A first sealant for sealing a region under an electrical connection portion and a second sealant for sealing a region on the electrical connection portion are used as sealants for the electrical connection portion for connecting an electric wiring member to an ejection energy generation element of a liquid ejection head, these sealants contain the same base agent and curing agent, and the linear expansion coefficients of the first sealant and the second sealant after curing are adjusted so as to become in a predetermined range.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid ejection head for ejecting a liquid, e.g., ink, and a method for manufacturing the same.
Description of the Related Art
Recording of characters, images, and the like and a surface treatment by a liquid ejection head typified by an inkjet recording head are performed by imparting thermal energy or vibration energy to a liquid, e.g., ink, and ejecting the liquid as very small droplets from an ejection port so as to apply the liquid to a predetermined position on a recording medium. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-019120 describes a method for manufacturing a liquid jet recording head which is one form of the liquid ejection head.
In the manufacturing method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-019120, a recording element substrate having an ejection port, a flow passage, an ejection energy generation element, and the like is attached to a supporting plate composed of alumina or the like, and the recording element substrate is electrically bonded to a flexible printed circuit board serving as an electric wiring member.
Subsequently, a peripheral sealant for protecting the side surface of the recording element substrate from ink, dust, and the like is applied. After the peripheral sealant is cured, an inner lead bonding (ILB) sealant (electrical connection portion sealant) for sealing an electrical connection portion is applied thereto.
The functions required of the peripheral sealant used for sealing the peripheral portion of the recording element substrate and the electrical connection portion sealant are as described below.
The peripheral sealant is required to flow into a gap with a width of less than 1 mm, which is formed between a part on the supporting plate and the recording element substrate, in a short time so as to fill the gap promptly. In addition, it is necessary to protect the recording element substrate from ink and other factors.
The electrical connection portion sealant is required to seal the electrical connection portion, as a matter of course. In addition, it is required that the sealant does not peel when rubbed with a blade, a wiper, or the like for cleaning a surface provided with an ink ejection port or when coming into contact with paper and the like because of paper-jamming.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-132102 describes a method in which a peripheral sealant and an electrical connection portion sealant are cured at the same time so as to improve the production efficiency. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-132102 describes a method in which the hardness of the electrical connection portion sealant after curing is made higher than the hardness of the peripheral sealant after curing, the electrical connection portion sealant and the peripheral sealant are made to contain the same material as the base agent and the curing agent, and these sealants are stacked by coating.
According to this method, even when the peripheral sealant and the electrical connection portion sealant are cured at the same time, a difference in reactivity with a curing agent between the two sealants due to a difference in the curing rate between the two sealants (hindrance to curing) does not occur.

Liquid ejection head and method for manufacturing the same


A semiconductor device is manufactured by forming, on an insulating base material, a first support element having a side face that extends from a surface of the insulating base material, forming a coating of amorphous silicon on the side face of the first support element, filling an aperture disposed between the first support element and a second support element that extends from a surface of the insulating base material with an insulating film, planarizing the insulating film to expose an exposed portion of the coating and a surface of the first support element, and siliciding the amorphous silicon of the coating to form an interconnect.

In recent years, an aggressive scaling-down of individual device elements in an advanced semiconductor device has required commensurate shrinkage of the physical dimensions of the interconnect patterns. Some interconnect patterns require a line width equal to or less than 10 nanometers. For example, in the case of a NAND-type nonvolatile memory, miniaturized patterns are preferably formed in a uniform manner for the purpose of providing a higher capacity.

Semiconductor device manufacturing method and semiconductor device


A network system for providing content to a mobile computing device of a user based upon the location of the mobile computing device. A wireless internet access point provides access to a single vendor web site such that upon connecting the wireless internet access points to the user's mobile computing device, a processor determines whether the device is associated with a user and if so, said device is directed to the landing page of the vendor web site when the user mobile computing device's device location is within a predetermined proximity to the wireless internet access point of that vendor.

