Methods and devices are provided herein for identifying a cell population comprising an effector cell that exerts an extracellular effect. In one embodiment the method comprises retaining in a microreactor a cell population comprising one or more effector cells, wherein the contents of the microreactor further comprise a readout particle population comprising one or more readout particles, incubating the cell population and the readout particle population within the microreactor, assaying the cell population for the presence of the extracellular effect, wherein the readout particle population or subpopulation thereof provides a direct or indirect readout of the extracellular effect, and determining, based on the results of the assaying step, whether one or more effector cells within the cell population exerts the extracellular effect on the readout particle. If an extracellular effect is measured, the cell population is recovered for further analysis to determine the cell or cells responsible for the effect.

The cell is the fundamental unit of life and no two cells are identical. For example, differences in genotype, phenotype and/or morphological property can contribute to cellular heterogeneity. Indeed, "seemingly identical" clonal populations of cells have been shown to display phenotypic differences among cells within the population. Cellular differences exist across all levels of life, ranging from bacterial cells to partially differentiated cells (for example, adult stem and progenitor cells) to highly differentiated mammalian cells (for example, immune cells). Differences in cellular state, function and responses can arise from a variety of mechanisms including different histories, different differentiation states, epigenetic variations, cell cycle effects, stochastic variations, differences in genomic sequence, gene expression, protein expression and differing cell interaction effects.
Conventional bulk cellular analyses, including measurements of expressed proteins or RNA, are performed by averaging very large numbers of cells, typically greater than 1000 cells per individual assay). This averaging of a cellular population masks the heterogeneity that exists within a cell population and obscures the underlying biological features of the individual cells within the population. There are many examples where such averaged measurements are inadequate. For example, measuring a cellular process in a cell population may be complicated by the responses of individual cells, which may be asynchronous, thus blurring the dynamics of the process. For example, the presence of dominant, yet phenotypically distinct subpopulations of cells can result in a population measurement that poorly reflects the internal states of the majority of cells in the population. See, e.g., Altschuler and Wu. (2010). Cell 141, pp. 559-563.
Existing methods for isolating populations of unique cell types are often limited in the purity of the population that is achievable. For example, enriched populations of primary multipotent stem cells rarely achieve better than 50% functional purity and are often well below 10% pure, so that the molecular signatures of these cells are obscured by large, and often overwhelming contamination from other cell types. Many cell types interact with each other, both through direct contact and through secreted factors, to promote survival, death, differentiation or some other function, and these interactions are difficult to isolate and study in a mixture comprising a large number of cells. Additionally, cells may have differences in their genomic sequences and/or cellular state that result in different levels or types of expressed mRNA or proteins. If analyzed in a bulk population, the particular cell with a unique cellular state or having the expressed mRNA or protein of interest, although of high value for industrial purposes, is very difficult or impossible to isolate from the population.
To overcome the deficiencies of bulk population cell analysis, single cell assay platforms have been developed. For example, microfluidic devices have been used to study single cells in the past (Lecault et al. (2012). Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 16, pp. 381-390). Ma et al. (Nat Med, 17, pp. 738-743 (2011)) applied a single cell barcode chip to simultaneously measure multiple cytokines (e.g., IL-10, TNF-β, IFN-γ) from human macrophages and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) obtained from both healthy donors and a metastatic melanoma patient. Microfabricated chamber arrays have also been used to screen and select B cells secreting antigen-specific antibodies from both immunized humans and mice (Story et al. (2009). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, pp. 17902-17907; Jin et al. (2009). Nat. Med. 15, pp. 1088-1092). In this approach, single B cells were arrayed on a surface containing tens of thousands of microfabricated wells (˜10-100 μm deep), where the well surfaces were functionalized with capture antibodies. After incubation of cells on the well surfaces for less than 3 hours, the surfaces were washed with fluorescently labeled antigen and scanned in order to identify antigen-specific B cells. These cells were then manually recovered from the arrays by a microcapillary in order to amplify, sequence, and clone the antibody-encoding genes from these cells.
Two-phase microfluidic devices have also been applied to the analysis of secreted proteins from single immune cells by encapsulating them in sub-nanoliter aqueous droplets separated by a stream of oil (Konry et al. (2011). Biosens. Bioelectron. 26, pp. 2702-2710). These droplets can be analyzed in a flow-through format similar to FACS, and thus provide an opportunity for ultra-high throughput detection of secreted proteins from single cells. Water-in-oil emulsions have also been used to study cellular paracrine signaling by co-encapsulating cells in microfluidic-generated agarose beads (Tumarkin et al. (2011). Integr. Biol. 3, pp. 653-662). Microfluidic droplet generation also has been used for drug screening and development by enabling viability analysis of encapsulated single cells exposed to different compositions (Brouzes et al. (2009). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106, pp. 14195-14200).
Antibodies are molecules naturally produced by the immune system of humans or animals to fight off infection and disease. This is achieved by the unique ability of the immune system to generate an immense diversity of antibodies, each with the ability to recognize and bind a specific target (e.g., protein, virus, bacteria). This unmatched specificity is also what makes antibodies extremely potent and low side-effect drugs with clinically approved therapies for a wide array of conditions including cancer, autoimmune disorders, inflammation, neurology, and infection. In comparison to conventional small molecule drugs, antibodies offer several advantages including superior pharmacokinetics, fewer side effects, improved tolerability, and much higher success rates in clinical trials (27% vs. 7% for small molecules). (Reichert (2009). Mabs 1, pp. 387-389.) It is for this reason that antibodies are also by far the fastest growing class of drugs, with a total global market that was $50B in 2012 and that is growing at a rate of 9% per year. (Nelson et al. (2010). Nat. Rev. Drug Disc. 9(10), pp. 767-774.)
The discovery of antibodies with optimal therapeutic properties, and in particular antibodies that target surface receptors, remains a serious bottleneck in drug development. In response to immunization, an animal can make millions of different monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Each mAb is produced by a single cell called an antibody-secreting cell (ASC), and each ASC makes only one type of mAb. Accordingly, antibody analysis, for example, for drug discovery purposes lends itself to single cell analyses. However, even if an ASC is analyzed individually, and not within a bulk population of cells, because a single ASC generates only a minute amount of antibody, when analyzed in the volume of conventional assay formats, the antibody is too dilute, making it completely undetectable. Accordingly, new methods for studying individual ASCs and their secreted antibodies are needed. The present invention addresses this and other needs.

Microfluidic devices and methods for use thereof in multicellular assays of secretion


A method of introducing an impurity into a wafer surface is provided. The method comprises the steps of: low energy implantation of impurity into a surface of the wafer to generate an implanted dopant layer; and simultaneously removing an implanted surface of the implanted dopant layer to generate a doping profile with controlled areal impurity dosage.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method of introducing an impurity into a wafer surface. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of introducing an impurity into a wafer surface with low energy implantation and controlled surface removal.
2. Description of Related Art
Ion implantation has been a process of choice to introduce dopant into silicon substrate in advanced CMOS technology. As device continue to be scaled, the need for ultra shallow junction formation becomes increasingly important for the source/drain area. In the production of very small devices, it is necessary to reduce the junction depths. Most of the work in shallow junction formation has concentrated on applying conventional ion implantation to form very shallow source/drain for submicron CMOS.
A great deal of emphasis has been placed on reducing the implant energy. Many manufacturers of ion implant equipment are pushing their systems to a few keV. Some options for forming ultra shallow junctions includes using a layer on top of the silicon as a diffusion source, using a plasma immersion doping as an ion source. However, modern ion implanters are often expensive and present many challenges to form ultra shallow junctions. For example, advanced low energy implanter has to add decelerators to conventional tool set up in order to achieve the proper low energy range. This addition poses challenges in technical parameters and cost. Plasma immersion doping method has the potential for shallow junction formation. However, the dopant dosage is hard to control with high precision, namely, the uniformity of the profile across the wafer is difficult to control. Therefore, a new method of high dose and low energy ion implantation is needed.

Method of impurity introduction and controlled surface removal


A device for entering information includes an operating element and a control device. The device further includes an angle encoder configured to detect a rotational movement about an axis of rotation of the operating element, a touch encoder configured to detect a pressure movement of the operating element, and a transmission element configured to transmit data from the angle encoder and/or from the touch encoder to the control device. In addition, the device includes an energy transmission device configured to supply energy to the operating element via a cable-free transmission of energy.

Devices for entering information by pressing and/or rotating an operating element are in principle known from the prior art, in particular from the vehicle operation sector. Rotate-and-press actuators permit the convenient entry of information. Thus, for example, air temperature and air flow speed of a vehicle air-conditioning system, local designations relating to navigation with a navigation system or radio transmitters for playback with the car radio can be set. The combination of rotation and pressing is advantageous inasmuch as with the rotation a value for a parameter to be set can be selected, and the selected value can be confirmed with the pressing.
Classically, rotate-and-press actuators are constructed as mechanical elements, which pass on the pressing and rotation via a shaft to a touch encoder or an angle encoder. From there, the signals are passed on via electric conductor tracks to a control device, for example a control device of the air conditioning system.

