Some nonvolatile phase change memory (PCM) cells with 80 nm heating electrodes are found early RESET failure. The causes, which result in the early failure of the PCM, have been studied. Compared the energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) results, it is observed some segregation has occurred in the components at the positions close to the TiN and bottom electron contact (BEC) interface for ...

Several reliability engineering approaches have been proposed to identify and recover from failures. A well-known and mature approach is the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) method that is usually utilized together with Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) to analyze and diagnose the causes of failures. Unfortunately, both approaches seem to have primarily focused on failures of hardware components...

Functional safety analysis (FSA), that is checking whether a designed artifact will perform safely even under the presence of failing components, has gained significant importance in different areas, including aeronautic and automotive systems. The same applies to failure-modes-andeffects analysis (FMEA) and fault-tree analysis (FTA) as the major contributing processes. FSA is laborand timecons...

Functional labels provide a simple but very reusable way for defining the functionality of a system and for making use of that knowledge. Unlike more complex functional representation schemes, these labels can be efficiently linked to a behavioral simulator to interpret the simulation in a way that is meaningful to the user. They are also simple to specify, and highly reusable with different be...

Remotely sensed nighttime lights (NTL) datasets derived from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) have been identified as a good indicator of the urbanization process and have been widely used to study such demographic and economic variables as population distribution and density, electricity consumption, and carbon emission. However, one issue m...

Energy efficiency policies are pursued as a way to provide affordable and sustainable energy services. Efficiency measures that reduce energy service costs will free up resources that can be spent in the form of increased consumption—either of that same good or service or of other goods and services that require energy (and that have associated emissions). This is called the rebound effect. The...

The transportation system has a number of adverse environmental impacts. The effects can be direct, indirect and both. Indirect effects may have greater consequences than direct effects, but are not generally well known. Transportation system and the operation of vehicles can affect rural and urban community. Emission and road crashes have a significant impact on health, and the form of the tra...

One of possible ways to achieve a very high level of confidence in a system is to develop its adequate model and then to analyse the properties of this model. The paper presents how object oriented modelling extended with formal specifications is used to support FMEA of software intensive systems. The paper refers to the case study of a computerised railway signalling system.