The advent of mobile devices with location determination capabilities has resulted in the development of a wide variety of location-based services, including location-based advertising. Vendors with physical locations are interested in driving local traffic through advertising on mobile devices. The combination of location-based services and mobile advertising has enabled vendors to target mobile device users within specified areas.
Location-based advertising is based on the premise that users' locations and their proximity to a place of interest impact the performance of an advertising campaign. Location-based advertising has developed to enable advertisers to analyse campaign performance by individual places of interest across millions of locations to understand precisely where within a location consumers are active and what they are doing.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,848,765 describes methods and systems for providing location based services. A user interface is provided that enables a user of a portable electronic device to define a geofence. The user determines a current location of the portable electronic device using an interactive map on the portable electronic device and the current location is monitored by an application server with respect to the geofence. When the application server determines that the current location of the portable electronic device is within the geofence, instructions are transmitted to the portable electronic device to cause said device to offer a service to the user that is not offered when the user is external to the geofence.
Technology applications of geofencing have focussed upon providing user defined areas where information is provided. Location based services focus upon the collection of consumer information which is concerned with predicting consumer behaviour.

Network system and method for providing location targeted content to a mobile computing device


The inventions relates to a system for conditioning of power from a turbine, the turbine comprising at least one turbine blade (1) connected to a rotating hub (2), the rotating hub (2) is arranged to drive a generator (5). The generator is a multi pole synchronous generator (5) connected via a plurality of galvanic isolated three-phase cables (11) to a multi level frequency converter (25), the generator (5) also being arranged to feed current to the frequency converter (25) through the three-phase cables (11). The multi level frequency converter (25) is constituted by a plurality of elements arranged in columns and coupled in cascading order to add inverted voltage.