Device for entering information by pressing and/or rotating an operating element

Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche Aktiengesellschaft


A dual mode digital imaging system has a still processing mode that produces an output image in a first color space and a motion processing mode that produces an output image in a second color space, in particular a first color space that is RGB and a second color space that is YUV. The digital imaging system includes a dual mode digital camera for use with a computer and a processing application for running on the computer, wherein the motion mode processing is relatively less complex than the still mode processing although at least one common control parameter is used to control both modes. The motion mode processing, which is performed using algorithms and software approaches designed to minimize processing time, nonetheless produces an entirely adequate relatively low resolution YUV image appropriate for applications such as videoconferencing. The still mode processing, on the other hand, uses more elaborate algorithms to optimize the image quality of a relatively high resolution RGB output image.

There are generally two types of electronic cameras, those that produce motion images and those that produce still images. Typical motion cameras include motion video cameras and computer-connected cameras like the Color QuickCam□, sold by the Connectix Corporation, and typical still cameras include the Kodak line of digital cameras, including the DC40 and DC50 cameras, sold by the Eastman Kodak Company. With motion video cameras, it is typical to input images to a computer via a "frame grabber" board. In this case still images and motion images are captured using a single field or frame of the video. Therefore, the processing for motion and still images, performed in hardware inside the camera, is the same whether still or motion images are captured.
With electronic still cameras, the output processing is typically oriented toward still images, since still image capture is the object of the camera. U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,170, entitled "Hand-manipulated Electronic Camera Tethered to a Personal Computer", describes a digital still camera tethered to a computer for capturing an image and providing the captured image to the computer for storage therewith. In one embodiment, the camera includes a scan rate video sensor, producing a motion video signal, and the computer interface includes a framestore board which captures a frame out of the continuous video signal output by the sensor.
If the electronic still camera provides another mode, it is typically subsidiary to the main purpose. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,406, an electronic still camera is described in which a motion mode is used to provide a "preview" image on an LCD viewfinder prior to still mode capture. This preview processing is preferably done using hardwired circuitry, which makes the camera more expensive and makes the processing less adaptable. The camera does not output the motion image data, but simply displays the motion data on the LCD display. The camera does not allow the user to affirmatively elect between the motion and the still mode.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,244, entitled "Computer Input Scanner Incorporating Multiple Scanning Modes", describes a film scanner useful as an input device for a computer. The film scanner is operable in two modes: the first mode is a low resolution monochrome prescanning mode used for composing (zooming and cropping) the image, and the second is a high-resolution color sequential mode in which three successive high resolution color scans are obtained. Two user-controlled switch functions on the scanner are used: one to continuously capture low resolution frames in the prescan mode, and the second to initiate a high-resolution scan. Except for digitizing the film image at different spatial resolutions and using only the green color record in the prescanning mode, the processing in each mode is the same.
While describing two modes of operation in some cases, the prior art does not allow for optimization of processing in the separate modes.

Dual mode digital imaging and camera system


Fins lined up in a Y direction, a control gate electrode and a memory gate electrode each extending in the Y direction so as to straddle the fins, a plurality of first plugs electrically connected with a drain region formed in each of the fins, and a plurality of second plugs electrically connected with a source region formed in each of the fins are formed. Here, a N-th plug of the plurality of first plugs lined up in the Y direction is coupled with each of (2N−1)-th and 2N-th fins in the Y direction. Also, a N-th plug of the plurality of second plugs lined up in the Y direction is coupled with each of 2N-th and (2N+1)-th fins in the Y direction.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a technique useful for a semiconductor device including a fin-type transistor.
A fin transistor is known as a transistor that has a high operating speed, that can reduce leakage current and power consumption, and that can be miniaturized. The fin-type field-effect transistor (FINFET: Fin Field Effect Transistor) is, for example, a semiconductor device having a pattern of a plate-shaped semiconductor layer, which is protruded from a substrate, as a channel layer and having a gate electrode formed so as to straddle the pattern.
EEPROM (Electrically Erasable and Programmable Read Only Memory) is widely used as a non-volatile memory device which can be electrically written and erased. The storage device represented by the flash memory widely used at present has a conductive floating gate electrode or a trapping insulating film, which are surrounded by an oxide film, below a gate electrode of a MISFET. Also, a charge accumulation state in the floating gate or the trapping insulating film is used as storage information and the stored state is read as a threshold value of a transistor. The trapping insulating film is an insulating film capable of storing charges, and as an example, a silicon nitride film or the like can be given. The threshold value of MISFET is shifted by injecting and discharging charges into and from the charge storage region to operate as memory elements. As the flash memory, there is a split-gate type cell using a MONOS (Metal-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Semiconductor) film.
There is disclosed techniques listed below.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2017-45860.
Patent Document 1 discloses a MONOS memory cell made of FINFET.


A controlled impedance interconnection assembly (50), for connecting an x-band coaxial connector (66) to a microstrip (60) on a circuit board (52), comprises a circuit board having a core (54) of dielectric material terminated by first and second surfaces (56, 58). An electrically conductive microstrip (60) and electrically conductive material (62) are adhered respectively to the first and second surfaces, and a hole (64), substantially at right angles to the surfaces, extends through the core and the conductive material on the second surface, and to the conductive microstrip on the first surface. The x-band coaxial connector, including an inner conductor (68) and a conductive shell (70) coaxially surrounding the inner conductor, is secured at right angles to the circuit board. The conductive shell is electrically connected to the conductive material, and the inner conductor is extended through the hole and has a mechanically smooth, right-angled transition (74, 76) with and electrical connection to the conductive microstrip. The smooth, right-angled transition essentially elminates otherwise high mismatches and VSWR (voltage standing wave ratio) in the connection and enables the circuit board to operate in excess of 14 GHz and in x-band frequencies with an augmented bandwidth. A tuning element (80) may be added to provide capacitive and inductive match for the microstrip, to focus the signal back into the microstrip, to provide a shielding from external or spurious signals and to minimize crosstalk between adjacent traces.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to interconnections between connectors and leads and, more particularly, to controlled impedance interconnections between micro-strips and micro-connectors, specifically, x-band coaxial connectors, for reducing distortion in the transmission of electrical signals.
2. Description of Related Art and Other Considerations
Distortion caused by transmission pathways is proportional to the pulse-repetition rate and switching speed of the signals, and to the length of the pathway. A major component of this distortion is caused by improper impedance matching. A circuit is said to be perfectly matched when both the source and the load at the opposite ends of the transmission pathway match the characteristic impedance of the pathway. When impedance discontinuities are present, unwanted reflections are created within the transmission pathway. These transmissions degrade the signal by effectively cancelling the transfer of energy from the signal source to the receiving circuit. These reflections arise when a signal encounters a sudden change in characteristic impedance somewhere along a transmission line. Two simple techniques are used to reduce these reflections: shortening the length of the transmission line or spacing the conducting lines more closely to minimize line bends. The disadvantage of the close spacing is that it greatly enhances the problem of crosstalk.
Crosstalk created by fields of radiation is propagated by electrical current flowing through transmission lines and inducing currents in other nearby conductors. Both electrostatic and electromagnetic fields produce unwanted interference in transmission lines.
Introduction of gallium arsenide monolithic technology into the digital-circuit arena creates instances in which microstrip lines are used for carrying pulses rather than microwave energy. Digital pulses are attenuated in transmission lines by shunt capacitance between traces through the dielectric, series resistance of the conductor, and dielectric losses. The resistive losses are aggravated by the skin effect, but vary only as the square root of the frequency. Conventional shielding, which completely encloses a transmission line within a grounded conductor, can reduce a large share of this type of distortion caused by electrical radiation; but extremely high signal frequencies tend to defeat such protective measures. One way to minimize crosstalk is to separate transmission lines by relatively large distances. However, design constraints and countervailing sources of distortion, which would be proportionally increased by larger line separations, militate against using this tactic to reduce the source of noise. Another simple means of reducing crosstalk is to form a helical arrangement of pathways by using two common insulated wires, which are twisted tightly together. Although the added path length brought about by the winding of the conductors adds time delays and other forms of distortion, radiation from each wire in such twisted pair substantially cancels that emitted by the other, and thus cuts down on crosstalk. Twisted-pair transmission lines are not used in subnanosecond applications.
A fixture, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,672,312 (see also FIG. 1 of the drawings herein), solved the problem for testing of high-speed devices. A fixture, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,155, was tested on a network analyzer with favorable results to 14 GHz.
Experimental test boards of the type disclosed in above-referenced U.S. Pat. No. 4,672,312 were fabricated and tested, and the test results thereof are discussed in the publication by Henry Takamine and Allan Lange, the inventors herein, entitled "Pitfalls in Fabricating Microstrip Test Boards for High-Speed GaAs ICs," Journal of Monolithic Technologies, July 1988, pages 22-27. Analysis determined that a major contributor to high discontinuities in the transmission of the signal and excessive voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) occurred at the transitions from the coaxial connectors to the microstrips, and from other electromechanical connections in the test jig, as will become better understood from the following description.
Specifically, as shown in FIG. 1, a gigahertz test jig 10 is girded by a ground wall 12 having insulated openings 14 therein. Coaxial RF connectors 16 having inner conductors or probes 18 and coaxially surrounding shells 20 are secured to ground wall 12, with the shells being in electrical contact therewith. Insulation 22 in openings 14 electrically isolates inner conductors 18 from wall 12. Dielectric layers 24, having signal carrying traces or microstrips 26a and 26b and a ground plane layer 28 thereon, are secured to ground wall 12 by ground rings 30. A conductor 32 extends through dielectric layers 24 and electrically couples ground plane 28 to ground rings 30 and, therefore, to ground wall 12. Another conductor 34, which passes through an insulative sleeve 36 in ground plane layer 28, electrically couples microstrips 26a and 26b together. Both microstrips 26a and 26b are mechanically and electrically coupled to inner conductors 18 of external jig connectors 16 by solder joints 38.
In part, the placement of inner conductor 18 and microstrips 26a and 26b was enforced by a requirement accepted in the industry that microstrip bends be kept to less than a 60.degree. bend to avoid excessive insertion losses and reactive impedances from appearing in the transmission lines, which would otherwise cause large changes in the characteristic impedance. Such changes in the characteristic impedance caused large signal reflections and a resultant excessive signal degradation. While 90.degree. bends are known, they were obtainable only for use up to only UHF frequencies where degradation in signal transmission is not a problem.
The connections between microstrips 26a and 26b and conductors 18 and between ground plane 28 and ground wall 12 produced insertion losses, where the electric signals did not follow the desired paths to as great an extent as would be desired. Solder joints 38 did not provide the best mechanical interface connections respectively between microstrips 26a and 26b. Therefore, inner conductors 18 of connectors 16 not only are indirectly coupled to microstrips 26a and 26b but also are exposed to potentially disturbing external signals. Further, because connector 16 is coupled through ground wall 12 to ground plane 28 by an intermediate conductor 32 and the connection between ground plane 28 and wall 12 is a clamp, rather than by a bond, such as by solder, there is a concern that, under some conditions, the electrical connection might become subject to uncoupling or loosening through variations in temperature, vibrations, corrosion, etc.
However well the assembly functions, future market needs make it desirable that its cost of fabrication be reduced to make it more competitive, that its size be reduced, and that its bandwidth be augmented to enable it to operate in excess of 14 GHz and in the x-band frequencies.

