stage creep ageing while similar amount of total creep strains was achieved. This suggests an alternative loading sequence for creep age forming of 7050 aluminum alloy, i.e., loading at the second stage to avoid prolonged exposure to high temperatures, extend the tool life, and achieve similar amounts of inelastic deformations. Based on all the above studies, creep and stress relaxation have a certain relationship. This paper provides a theoretical basis for future research on creep ageing forming of 7050 aluminum alloy.

Dynamic ON resistance of GaN devices is a must-care point for users. In this paper, the reverse conduction of commercial GaN power transistors is studied. Even though the commercial HEMTs show stable performance in normal operation modes (off-to-on), significant dynamic ON resistance can be seen in some particular conditions. A test method is set up to evaluate dynamic Ron in a reverse-to-on mode. The conditions to activate the behavior are discussed, and the cause of dynamic Ron is possibly due to traps located in the gate region. Meanwhile, a wireless power transfer system operating at 6.78MHz is used to study the effect of reverse conduction mode on dynamic resistance at the circuit level. According to the change of the operation frequency, we find that the influence of reverse conduction on the dynamic Ron effect is not only affected by the value of reverse conduction voltage but also related to the operating mode of the device.

The microfluidic device (MFD) with a glass–PDMS–glass (G-P-G) structure is of interest for a wide range of applications. However, G-P-G MFD fabrication with an ultra-thin PDMS film (especially thickness less than 200 μm) is still a big challenge because the ultra-thin PDMS film is easily deformed, curled, and damaged during demolding and transferring. This study aimed to report a thickness-controllable and low-cost fabrication process of the G-P-G MFD with an ultra-thin PDMS film based on a flexible mold peel-off process. A patterned photoresist layer was deposited on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film to fabricate a flexible mold that could be demolded softly to achieve a rigid structure of the glass–PDMS film. The thickness of ultra-thin patterned PDMS could reach less than 50 μm without damage to the PDMS film. The MFD showcased the excellent property of water evaporation inhibition (water loss < 10%) during PCR thermal cycling because of the ultra-thin PDMS film. Its low-cost fabrication process and excellent water evaporation inhibition present extremely high prospects for digital PCR application.

In view of existing Visual SLAM (VSLAM) algorithms when constructing semantic map of indoor environment, there are problems with low accuracy and low label classification accuracy when feature points are sparse. This paper proposed a 3D semantic VSLAM algorithm called BMASK-RCNN based on Mask Scoring RCNN. Firstly, feature points of images are extracted by Binary Robust Invariant Scalable Keypoints (BRISK) algorithm. Secondly, map points of reference key frame are projected to current frame for feature matching and pose estimation, and an inverse depth filter is used to estimate scene depth of created key frame to obtain camera pose changes. In order to achieve object detection and semantic segmentation for both static objects and dynamic objects in indoor environments and then construct dense 3D semantic map with VSLAM algorithm, a Mask Scoring RCNN is used to adjust its structure partially, where a TUM RGB-D SLAM dataset for transfer learning is employed. Semantic information of independent targets in scenes provides semantic information including categories, which not only provides high accuracy of localization but also realizes the probability update of semantic estimation by marking movable objects, thereby reducing the impact of moving objects on real-time mapping. Through simulation and actual experimental comparison with other three algorithms, results show the proposed algorithm has better robustness, and semantic information used in 3D semantic mapping can be accurately obtained.

AlN thin film is widely used in piezoelectric MEMS devices, and the accurate characterizations of its material coefficients are critical for the optimization of the AlN thin film process and the design of AlN thin-film-based devices. However, it is difficult to extract the material coefficients of AlN in the form of thin film. This paper reports a strategy for systematically extracting full elastic coefficients, piezoelectric coefficients and dielectric constants of c-axis-oriented AlN thin film based on the resonance method outlined in IEEE Standard on Piezoelectricity Std 176-1987. In this strategy, four self-suspended resonators with length thickness extension (LTE), thickness extension (TE), radial extension (RE), lateral electric field excited thickness shear (LEF-TS) modes together with a lamb wave resonator (LWR) are specifically adopted, and the material coefficients of AlN thin film are extracted by measuring the impedance spectra of these resonators. In addition, the effects of the pad and electrodes on the resonators were systematically studied, and the corresponding procedures to eliminate their influences on the extraction accuracy of material coefficients were proposed. Finally, a complete extraction process based on the above strategy was established. The simulation results show that the strategy can achieve high accuracy for AlN thin film with different thicknesses and electrode configurations, and it can also be applied to other materials belonging to the 6 mm piezoelectric crystal class such as ZnO, ScAlN, etc.