As fossil energy sources reaches their peak production and their availability decline, need for renewable energy increases in pace with mankind's ever increasing consumption. Easily available sources of renewable energy have, to a large extent, already been developed as with fossil sources. This is true, especially for hydro power. In other words, the need is for new renewable energy sources, such as wind-, solar-, tidal- or wave power. A common feature for these sources of energy is that they are inherently periodical or unpredictable, as tidal flows and perhaps solar radiation, costly in development and sometimes volatile.
Of the above mentioned renewable energy sources, wind power has so far proven to be the most potentially competitive. It is, however, burdened with large installation costs and low output. The trend is therefore towards higher power ratings of each individual wind turbine, in order to maximize the production, and hence the earnings, of the installation. As the maximum theoretical power of a wind turbine is proportional to the circular area formed by its wing tips, the power of a wind mill is proportional to its physical size. This leads to structural challenges related to placing large and heavy components on the top of a tall structure, experiencing formidable thrust from stiff winds. Also, the amount of available space within a wind mill nacelle is limited. Wind turbines can be placed on shore or off shore. Recently, the focus for research and development has turned towards offshore wind turbines.
Another challenge related to wind power is the unpredictability associated with wind speed. Most variable speed wind turbines common today has a required wind speed of 2-4 m/s, a maximum production wind speed of 12-16 m/s, and a cut out speed in the range 25 m/s. This wide range of operating conditions necessitates the use of some sort of power conditioning unit between the power grid and the generator. This is, as is obvious to a person skilled in the art, because a synchronous generator linked directly to a power grid operating at, for example, 50 Hz would only be able to rotate at 3000, 1500, 1000, 750 rpm, etc. depending on its construction—ref. FIG. 15 that also include some other frequency and speed alternatives. A common way of turbine drive wind speed adaptation is described in the patent application no.: EP1908163A1, by the company Vestas Wind Systems. A frequency converter is situated between the grid transformer and the generator, with its controlled frequency side at the generator side. This solution enables speed control of the machine in what is known as regenerative breaking: the wind tries to rotate the generator rotor faster than the speed corresponding to the applied controlled frequency, inducing currents that are fed through the converter and into the grid via a DC-link and an inverter. If the torque from the blades becomes too large for the machine, the converter may increase the frequency and hence the rotor speed.
EP1416604A2 discloses and electric circuit for a wind mill. This electric circuit includes a driven generator with rotor and stator. The stator of the generator is divided into separate sections, and each section is connected to independent parallel rectifier circuits and. Each rectifier circuit is connected to an independent direct current circuit, which in turn is connected to the input of at least one independent inverter. In the end, the outputs of the independent inverters are connected to a supply network. The sectioning of the stator and the independent rectifiers and inverters provides a system with redundancy, which makes it possible to perform maintenance on the electric circuit without having to shut down the whole operation of the wind mill, and also provides greater reliability.
Frequency converters are well known to those skilled in the art and they exist in a number of varieties and topologies with different characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. One such frequency converter is the Siemens patented "Perfect harmony series" illustrated in FIG. 1. It is characterised by containing individual power cells 8 containing a three-phase rectifier 6 and a one-phase pulse width modulated inverter 7. The power cells are then connected in series to form the output of one of the resulting phases as shown in FIG. 1. Each column of series connected power cells 8 are 120° phase shifted, and the resulting quite smooth three-phase AC drives a synchronous- or asynchronous machine 9. The frequency converter 25 is fed from an isolation transformer 10 with one or more multiples of three to five legs. In the case of FIG. 1, it has 12 three phase "low voltage" windings divided into four groups consisting of individual three-phase connections to the diode rectifiers of three segregated power cells. The 12 three phase "low voltage" windings shown in FIG. 1, have different phase shift in order to provide a "Clean Power Input" The pulse width modulation of the power cell groups are typically phase shifted by some degrees in order to limit harmonic content on the resulting composite for the three-phase output.
Another example of a frequency converter is ABB's ACS 5000 which was developed to meet the requirements of the growing number of applications driven by standard motors up to 6.9 kV. This type of frequency converter is illustrated in FIG. 2 and comprises an optionally integrated input transformer 15 connected to a main converter part. The main converter part comprises a diode rectifier 6, a DC-link capacitor 16 and an inverter 7 connected in series and connected to a motor. The motor can be an induction- or a synchronous motor with permanent magnets or field windings. The inverter 7 is of the voltage source inverter multilevel-fuseless (VSI-MF) topology (9 levels line-to-line) and uses the integrated gate commutated thyristor (IGCT) semi conductor technology. The typical transformer windings phase-shift and diode-rectifiers 6 shown in FIG. 2, all add up to become a 36-puls diode rectifier that minimises harmonics drawn from the grid. Controls 17 are also comprised in the ACS 5000.
Alstom's Multilevel Type Inverter (Typical ALSPA VDM6000) has "Flying Capacitor" inverter topology that utilizes a common intermediate dc-circuit. A higher common intermediate dc-voltage level 26 is achieved by adding dc voltages after rectification as shown in FIG. 7. The voltage is smoothened by a capacitor bank and inverted multiple levels. The VDM has cascaded IGBT modules with diodes in anti parallel to ensure bidirectional power flow. The CDM8000 is a current source inverter of the same family. The CDM utilises GTOs or IGCTs.
In WO 00/60719 a solution is described for providing energy from a turbine, based on a system where coupling to the stator windings are centralized using a common cable. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,323 a multi level converter is described being arranged in columns using a common transformer connected to a power source.
When electric power needs to be transported over long distances and overhead lines are unpractical, High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) is a feasible alternative. FIG. 13 shows a DC-based wind park. Here, the electric output from each turbine is rectified immediately after the initial step up transformer, collected and fed to shore in a common subsea cable. At landfall the power inverted into the power grid. FIG. 14 shows a typical schematic of a HVDC-light or HVDC-plus system. It shows the offshore converter station located either at each wind turbine or acting as a collecting point for several units, the onshore inverter station at landfall and the interconnecting subsea DC-cable.
FIG. 16 shows an alternative DC-based wind park topology.
The previous has given a general presentation of three examples of multilevel inverters. In the following, any kind of suitable multi-level inverter may be used.