Micro-connector to microstrip controlled impedance interconnection assembly


A fluid valve includes a valve member located between a first cavity and a second cavity, and an actuator that includes a pilot. The valve member is moved by the balance between the pressure prevailing in the first cavity and the pressure prevailing in the second cavity. The valve member includes a longitudinal hole that can be blocked by the pilot so as to modify the pressure prevailing in the first cavity and the force acting on the valve member so as to vary a fluid flow rate between an inlet and two outlets. The valve member is attached to a piston, one end of which is located in a third cavity. The force acting on the valve member is determined by the pressures prevailing in the various cavities.

The present disclosure relates to a fluid valve, for example a three-way valve.
Prior art document GB 2343935 describes a fluid valve comprising a valve member and an actuator. Movement of the actuator causes the valve member to move so as to control a flow of fluid through the fluid valve. The valve member is attached to a spring. When the spring moves out of its position of equilibrium as a result of movements of the valve member, a return force urges said spring back into its position of equilibrium, the valve member being moved therewith.
One problem with the fluid valve described in GB 2343935 is that the return force acting on the valve member increases as the spring moves further away from its position of equilibrium. Therefore, said return force increases as the valve member moves. The return force varying in this manner according to the position of the valve member is detrimental to the control that the actuator has on the position of the valve member, in particular when the valve member is moved to a high degree


Semiconductor devices and methods for forming semiconductor devices are presented. A device formed of a semiconductor material is configured to mount upon a substrate layer surface having a substrate layer wire attach pad. The device includes a top planar surface with an electrically active region, and a bottom planar surface disposed substantially parallel to the top planar surface. A shelf region is disposed between the top planar surface and the bottom planar surface, and a device wire attach pad in electrical communication with the active region is located on the shelf region.

The electrical connections between portions of semiconductor devices may be provided by wires attached to wire bond pads. For example, wire bonding may be used for making interconnections between an integrated circuit (IC) or another semiconductor device and its packaging during semiconductor device fabrication. Wire bonding may also be used to connect an IC to other electronics or to connect from one printed circuit board (PCB) to another. Wire bonding is generally considered to be a very cost-effective and flexible interconnect technology, and is used to assemble a majority of semiconductor packages.
Bond wires may be formed of one or more of several materials, for example, aluminum, copper, and gold. Bond wire diameters may be relatively small, for example, on the order of 15 μm, and may increase to several hundred micrometers, for example, for high-powered applications. Several techniques may be used to attach the bond wires to the bond pads, for example, ball bonding, wedge bonding, and compliant bonding. Ball bonding is generally reserved to gold and copper wire and usually requires heat. Wedge bonding can use either gold or aluminum wire, with only the gold wire requiring heat. In general, the wire is attached at both ends using some combination of heat, pressure, and/or ultrasonic energy to make a weld.
Wire bond pads currently use planar technology, resulting in the wire bond extending above the top layer of the semiconductor die being wire bonded. As shown by FIG. 1, wire bonding may be used to electrically connect electrical components on different layers of a multi-layer package 100. For example, a first wire bond pad 135 provides an electrical attachment surface for a photo sensor 150 on a first die layer 110 of the multi-layer package 100. A second wire bond pad 195 provides an electrical attachment surface for a second die layer or substrate layer 190 of the multi-layer package 100. The first wire bond pad 135 and the second wire bond pad 195 are electrically connected by a bond wire 170. The bonding of the bond wire 170 to the first bond pad 135 generally results in portions of the bond wire "loop" 190 extending significantly above the surface of the first bond pad 135, and likewise, above the top surface of the first die layer 110. This protrusion of the wire loop may impede full areal access over the wafer or die 110 by optics such as lenses, filters, encapsulation epoxies and compounds, scintillator crystals, and the like.
In some light detection applications, two or more silicon light-detection chips are placed side-by-side to form an array of light detectors. Examples of such light detecting arrays include medical imaging devices and astronomical telescope detectors. The light detecting array may include a matrix of chips, for example, a three-by-three array, or four-by four array. It may be desirable to pack the chips of this array is as closely as possible to maximize the light-detection active area relative to the mechanical dimensions of the array.
Photo detector chips generally have a chip outline or perimeter and an active detection area within the chip outline. Generally, a first electrical output connection connects to a chip die on the underside of the chip and a second electrical connection connects the chip to a specific contact area of a pad on the top side of the chip. The chips that form an array may be individually packaged and selected after testing, for example, based on certain performance specifications. The individual package includes a semiconductor chip bonded onto a substrate layer. This substrate can be a sub-mount for each chip that mounts to a second plate or tile for the array. Alternatively, the chip may mount directly to the substrate which is a single tile directly holding all of the chips in the array. In each of these examples, the chip is attached to its respective substrate using an electrically conductive bonding medium such as a backside contact, and a gold wire or similar bonding the chip top contact to another electrical contact area on the substrate. The substrate provides electrical tracking and contacts to an external device, so that each of the chips in the array can eventually be connected to suitable electronic systems nearby the detector array tile, such as amplifiers, bias voltage and voltage supplies, among others. The chip may then be over molded, for example, using an appropriate optically transparent epoxy compound, either individually on its sub-mount, or collectively with all the other chips on the tile, or both, once the surmounts are placed on their tile plate.
Typical chip layouts of this type may include an active area, an edge area and the area reserved for top-side contact pad. The top-side contact pad is typically 100 um in dimension, round, rectangular or square, with a thin bond wire ultrasonically welded to this pad. The other end of the wire may be bonded to the sub-mount or substrate adjacent to the pad. With this arrangement a relatively wide area of the surface must be allocated on the chip itself to fit this pad area next to the active area, and a corresponding wide area on the substrate for the wire. However, such an arrangement leaves a relatively high percentage of the chip array face area reserved for optically active area and for corresponding light radiation detection.
One solution for maximizing the active area to substrate surface area ratio is called a "Through-silicon via" or TSV, where the top-side contact is made by metallization tracks deposited on the silicon to the top end of a via-type metal or conductive contact "rod" synthesized within the silicon chip from top to bottom (the TSV). The contact to the substrate is then made through the bottom end of the via, possibly with metal contacts, for example, bump contacts, on the chip underside. The via may be placed under or next to the active area of the chip and thereby takes up little or no active area surface space, and yet allows the contact to top and bottom to occur more or less within the active area of the chip. Unfortunately, the TSV and bump contacts involve a complex and costly set of processes for silicon chip makers to perform and the processing of the silicon to form the vias and so forth can be detrimental to the operation of the photo-detector on the chip in any case.
Therefore, there is need in the industry to address at least some of the abovementioned shortcomings.