In this paper, a novel method to achieve all-GaN integrated MIS-HEMTs in a Si-CMOS platform by self-terminated and self-alignment process is reported. Furthermore, a process of repairing interface defects by supercritical technology is proposed to suppress the threshold voltage shift of all GaN integrated MIS-HEMTs. The threshold voltage characteristics of all-GaN integrated MIS-HEMTs are simulated and analyzed. We found that supercritical NH3 fluid has the characteristics of both liquid NH3 and gaseous NH3 simultaneously, i.e., high penetration and high solubility, which penetrate the packaging of MIS-HEMTs. In addition, NH2− produced via the auto coupling ionization of NH3 has strong nucleophilic ability, and is able to fill nitrogen vacancies near the GaN surface created by high temperature process. The fabricated device delivers a threshold voltage of 2.67 V. After supercritical fluid treatment, the threshold voltage shift is reduced from 0.67 V to 0.13 V. Our demonstration of the supercritical technology to repair defects of wide-bandgap family of semiconductors may bring about great changes in the field of device fabrication.

This paper presents a high-accuracy complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) driven ultrasonic ranging system based on air coupled aluminum nitride (AlN) based piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs) using time of flight (TOF). The mode shape and the time-frequency characteristics of PMUTs are simulated and analyzed. Two pieces of PMUTs with a frequency of 97 kHz and 96 kHz are applied. One is used to transmit and the other is used to receive ultrasonic waves. The Time to Digital Converter circuit (TDC), correlating the clock frequency with sound velocity, is utilized for range finding via TOF calculated from the system clock cycle. An application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip is designed and fabricated on a 0.18 μm CMOS process to acquire data from the PMUT. Compared to state of the art, the developed ranging system features a wide range and high accuracy, which allows to measure the range of 50 cm with an average error of 0.63 mm. AlN based PMUT is a promising candidate for an integrated portable ranging system.

Through Silicon Via (TSV) technology is capable meeting effective, compact, high density, high integration, and high-performance requirements. In high-frequency applications, with the rapid development of 5G and millimeter-wave radar, the TSV interposer will become a competitive choice for radio frequency system-in-package (RF SIP) substrates. This paper presents a redundant TSV interconnect design for high resistivity Si interposers for millimeter-wave applications. To verify its feasibility, a set of test structures capable of working at millimeter waves are designed, which are composed of three pieces of CPW (coplanar waveguide) lines connected by single TSV, dual redundant TSV, and quad redundant TSV interconnects. First, HFSS software is used for modeling and simulation, then, a modified equivalent circuit model is established to analysis the effect of the redundant TSVs on the high-frequency transmission performance to solidify the HFSS based simulation. At the same time, a failure simulation was carried out and results prove that redundant TSV can still work normally at 44 GHz frequency when failure occurs. Using the developed TSV process, the sample is then fabricated and tested. Using L-2L de-embedding method to extract S-parameters of the TSV interconnection. The insertion loss of dual and quad redundant TSVs are 0.19 dB and 0.46 dB at 40 GHz, respectively.

In this paper, two versions of capacitive accelerometers based on low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) technology are developed, different with respect to the detection technique, as well as the mechanical structure. Fabrication of the key structure, a heavy proof mass with thin beams embedded in a large cavity, which is extremely difficult for the conventional LTCC process, is successfully completed by the optimized process. The LC resonant accelerometer, using coupling resonance frequency sensing which is first applied to LTCC accelerometer and may facilitate application in harsh environments, demonstrates a sensitivity of 375 KHz/g over the full scale range 1 g, with nonlinearity less than 6%, and the telemetry distance is 5 mm. The differential capacitive accelerometer adopting differential capacitive sensing presents a larger full scale range 10 g and lower nonlinearity less than 1%, and the sensitivity is 30.27 mV/g.

Although a through-silicon via (TSV) is widely used in three-dimensional integrated circuit systems, one of its major design challenges is noise coupling between TSVs and active devices. This paper investigates noise coupling between TSVs and active devices for 20/14-nm technology nodes. The effect of variations of structural parameters on noise coupling was examined using a three-dimensional full-wave electromagnetic field solver and its result was explained. Additionally, transient analysis on coupling noise was conducted with Synopsys TCAD. Furthermore, a combined strategy employing doped signal TSVs and ‘bare’ ground TSVs was proposed and compared with conventional signal/ground schemes. Demonstrated to improve noise isolation effectively, the proposed strategy is inherently advantageous to circuits of advanced technology nodes compared with other noise isolation schemes, for it demands no modification of the original circuit design, placement and routing.