The invention provides a device that appends a recognition point for image joining to the extracted image and a recognition element thereof. The device is to provide a plurality of holding slots on a holding platform. Besides, a plurality of positioning slots is provided at the sidewall of each holding slot so that the holding slot can accommodate and fasten an object to be image-taken. Then, when the image of the object is extracted by the segmented extractions, the image of the positioning slot can also be extracted so as to obtain an image with a recognition mark. Thus, the recognition mark can be used as a benchmark for image joining in order to obtain a whole image of the object. Moreover, the recognition element is to provide a positioning opening concavely at the side edge of a sheet-body, and the positioning opening is tiny. Therefore, the invention can achieve an effect of easy, rapid, and precise image joining.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device applied to image extractions and, more particularly, to a device that appends a recognition mark to an extracted image so that the recognition mark can be used as a referential benchmark for image alignment when joining images.
2. Description of the Related Art
To scan an image of raw data (such as a photograph, a negative, or a slide) by a scanner or to take a picture of the data by a digital camera and make the image or the picture into an image file has become a common method for digital filing and archiving.
On the other hand, in respond to a specific scanning of a light transmitting film—for instance, a positive film, a negative film, or a slide film—a platform scanner and a film scanner have been introduced for use. Particularly, these scanners can see through an object and scan various films. Among these scanners, the film scanner is designed for scanning a 35 mm positive film and negative film. As shown in FIG. 1, the film scanner is provided with a film holder 10 that is further provided with a plurality of accommodating slots 12 for accommodating the object to be scanned. When taking a picture, first, the object 14 to be scanned is placed inside the accommodating slots 12 of the film holder 10, and then the film holder 10 will be sent into a film input device for scanning through the sides of the scanner.
However, the situation may be that the dimension of the object 14 to be scanned—for example, a photograph, a negative, or a transparent glass-slide for medical use—is larger than the dimension that a scanner can scan. For this reason, as shown in FIG. 2, the user of the scanner has to do segmented scanning on the object 14 and then join all the segmented images together. If, however, the image-joining technique is not good enough, the finished image cannot be perfect. In fact, it is very likely to get two overlapping images with poor alignment, as shown in FIG. 3.
On the other, even though software for image joining instead of the aforementioned manual joining technique can be applied, the user of the scanner still has to find a joining point for each segmented image on a computer screen to join all the segmented images. Usually, it needs to take tens of minutes to finish the joining job, followed by a polishing job that has to be done for a perfect joining. Therefore, the whole joining process is not only tedious but time consuming.
Focusing on the above-mentioned problem, the invention provides a device that appends a recognition point for image joining to the extracted image and a recognition element used by the device. Through them, a specific mark can be added into each segmented image as a referential benchmark for image alignment during the image joining.

Device that appends a recognition point for image joining to the extracted image and a recognition element thereof


The invention involves monoclonal antibodies which specifically bind to a cell surface antigen characteristic of tumor vascular endothelium. The antigen, referred to as endosialin, is a glycoprotein and has a molecular weight of about 165 kDa as determined by SDS-PAGE. The protein portion of the molecule has a molecular weight of about 95 kDa. Also disclosed are various uses of the monoclonal antibody and the antigen.