Reduced thickness and reduced footprint semiconductor packaging


A method of forming a barrier layer of a tunneling magnetoresistive (TMR) device by forming first and second MgO barrier layers by different sputtering methods, but in the same sputtering system module. A first magnesium-oxide (MgO) barrier layer is formed over one of the TMR device's ferromagnetic layers by a DC magnetron sputter deposition from an Mg target in an oxygen environment. In the same module, a second MgO barrier layer is formed over the first MgO film by an RF sputter deposition from an MgO target and in an environment free of oxygen. Prior to the formation of the first MgO barrier layer, an optional Mg protection layer can be deposited on the ferromagnetic layer and oxidized by a first optional oxygen treatment. After deposition of the first MgO barrier layer, a second optional oxygen treatment may be conducted. After deposition of the second MgO barrier layer, a second Mg protection layer may be deposited by DC sputter deposition, followed by an optional third oxygen treatment.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to tunneling magnetoresistive (TMR) devices, and more particularly to a method for forming a barrier layer consisting essentially of a magnesium oxide (MgO).
2. Description of the Related Art
A tunneling magnetoresistive (TMR) device, also called a magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) device, is comprised of two ferromagnetic layers separated by a thin insulating tunneling barrier layer. The barrier layer is typically made of a metallic oxide, such as alumina (Al2O3) or MgO, that is so sufficiently thin that quantum-mechanical tunneling of charge carriers occurs between the two ferromagnetic layers. This quantum-mechanical tunneling process is electron spin dependent, which means that an electrical resistance measured when applying a sense current across the junction depends on the spin-dependent electronic properties of the ferromagnetic and barrier layers, and is a function of the relative orientation of the magnetizations of the two ferromagnetic layers. The magnetization of the first ferromagnetic layer is designed to be pinned, while the magnetization of the second ferromagnetic layer is designed to be free to rotate in response to external magnetic fields. The relative orientation of their magnetizations varies with the external magnetic field, thus resulting in change in the electrical resistance. The TMR device is usable as a memory cell in a nonvolatile magnetic random access memory (MRAM) array, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,343, and as TMR read head in a magnetic recording disk drive, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,729,410.
FIG. 1 illustrates a cross-sectional view of a conventional TMR device 10. The TMR device 10 includes a bottom "fixed" or "pinned" ferromagnetic (FM) layer 18, an insulating tunneling barrier layer 20, and a top "free" FM layer 32. The TMR device 10 has bottom and top nonmagnetic electrodes or leads 12, 14, respectively, with the bottom nonmagnetic electrode 12 being formed on a suitable substrate. The FM layer 18 is called the "pinned" layer because its magnetization is prevented from rotation in the presence of an applied magnetic field in the desired range of interest for the TMR device, i.e., the magnetic field caused by the write current applied to the memory cell from the read/write circuitry of the MRAM, or the magnetic field from a recorded magnetic layer in a magnetic recording disk. The magnetization of the pinned FM layer 18 can be fixed or pinned by being formed of a high-coercivity film or by being exchange-coupled to an antiferromagnetic "pinning" layer. The pinned FM layer 18 may be replaced by a flux-closure structure, where two ferromagnetic layers are separated by an antiparallel spacer layer and thus antiparallel-coupled to form a flux closure, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,185. The magnetization of the free FM layer 32 is free to rotate in the presence of the applied magnetic field in the range of interest. In the absence of the applied magnetic field, the magnetizations of the FM layers 18 and 32 are aligned generally parallel in a TMR memory cell and generally perpendicular in a TMR read head. The relative orientation of the magnetizations of the FM layers 18, 32 determines the electrical resistance of the TMR device.
An important read-performance parameter of the TMR device is a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The magnitude of the signal depends on a TMR coefficient (ΔR/R) exhibited by the TMR device, where ΔR or (RMAX−RMIN) is the difference between the resistance measured when the magnetizations of the two ferromagnetic layers are antiparallel (RMAX) and the resistance measured when the magnetizations of the two ferromagnetic layers are parallel (RMIN), and R is RMIN. The magnitude of the noise depends on, in large part, the resistance of the TMR device. Thus to obtain the maximum SNR for a constant power used to sense the TMR device, the resistance of the TMR device must be small and the change in resistance (ΔR) of the TMR device large. The resistance of the TMR device is largely determined by the contact resistances at lower metallic/oxide and upper oxide/metallic interfaces (RC and RC′, respectively) and the resistivity (ρ) of the insulating tunneling barrier layer, which are much larger than the contact resistances at all other metallic/metallic interfaces and the resistivities of all other metallic films, respectively. Moreover, because the sense current flows perpendicularly through all the interfaces, the resistance of the TMR device of a given dimension increases proportionally with the thickness of the barrier layer (δ) and inversely with the area of the barrier layer (A). It is convenient to characterize the resistance of the TMR device by the product of the resistance R times the area A (RA), as a figure of merit to correlate with the amplitude of the noise. As described previously, this RA can be estimated as the sum of RCA, RC′A and ρδ. As the TMR device is further miniaturized to achieve higher densities in memory cells or in recording media, it becomes more stringent to maintain a high SNR. Thus, it is desirable to develop a TMR device with an improved tunneling barrier layer which exhibits a higher ΔR/R and a lower RA.
TMR devices with MgO barrier layers and various processes for forming MgO barrier layers are well known. U.S. Pat. No. 6,841,395 B2 describes a three-step process for making an MgO barrier layer by depositing an Mg film in an argon gas in a DC magnetron sputtering module, depositing an oxygen-doped Mg film in mixed xenon and oxygen gases in an ion-beam sputtering module, and oxidizing these films in an oxygen gas in an oxygen treatment module. US 2007/0111332 A1 describes a process for making a barrier layer comprising Mg/MgO/Mg films wherein the lower and upper Mg films are deposited by a DC sputtering method and the intermediate MgO film is formed by natural oxidation of an Mg film. Tsunekawa et al. "Giant tunneling magnetoresistive effect in low resistance CoFeB/MgO(001)/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions for read-head applications", Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 072503 (2005) describe a TMR device with an MgO barrier layer comprising Mg/MgO films wherein the Mg film as thin as 0.1 nm is deposited by a DC sputtering method and the MgO film is RF sputter deposited from an MgO target. Although this prior-art process for forming the barrier layer comprising the Mg/MgO films results in a TMR device that exhibits reasonably high ΔR/R and reasonably low RA, the antiferromagnetic pinning and ferromagnetic free layers used in this prior-art process are not suitable for the TMR device to function properly.
What is needed is a method for forming an MgO barrier layer that results in a TMR device exhibiting even higher ΔR/R and even lower RA while maintaining good antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic properties for the TMR device to function properly.

Method for forming an MgO barrier layer in a tunneling magnetoresistive (TMR) device

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V.


In order to identify an optical cable for optical communication from a remote place, a Sagnac interferometer including two strands of an optical fiber is formed in the optical cable, and a worker in the remote place applies a disturbance of a popping sound to an optical cable to be identified. The disturbance applied by the worker is detected and regenerated in the form of a sound. The optical cable can be easily identified by comparing the regenerated signal and the disturbed signal in the remote place to thereby prevent an incorrect optical cable from being cut. In addition, the optical cable can be more precisely identified by selecting a different light detecting frequency component in accordance with environment conditions.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical cable identification apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for identifying an optical cable in a remote place, and an apparatus using the same. Herein, the remote place refers to a place (e.g., a manhole) remote from a central office where communication equipment is located.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In general, a phone line or other communication line is connected between one central office to another central office, and a plurality of manholes are provided between the central offices for convenience of maintenance, repair, and replacement of the line.
Substantially, when a plurality of optical cables are installed in a manhole, the optical cables need to be branched or relocated often. In this case, there is a possibility of cutting a cable path in a communication state when a wrong cable is selected. Therefore, it is very important to identity the correct optical cable to be cut before starting a cutting process.
Conventionally, a cable is identified by physically pulling a cable from a neighboring manhole or by using electromagnetic induction. However, there is a problem in application of the electromagnetic induction to identify an optical cable. A metal line must be included in the cable for inducing electricity, but most cables today do not have a metal line, and metal lines may be disconnected from each other through a manhole.
In addition, according to another conventional method, light beams are entered into an end of an optical fiber and the optical fiber is bent in the middle. Then light is output from the other end of the optical fiber such that the optical fiber can be identified. However, this method also has a problem in directly accessing an optical fiber surrounded by a cable.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Apparatus and method for identification of optical cable


Systems and methods are described for disambiguating terms, a challenging problem in computational linguistics. An ambiguous term may be regular words or phrases, or preferably abbreviations or acronyms. A potentially ambiguous term may be identified from an information source, and has two or more potential meanings. For each potential meaning, context and frequency of the potential meaning are determined. Context may include section headings, nearby concepts, or all relevant concepts within the information source. Frequency may reflect frequency of the candidate concepts within literature, medical literature, patient records, or another information source. Context, frequency, or both for each potential meaning can support a computer technology algorithm to select one potential meaning over others.

In computational linguistics, word sense disambiguation concerns identifying which sense of a word is used in a sentence. The human brain is quite proficient at word sense disambiguation. In computer science, it has been a long-term challenge to develop the ability in computers to disambiguate.
A related but more challenging problem in computational linguistics is abbreviation sense disambiguation, or simply abbreviation disambiguation. Abbreviation disambiguation is the logic that determines which of an abbreviation senses is the most relevant for a given instance of an abbreviation.
Many abbreviations and acronyms are ambiguous with respect to their sense, and constitute a significant part of the general problem of text normalization. In particular, clinical narrative notes are rich in abbreviations and acronyms. This allows for faster data entry, but makes language ambiguous. It has been shown that over one third of UMLS (Unified Medical Language System) Metathesaurus abbreviations have multiple meanings. Moreover, the same abbreviation can have different meanings in different healthcare institutions, in different medical specialties, between different healthcare practitioners, and even in the same clinical note.
For example, "mg" may mean milligrams or myasthenia gravis. In the "Labs" section of a clinical note, in the sentence "105 mg while fasting" mg may mean milligrams. In the "History of Present Illness" section, however, "the PT suffered mild mg," is more likely to reference myasthenia gravis. Here, a simple but only partial solution is to treat mg following a number, such as in "100 mg" as milligrams.
In another example, "CP" may be either chest pain or cerebral palsy. Since both chest pain and cerebral palsy relate to medical conditions and can be used in similar contexts, there may be no simple way to determine whether, in a particular instance, CP means chest pain or cerebral palsy. An extreme example is "RA" which may have up to 17 different meanings, such as "rheumatoid arthritis," "renal artery," "right atrium," "right atrial," "refractory anemia," "radioactive," "right arm," "rheumatic arthritis," "ragweed antigen," "refractory ascites," and "renin activity".
As noted, such challenges are not unique to the healthcare field. For instance, "ad" can mean advertisement, Anno Domini, or advantage. "SAT" may mean the standardized college admissions test or Saturday, both of which are frequently used.
Many techniques have been proposed, from dictionary-based methods that use the knowledge encoded in lexical resources, to supervised machine learning methods in which a classifier is trained for each distinct abbreviation or acronym on manually curated examples, to completely unsupervised methods that cluster occurrences of abbreviations or acronyms. Each of these techniques, however, has major flaws or performance issues.

System and method for term disambiguation


In one embodiment, a biopsy needle that is particularly suited for shearing and collecting soft tissue specimens is provided and is formed of an inner tube with a snare at a distal end thereof, an outer cannula, a stylet and a handle assembly. The handle assembly includes a spring loaded mechanism that permits the user to selectively actuate the biopsy needle so that the outer cannula and the inner tube are rapidly advanced beyond the stylet to provide a shearing action of the soft tissue specimen.

For various medical reasons, such as diagnostic tests or the like, it is often necessary for a physician to obtain a sample of a patient's body. Often, it is required to take a sample from a non-bony organ or tissue, or soft tissue rather than from a more rigid structure, such as a bone or bone marrow specimen. Soft tissue specimens by definition generally contain a less rigid structure and are compared with bone or bone marrow structures which are recovered with significant portions of their internal bony structure intact.
One exemplary surgical instrument for the severing and/or retrieval of tissue is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,522,398; 5843,001; and 6,015,391, of which the present applicant is also inventor. While these instruments are particularly suited for severing and collecting a more rigid tissue specimen, such as a bone marrow specimen, the instruments are not as effective at severing and/or retaining soft tissue samples. Also, the recovery of a soft tissue specimen by pushing it back through the handle from the tip of the needle may not be as the applicable for these specimens as it is for bone marrow specimens with preserved internal structure. An attempt to push the specimen through the needle could result in disruption of a specimen because a soft tissue specimens has less structure. Moreover in a long needle, such as an endoscopic SNARECOIL (trademark) needle, the length of the needle would be prohibitive in attempting to recover a specimen by pushing it out of the proximal end of the needle.
Other conventional procedures and instruments used for obtaining the samples, while not overly complex, almost universally result in excessive patient discomfort and often overly extends the patient's and operator's time and money.


A power management system for computers compresses contents of system RAM and stores the contents on a non-volatile storage device before power is suspended to a motherboard, which removes power also from RAM. By compression, the capacity required of the non-volatile storage device is minimized. In a variation, zeros are stored in all RAM area used by memory management software before compression and storage on the non-volatile device. In another variation, areas of RAM used by memory management software are identified, and only those areas not used by memory management software are stored on the non-volatile device. The capability is provided in several ways in different embodiments.

Power management for computer systems has become a significant issue as the number and size of computer systems continues to increase dramatically. Virtually all computer manufacturers are now offering options for power management, wherein power is removed from selected subsystems for idle computers.
Typically, power-saving computers employ as many as four levels, or modes, of power consumption. A first mode, often called peak mode, provides for the power on surge, which, for a typical desktop computer, may be in the area of 90 to 100 watts. A second mode, which may be considered normal mode, provides for full, routine operation, including full expansion capabilities, and may be, for example, in the area of 50 watts.
Most power-managed computers have a suspend mode, triggered by a period of inactivity, wherein power to peripherals and ancillary equipment is suspended, but power remains for the system CPU and RAM. This suspend mode typically consumes about 10-15 watts. Power up from suspend is relatively quick, because RAM is retained in the condition last accessed, and no time must be consumed in restoring RAM.
The most severe power-down mode in most power management schemes is often called Zero-Volt Suspend (ZVS) in the art. In this mode, power is removed from all system components except a controller, such as the keyboard controller, which is capable of sensing resumption of system activity. Use of the keyboard controller for this purpose is convenient, and other controllers might be used. In ZVS, the computer sleeps with one eye open, to power back up again whenever a user provides input, such as movement of a pointer device or a keystroke at the keyboard. Generically, the controller that is utilized to monitor for resumption of user activity while in ZVS may be called the ZVS controller.
In ZVS mode, as described above, power is removed from RAM. Still, it is highly desirable that the computer start exactly where it left off when power is restored to all operating systems. It is necessary then, that the contents of RAM be saved on a non-volatile device before power is removed from RAM. Then, in power up mode, the designated non-volatile device can be accessed to restore all of the previous contents of RAM, so activity may be resumed exactly where suspended. Commercially available power management systems operate in just this manner to allow resumption of activities where suspended.
It is quite common in modern computers to have quite large on-board RAM. Sixteen megabytes or more is not at all uncommon, and such relatively large RAM configurations are necessary for operating with some operating systems and window-type management programs, for example. In normal operation, with window-type management systems, having, perhaps, more than one application running, nearly all of a large RAM configuration may be in use.
It is also quite common in modern computer systems to have relatively large non-volatile storage available to the system. Where a twenty megabyte hard disk drive was once thought adequate, several hundred megabytes is now common.
There are at least two potential problems with ZVS in power management systems and modem computers. One is that transfer of large amounts of data from RAM to a designated non-volatile device, such as a disk drive, and subsequent restoration of the same data from the non-volatile device to RAM before resumption of operations can be time-consuming.
Another potential problem is that, even though the designated non-volatile device for saving RAM may be several times larger than the RAM configuration, there is no guarantee that there will be sufficient unused space on the device to store all of the data in RAM before initiation of a ZVS state. And, if there is insufficient space, some data may be lost, or the power-saving operations may have to be aborted.
What is clearly needed is a power management system configured to minimize the amount of information that may need to be stored to accomplish VZS, and also configured to compress the data in RAM before transfer to the designated non-volatile device, so a minimum amount of non-volatile storage space is needed.

Management of data before zero volt suspend in computer power management


A U-turn signal for vehicles, which includes a plurality of lights forming an inverted "U", a flashing arrangement for sequentially flashing the lights to indicate the intended direction of the U-turn, and an actuating arrangement for actuating the flashing arrangement, and wherein the U-turn signal is positioned rearwardly facing from the vehicle.

It is well known to drivers of motor vehicles that making a U-turn in heavy traffic often poses risks for accidents, because drivers of other vehicles other than that of the driver making a U-turn, do not know in advance if the person making the turn intends to make just a left hand turn or intends to make a complete U-turn.
Various inventors have proposed solutions to this problem U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,361 shows a U-turn vehicle light which mounts on a vehicle hood and can be raised to a visible position above the hood in response to a switch operated by the driver, to indicate his intention to make a complete U-turn.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,751,522 shows a signal light system for motor vehicles that enables a driver of the vehicle of his intended moves.
None of the known signaling systems however, have provided a simple, inexpensive and easy to use signaling system for clearly signaling to vehicles coming from behind, of a driver's intention to make a U-turn.
It is accordingly the main object of the instant invention to provide a signaling system that is very simple in construction and easy to use and which provides for drivers of other vehicles coming from behind a clear signal indicating an intended U-turn.


Techniques for selecting and utilizing one or more novel symbol structures, control signaling, and scheduling for wireless signal transmission/reception are presented. An example method is presented that includes determining (302), based on control information corresponding to a slot, that a user equipment (UE) (102A) or another UE (102B) in communication with a network node (106) is to transmit acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback in the slot for a downlink signal received by the UE (102A) or the other UE (102B) in the slot. In addition, the example method includes transmitting (304) an intermediate uplink signal to the network node (106) and/or receiving an intermediate downlink signal from the network node (106) after the downlink signal is fully received and before transmission of the ACK or NACK feedback begins. Example apparatuses, such as UEs and network nodes, and computer programs/code are also presented.

In current wireless communication systems, after processing a signal received from a network node (e.g., base station, NodeB, eNB, etc.), a user equipment (UE) may generate and transmit an acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) to the network node as feedback indicating whether the received signal has been successfully received. In some of these systems, the UE may generate and transmit the ACK/NACK ("AN" or "A/N") signal within the same slot during which the downlink signal was received. For this same-slot ACK/NACK signal transmission to occur, the processing time required for the UE to generate the ACK/NACK signal typically must be less than the time that remains in the slot (minus residual time, e.g., time required for actual uplink ACK/NACK transmission) following the symbol during which the downlink signal was transmitted by the network node and received by the UE.
As this processing time is typically longer than an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) symbol in a slot (e.g., containing seven OFDM symbols), a conservative gap of multiple OFDM symbols in the uplink/downlink frame structure is created in some implementations to allow the UEs in communication with a network node temporary on-demand access to the medium (e.g., one or more carriers utilized for UE-network node communication over a certain time period) for transmitting the ACK/NACK signal after its requisite processing is completed. In instances where the ACK/NACK signal processing time is relatively long (e.g., greater than two OFDM symbols), a substantial system performance opportunity cost may arise as a result of the medium being effectively unused as UEs and network nodes of the system await ACK/NACK processing resolution.
Thus, improved uplink control frame structures and related techniques for uplink control signal transmission are needed to optimize performance and resource utilization relative to those of existing systems.


A magnetic transfer apparatus writing a servo signal by magnetically transferring to a magnetic recording medium, and an optical type inspection apparatus for optically inspecting scratch or foreign matter on the magnetic recording medium wherein a characteristic grease is used for these apparatuses are disclosed. Grease used in the magnetic transfer apparatus or the optical type inspection apparatus generates sulfur type gas in amount less than or equal to 0.5 ppb.

The present invention relates generally to a magnetic transfer apparatus for writing a servo signal to a magnetic recording medium by a magnetic transfer technology, and an optical inspection apparatus for inspecting a condition of a surface of the magnetic recording medium, which are particularly featured in greasing agent used in these apparatus. More particularly, the invention relates to a magnetic transfer apparatus, which is featured by a greasing agent used in the apparatus, for writing a positioning servo signal for a data writing/reading head written on a surface of a magnetic recording medium to a magnetic recording medium by a magnetic transfer technology in a hard disk drive employing a magnetic film as a storage material as a currently major trend as external storage device of computers, and an optical inspection apparatus, which is featured by a greasing agent used in the apparatus, for inspecting scratch on the surface of a magnetic recording medium and contaminating condition of before and after magnetic transfer. Also, the present invention relates to a magnetic recording medium to be produced by the magnetic transfer apparatus.
In a hard disk drive used as an external storage device of a personal computer, a magnetic head is floated above a surface of a rotating magnetic recording medium by means of a floating mechanism called as slider with maintaining a distance of several tens nanometer for writing and reading data. For example, on the magnetic recording medium, data tracks are arranged concentrically. A magnetic head of a magnetic disk for writing and reading data is moved to a target side on the data track at high speed and is positioned to write bit information on the data track or to read out the already written bit information for writing and reading data.
On the other hand, on the magnetic recording medium, a positioning signal (servo signal) for detecting a relative position between the magnetic head and the data track is written in concentric fashion. The magnetic head performing writing and reading data detects own position at a given interval. For avoiding offset of the center of the servo signal from the center of the magnetic recording medium (or the center of a trace of the magnetic head), the servo signal is written on the medium using a dedicated apparatus called as servo writer after assembling the medium in the hard disk drive. Writing by the servo writer is performed by writing the servo signal to the magnetic recording medium using a servo signal writing head, for example.
On the other hand, the hard disk drive on development reaches a recording density of 20 Gbits/in2. The recording density is increasing at a speed of 60% or more per year. Associating with this, the density of the servo signal for enabling the magnetic head to detect own position is increased to inherently increase writing period by means of the servo writer. Increasing of the writing period by the servo writer should lower productivity of the hard disk drive to cause increasing of the cost.
In order to avoid increasing of the writing period of the servo signal, it has been recently proposed a transfer system for writing the servo signal in a lump by a magnetic transfer apparatus. Development of technology has been performed (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-40544, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-25455). Writing of the servo signal by magnetic transfer, problem may be caused in transfer when scratch or contamination is present on the surface of the magnetic recording medium. Therefore, the magnetic recording medium has to be inspected by an optical type inspection apparatus.
In the magnetic transfer apparatus and the optical inspection apparatus, for transporting the magnetic recording medium or performing magnetic transfer and inspection for the magnetic recording medium, various movable portions are present. To the movable portion, a lubricant such as grease is applied. The grease can generate a gas due to friction upon operation of the movable portion or rising of temperature of the overall apparatus. Such gas may deposit on the surface of the magnetic recording medium to adversely affect for magnetic transfer or inspection.
The present invention has been worked out in view of the problem set forth above. An object of the present invention is to provide a selection method of a grease to be used in a movable portion of the magnetic transfer apparatus or the optical type inspection apparatus, and whereby to provide a magnetic transfer apparatus and an optical type inspection apparatus using such grease.
The first aspect of the present invention relates to a magnetic transfer apparatus for magnetically transferring a servo signal to a magnetic recording medium. The apparatus comprises:
a transfer stage for performing magnetic transfer;
an index portion performing positioning of a magnetic recording medium and supplying said magnetic recording medium to the transfer stage for a magnetic transfer operation;
a transporting portion for transporting the magnetic recording medium to the index portion;
wherein the magnetic transfer apparatus has a plurality of movable portions using a grease; and
wherein total amounts of a sulfur type gas generated from the plurality of the movable potions may be less than or equal to 0.5 ppb.
In the magnetic transfer apparatus of the present invention, total amount of the sulfur type gas generated may be preferably less than or equal to 0.35 ppb.
The second aspect of the present invention relates to an optical type inspection apparatus for optically inspecting scratch or foreign matter on a magnetic recording medium. The optical type inspection apparatus comprises:
an optical system for irradiating a light on the magnetic recording medium to inspect a surface of the magnetic recording medium;
an automatic focusing shaft for focusing the optical system;
a transporting portion for transporting the magnetic recording medium to the optical system;
wherein the optical type inspection apparatus has a plurality of movable portions using grease; and
wherein total amounts of a sulfur type gas generated from the plurality of the movable potions may be less than or equal to 0.5 ppb.
In the optical type inspection apparatus of the present invention, the total amount of sulfur type gas generated may be less than or equal to 0.35 ppb.
The third aspect of the present invention relates to a magnetic recording medium transferred a servo signal by the magnetic transfer apparatus described in the first aspect of the present invention, comprising at least a magnetic layer, a protective layer and a liquid lubricant layer on a substrate.
The fourth aspect of the present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a magnetic recording medium written a servo signal on a magnetic recording medium being performed by a magnetic transfer apparatus having a plurality of movable portions using a grease which may generate sulfur type gas in amount less than or equal to 0.5 ppb. The method comprises the steps of:
transporting the magnetic recording medium to an index portion for performing magnetic transfer operation;
performing magnetic transfer on a transfer stage for the magnetic recording medium transported to the index portion, thereby to obtain a magnetically transferred magnetic recording medium, and
collecting the magnetically transferred magnetic recording medium.
In the method for manufacturing the magnetic recording medium of the present invention, the magnetic transfer apparatus comprises:
a transfer stage for performing magnetic transfer;
an index portion performing positioning of a magnetic recording medium and supplying the magnetic recording medium to the transfer stage for magnetic transfer operation;
a transporting portion for transporting the magnetic recording medium to the index portion;
a plurality of movable portions using grease which may generate sulfur type gas in amount less than or equal to 0.5 ppb.
The method for manufacturing the magnetic recording medium of the present invention, the amount of the sulfur type gas generated may be less than or equal to 0.35 ppb.
The magnetic transfer apparatus according to the present invention may be the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, for example, but not limited to the particular construction.
The optical type inspection apparatus according to the present invention may be the apparatus shown in FIG. 2, for example, but not limited to the particular construction.
According to the present invention, by limiting concentration of gas which contains sulfur-containing compounds (hereinafter it refers sulfur type gas) generated from grease used in the magnetic transfer apparatus or the optical type inspection apparatus, the magnetic recording medium processed by such apparatus will not be damaged or corrosion even when it is left in high temperature and high humidity environment, and production of magnetic recording medium can be performed efficiently.

Magnetic transfer apparatus and magnetic recording medium

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


Methods are provided for acute treatment of agitation, including agitation in patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, comprising administering to a subject with agitation an effective dose of a dry pharmaceutical composition comprising olanzapine, wherein the dose is administered by an intranasal delivery device that provides, following intranasal administration, (a) a mean peak plasma olanzapine concentration (Cmax) of at least 30 ng/mL, with (b) a mean time to Cmax (Tmax) of olanzapine of less than 0.5 hours. Dry pharmaceutical compositions and devices suitable for intranasal delivery of olanzapine are provided.

Of 130 million US emergency room visits per year, 1.7 million are estimated to involve agitated patients, including patients whose agitation is a manifestation of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
The current standard of care in treating acute and escalating agitation events in schizophrenia or bipolar I mania is to administer 5 mg, 7.5 mg or 10 mg of olanzapine, an atypical antipsychotic, by intramuscular injection (IM). While olanzapine IM is characterized by a rapid onset of action (mean maximum plasma concentration within 15 to 45 minutes), this route of administration is characterized by a number of injection-related acute side-effects, including injection site pain, over sedation, extrapyramidal symptoms, and akathisia (Atkins et al., BMC Psychiatry 14, 7 (2014); Battaglia et al., Am. Emerg. Med. 21:192-198 (2003); Kishi et al., J. Psychiatr. Res. 68:198-209 (2015)). Moreover, the invasive intramuscular injection process can lead to emotional trauma for the patient, whether cooperative or uncooperative, and can lead to physical assault on hospital staff attempting to administer the injection. Furthermore, IM injections are contraindicated in patients who are cooperative (Nordstrom et al., West. J. Emerg. Med. 13(1):3-10 (2012)).
Oral administration of olanzapine, either as a standard tablet or orally disintegrating tablet, is approved for acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes associated with bipolar 1 disorder and lacks many of the disadvantages of intramuscular injection in this patient population; however, there is significant lag before effective blood levels are achieved and agitation reduced.
Pulmonary delivery of the typical antipsychotic loxapine by oral inhalation was approved in 2017 for acute treatment of agitation associated with schizophrenia or bipolar 1 disorder in adults. However, the product label includes a black box warning that administration can cause bronchospasm that has the potential to lead to respiratory distress and respiratory arrest (ADASUVE FDA product label, August 2017), and the product is available only under a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS).
An effective non-invasive treatment of acute agitation could shift treatment earlier in the agitation episode from the emergency room into the "community", with significant benefits, including reduction of emergency department visits and health economic burden. There is, accordingly, a need for an acute treatment of agitation, including agitation related to schizophrenia and bipolar disease, with rapid onset of action and that does not require parenteral injection.

Intranasal delivery of olanzapine by precision olfactory device


Low voltage cable lighting system including a flat cable comprising two bare, ribbon shaped conductors which are plached on each side of and bonded to an insulating interlayer, and a multitude of low voltage bi-pin lamps which are distributed along the cable with each of their contact pins resting against the surface of one of the ribbon conductors, each lamp being secured in place by means of a mounting clamp which contains means for maintaining a stable contact pressure between the contact pins and the ribbon conductors.

The present invention relates to a low voltage lighting system which comprises a multitude of lamps supported by and powered from a flexible, twin conductor cable. The system includes means for suspending the cable and attaching and aiming the lamps individually to provide flood, spot or accent lighting of e.g. paintings on a wall or merchandise on shelves in a store.
Track lighting systems in general comprise a rigid track which is attached to building elements or furniture and supports several lighting fixtures which are fed from live conductors contained within the track structure. The main advantage of track lighting is that, once it is installed, the user can move the fixtures around and aim them without the aid of a licensed electrician and often without the use of tools.
Track lighting using line voltage must have guards to prevent the user from touching the conductors, whereas in low voltage track lighting the track is often open and unprotected because there is no danger of electric shock.
A variety of low voltage track lighting, termed cable lighting, comprises two, parallel conductors in the shape of metal wires or cables which are mounted several inches apart strung out between anchor points in walls or ceilings and at one end connected to a low voltage transformer. In most cable systems the cables support light fixtures via contact organs which rest upon the cables or are attached to them by means of of some kind of clamping device. U.S. Pat. No. 5,158,360 describes such a a cable lighting system wherein the two cables are insulated, and the lighting fixtures provided with insulation piercing contact organs.


A handset is disclosed which comprises a display 3 and a scroll key 9 for scrolling data on the display. The scroll key has two portions which lie on a line oblique to the horizontal. When depressed these portions effect different scrolling actions.

The present invention relates to a handset having a scrolling function. In particular it relates to a handset having a scroll key.
A handset may be a handheld electronic device, such as a mobile phone, pager or other communications device, or a personal organiser.
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings illustrates a mobile phone comprising a scroll key 11. As can be seen the scroll key is positioned in the centre of the phone and has a first element 11a for scrolling in one direction when depressed and a second element 11b, vertically aligned with the first, for scrolling in the opposite direction when depressed.
The position of this key is not ideal for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it is not conducive to the elements being depressed evenly. Depressing of the scroll key 11 at one side could provide an erroneous result, such as no scrolling, or scrolling in the incorrect direction.
Secondly, the key is not readily reached by the user""s digits. Hence, the depressing of the elements 11a, 11b can be uncomfortable for the user. This is particularly true when repetitive depression of one of the elements, or movement between the two elements 11a and 11b is required.
According to the present invention there is provided a handset comprising:
a display for displaying data in a horizontal array; and
key means for scrolling data on the display;
the key means having first and second projections which are mutually offset vertically and horizontally; wherein:
depression of a first portion of the key means actuates the first projection to cause a first scrolling action; and
depression of a second portion of the key means actuates the second projection to cause a second scrolling action.
The first scrolling action may scroll data in a first direction and the second scrolling action may scroll data in the second direction. The first direction may for example be scrolling vertically and the second scrolling action scrolling horizontally. However, preferably, the first and second directions oppose each other. For example, the first scrolling action scrolls upwards and the second scrolling action scrolls downwards. In this event, depression of the second portion of the key means effects counteraction of the frist scrolling action.
The data may be scrolled gradually, or abruptly.
The scrolling of data gradually generally results in the shifting of data across the screen being visible. For example, a line of text might shift by one row or column on the display. In this event the user might see the leading character of the text disappear from the screen and a new lagging character appear.
When the data is scrolled abruptly, it generally totally replaces the data on the display. For example, text on the display might shift more positions vertically than the number of lines on the display or more positions horizontally than the number of columns of the display.
The data may, for example, be text on the display, a cursor or a visual image. The cursor may be a highlighter, or a line such as an underscore or a vertical line. The cursor may flash to indicate its presence.
The key means may be a single key, or two separate keys. Also, it may be located on different positions on the handset. However, preferably it is adjacent the right hand portion of the display and is inclined so that the slope rises towards the right hand portion of the display.
The key means may provide a variety of functions. For example, it may be used to adjust the volume of ringing tone of a phone or the level of vibration of a battery of a mobile phone or pager.

Handset with oblique key for actuation by a user""s pivoting thumb movement


A high-silicon steel sheet is excellent in terms of punching workability and magnetic property. The high-silicon steel sheet has a chemical composition containing, by mass %, C: 0.02% or less, P: 0.02% or less, Si: 4.5% or more and 7.0% or less, Mn: 0.01% or more and 1.0% or less, Al: 1.0% or less, O: 0.01% or less, N: 0.01% or less, and the balance being Fe and inevitable impurities, a grain-boundary oxygen concentration (oxygen concentration with respect to chemical elements segregated at grain boundaries) of 30 at % or less, and a microstructure in which a degree of integration P(211) of a {211}-plane of α-Fe on a surface of the steel sheet is 15% or moreP(211)=p(211)/S×100(%), whereinS=p(110)/100+p(200)/14.93+p(211)/25.88+p(310)/7.68+p(222)/1.59+p(321)/6.27+p(411)/1.55, and                p(hkl): integrated intensity of a peak of X-ray diffraction of an {hkl}-plane.

A silicon steel sheet having excellent magnetic properties is widely used as a material for, for example, iron cores of transformers and motors. In addition, from the viewpoint of magnetic property (iron loss), it is preferable that a high-silicon steel sheet be used because the iron loss of a silicon steel sheet decreases with an increase in Si content.
Since the toughness of steel decreases with an increase in Si content, it is difficult to manufacture a thin steel sheet by using a commonly used rolling method. However, since a method of manufacturing a high-silicon steel sheet having a silicon content of about 6.5 mass % by using a gas-phase siliconizing method has been developed, mass production of a high-silicon steel sheet is possible on an industrial scale nowadays.
When a high-silicon steel sheet is used as parts of, for example, transformers and motors, it is necessary to perform punching work. However, since cracking tends to occur due to the brittleness of a high-silicon steel sheet, when punching work is performed, it is necessary to perform punching work in a warm temperature range, as stated in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-263827, or under a strictly controlled processing condition regarding, for example, mold clearance.
However, to perform warm working, it is necessary to use a pressing machine having a heating device, and an expensive high-precision mold is indispensable because it is necessary to design a mold in consideration of thermal expansion.
In addition, although it is possible to perform punching work at room temperature if clearance is controlled to be much smaller than that in an ordinary electrical steel sheet, there is a problem in that, for example, chipping tends to occur due to severe wear damage on the mold in this case. In addition, since clearance increases with an increase in the number of punching operations, there is a problem of an increase in the frequency of changing a mold.
It could therefore be helpful to provide a high-silicon steel sheet excellent in terms of punching workability and magnetic property.

High-silicon steel sheet and method of manufacturing the same


A dust collecting system includes a power tool and a stationary dust collector. The power tool is configured to perform processing operation on a workpiece by driving a tool accessory. The stationary dust collector is configured to be placed separately from the power tool and to collect dust generated by the processing operation. The power tool includes a first motor and a driving mechanism configured to drive the tool accessory by power of the first motor. The dust collector includes a second motor and a fan configured to be rotationally driven by the second motor to generate air flow for collecting dust. The dust collecting system includes a control device configured to control a rotation speed of the second motor according to a driving state of the power tool.

A dust collecting system is known which includes a power tool configured to perform processing operation on a workpiece by driving a tool accessory and a dust collector configured to be placed on floor or ground separately from the power tool and to collect dust generated by the processing operation. For example, in a dust collecting system disclosed in PCT International Publication No. WO 2018-180896, a motor for driving a tool accessory (also referred to as a driving motor) is provided in a power tool, while a motor for driving a dust collection fan (also referred to as a dust-collection motor) is provided in a dust collector, and the dust-collection motor is driven in conjunction with the driving motor.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A system for mounting solar panels on a building may include panel mounting brackets each including a base to be positioned on the building and a vertical extension having a proximal end coupled to the base and a distal end vertically spaced apart from the base. The system may also include interior mounting clamps each including a leg having a proximal end to be coupled to the distal end of the vertical extension of a given panel mounting bracket and a distal end. Each interior mounting clamp may also include a first lateral arm for securing a first solar panel to the given panel mounting bracket, and a second lateral arm for securing a second solar panel to the given panel mounting bracket. The second lateral arm may have a bottom surface positioned vertically above a bottom surface of the first lateral arm along the leg.

Solar panels, such as photovoltaic (PV) and solar water heating panels, are frequently used to take advantage of electrical power generation and heating properties of sunlight. To provide space savings and potentially enhanced efficiency, solar panels are in many cases installed on rooftops of buildings (e.g., office buildings, houses, pavilions, free-standing structures with or without walls, etc.). However, because of winds and storms, the mounting fixtures used for installing solar panels on buildings need to be sufficiently strong and durable to reduce the chances of damage or injury from a panel coming loose during a storm, etc.
Various mounting fixtures have been developed for solar panel installation. For example, one particularly advantageous system for mounting a solar panel(s) on a building is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,628,018 to Stapleton, which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. The system may include a plurality of panel mounting brackets each including a base to be positioned on the building, and a vertical extension having a proximal end coupled to the base and a distal end vertically spaced apart from the base, with the distal end defining a fastener channel therein. The system may also include a plurality of mounting clamps each including a bottom flange, and a top flange spaced apart from the bottom flange and partially overhanging the bottom flange and defining a slot therebetween to receive a lip of the solar panel. An end extension may couple respective ends of the bottom flange and top flange together, and a fastener channel connector may be coupled to the bottom flange and configured to be slidably received within the fastener channel. Other solar panel mounting fixtures and systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,484,853; 9,397,605; 9,145,685; and 9,057,545, also to Stapleton, all of which are hereby incorporated herein in their entireties by reference.
Despite the existence of such mounting fixtures, further enhancements may be desirable in some applications to help simplify and expedite the installation of solar panels on buildings or rooftops.

Panel mounting bracket with grounding mid-clamp and related methods


A semiconductor ceramic and a positive-coefficient characteristic thermistor are provided which have a stable PTC characteristic, a high double point, and a wide operating temperature range. The semiconductor ceramic contains, as a main component, a barium titanate-based composition having a perovskite structure expressed by a general formula AmBO3. Out of 100 mol % of the Ti, an amount in a range of 0.05 mol % or more to 0.3 mol % or less of Ti is replaced with W as a semiconductor forming agent, the ratio m of A sites mainly to B sites is 0.99≦m≦1.002, and an actually-measured sintered density is 70% or more and 90% or less of the theoretical sintered density. In the positive-coefficient characteristic thermistor, a component body is formed of the semiconductor ceramic.

A barium titanate (BaTiO3)-based semiconductor ceramic has a PTC characteristic that its resistance value abruptly increases as a temperature exceeds its Curie point Tc. Therefore, the barium titanate (BaTiO3)-based semiconductor ceramic is widely utilized as an overcurrent protective element for a circuit or as a degaussing element for a Braun tube frame of a TV.
For example, Patent Literature (PTL) 1 discloses a semiconductor ceramic that is given a PTC characteristic by adding 0.005 to 1 mol % of W to a ceramic containing BaTiO3 as a main component.

Semiconductor ceramic and positive-coefficient characteristic thermistor


A plurality of first team player game pieces, a plurality of second team player game pieces, a football designation device, and a game board are provided for playing a football board game. At least one of the player game pieces may have an advantage over one or more of the other player game pieces. One or more of the player game pieces, may be allowed to move twice as fast as one or more other player game pieces, when a first designation is associated with the one or more player game pieces that are given the advantage. The player game pieces given the advantage may move from a “fast” space, marked with a graphic, to another “fast” space, marked with the same graphic, located a predetermined number of spaces away, such as two spaces away, in any direction.

Board games such as checkers, chess, and backgammon have been popular for a long time because although they may require skill, they have straightforward, clear rules and are enjoyable to play. Checkers for example involves moving one piece at a time on a turn, in a clearly defined manner. Chess involves moving one piece at a time on a turn, wherein different pieces move different ways, but these ways are straightforward to understand. Backgammon involves moving two pieces on a turn, but again in a clearly defined manner.
Unlike checkers, chess, and backgammon, there are many games which incorporate various aspects of American Football (hereinafter "football") which have many rules which often may make the games tedious, and not enjoyable to play, such as U.S. Pat. No. 7,036,820 to Macomber, U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,011 to Sheridan, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,069,514 to Wylie. Often these games attempt to replicate every aspect of a football game and end up being far too complex. These games may involve calling many different plays, moving many players in many different ways, and executing many plays in order to score.
There are other games which incorporate football in a superficial sense, but which allow movements which do not resemble football at all. For example, there are "football" chess games which basically play like chess but with football characters and extra points for capturing various pieces, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,335 to Wise. There is also a football checkers game, U.S. Pat. No. 6,428,006 to Stewart, which plays more like checkers, allowing a "quarterback" to jump as many offensive players on a turn as he is able to, something that no real quarterback could ever do. The football checkers game to Stewart, also crams in twelve defensive players and eleven offensive players on an eight space width board, which prevents the game from playing like football. I.e. there is inadequate space to run or throw as in a game of football.
There is a need for a football board game which has straightforward rules so that it is enjoyable to play and which incorporates main aspects of football so it can play like football.

Method and apparatus for football board game


An arrangement of a vehicle seat for placement on a vehicle floor having a seat in a storage position is provided in a preferred embodiment including two elongated rails connected to the vehicle floor, the rails having a first hook and a plurality of notches to provide a locking plate; a slider for each side of the vehicle seat having a second hook interlocked with the rail's first hook; a locking pin for selective engagement with the rail notches, the locking pin being connected with the slider to selectively set the position of the slider with respect to the rail: a riser pivotally connected with each slider; and a seat bun connected with the risers, the seat bun assuming a storage position by forward pivotal movement of the risers.

It is known to have seats in minivans wherein a seatback is pivotally mounted with respect to a seat bun frame (or seat pan) and, when not in use, the seatback can be folded forward to provide a table surface on top of the seat bun frame. It is also known to provide such above-noted seats which can be removed from the vehicle without the use of tooling. To provide more floor space in the van or minivan when the seats are not being utilized (and it is not desired to remove them), it has been known to provide seats which assume a generally upright storage position wherein the forward riser of the seat is pivoted upward after the rear riser has been released from the vehicle floor and thereupon assumes a generally upright position. Most minivans have a front row, a second intermediate row generally adjacent to the front row, and a rear row which is usually limited to two seats to accommodate the intrusion into the passenger compartment by the vehicle rear wheel wells. When not in use, it is preferable that the seats in the third most rearward row be stored adjacent a rear entry door of the van to accommodate the maximum space accessible by a side cargo door. In other instances, it is preferable that the third row of seats in the storage position be positioned forwardly as adjacent to the second row of seats as possible to maximize the storage available from the rear entry door of the vehicle. Therefore, it is preferable to provide an arrangement of a vehicle seat having a plurality of storage positions for the third row of a minivan.