Carcinogenesis involves a series of somatic genetic changes affecting the structure and/or expression of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Secondary genetic changes and epigenetic mechanisms may also be necessary to allow small nests of malignant cells to form clinically apparent primary and metastatic tumors. In the case of solid neoplasms, for example, it is well known that growth beyond diameters of 1-2 mm depends on formation of supporting stroma of newly formed blood vessels, usually accompanied by reactive stromal fibroblasts, lymphoid and phagocytic infiltrates, and extracellular matrix proteins. While cells of reactive tumor stroma are not transformed, they may differ from corresponding cells of normal tissues in proliferative activity, as well as in the expression of regulatory peptides, proteolytic enzymes, ECM proteins and cell surface antigens. Consequently these may provide additional targets for pharmacological and immunological investigations and interventions in cancer.
An example of such a target is the F19 cell surface glycoprotein, which is expressed in the reactive stroma fibroblasts of more than 90% of common epithelial cancers, including carcinomas of breast, colon, lung, bladder and pancreas, with little or no expression in normal adult tissues. The F19 cell surface glycoprotein and various teachings regarding it are found in GarinChesa et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. USA 87: 7235-7239 (1990); Rettig et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 85: 3110-3114 (1988); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,059,523, all three disclosures hereby being incorporated by reference. In a recent, phase I study, it has been found that .sup.131 I labeled monoclonal antibody against F19 accumulates at tumor sites, thereby allowing tumor imaging in patients with hepatic metastases from colorectal carcinomas. See Welt et al., Proc. Am. Assoc. Cancer Res. 33: 319 (1992) regarding this imaging study.
Immunologic targeting of tumor vascular endothelial cells has not yet been accomplished, but is attractive for several reasons. One reason is that endothelial surface antigens are highly accessible to antibodies or antibody conjugates which circulate in the blood. Another reason is that the destruction or impairment of blood vessels associated with tumors would be expected to lead to widespread necrosis or arrest of growth of solid tumors. The activity of several antitumor agents, including tumor necrosis factor (TNF-.alpha.), gamma interferon (IFN-.gamma.), and melphalan may result from vascular endothelial cell damage rather than direct tumor killing. See Old, Science 230: 630-632 (1985); Lienard et al., J. Clin. Oncol. 10: 52-60 (1992); Lejeune, Eur. Cytok. Net. 2: 124 (1992) for information on these studies.
The targeting of tumor vascular endothelial cells, discussed supra, requires the availability of a monoclonal antibody ("mAb") which is specific for these cells. While the field of immunology as it relates to production of monoclonal antibodies has made great strides since 1975 when Kohler & Milstein first succeeded in generating hybridomas, preparation of monoclonal antibodies with a desired cell type specificity is hardly simple or routine. For example, one must assume that an antigen of requisite specificity exists, or is expressed on the targeted cell, and this is not necessarily the case. This is essential for specificity in general, and is critical for vascular tissue, because any mAb which binds to vascular tissue generally rather than to tumor vascular endothelial cells specifically, will target normal vascular tissues, leading to obvious adverse consequences.
While mAbs to endothelial cells and to tumors originating therefrom are known, the art has not previously been aware of monoclonal antibodies which are specific to tumor vascular endothelium to the exclusion of other non-transformed cell types. Such monoclonal antibodies have, however, now been prepared, and the cell surface antigen to which they are directed has been identified, isolated, and characterized. These, as well as the ramifications thereof, are the subject of the disclosure which follows.

Monoclonal antibodies which specifically binds to endosialin, a 165 Kd glycoprotein found on tumor vascular endothelium, and uses thereof


A system and method for suppressing aperture noise resulting from clock jitter associated with a Nyquist analog-to-digital converter (ADC) using self-referred time measurements are provided. The system comprises of a clock, a delay element, a time subtractor, a time-to-digital converter, a filter element, a first digital subtractor, an integrator, a differentiator, and a multiplier. Each of the delay element, time subtractor, time-to-digital converter, filter element, first digital subtractor, integrator, and multiplier is electrically connected in parallel with the ADC, which allows the clock to generate a clock signal that advances into the system and the ADC in order to isolate and suppress the noise aperture associated with the ADC. As such, the architecture of the system is configured to isolate and suppress aperture noise resulting from clock jitter associated with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to allow the output signal of the system be independent of the aperture noise.

In conventional systems, clock jitter and/or aperture noise is difficult to isolate and suppress from a signal generated by a clock. As such, clock jitter is one of the main obstacles when trying to design an analog-to-converter that can operate at high frequency.
In current literature and prior art, skilled artisans in the art simply accept the jitter as the final limiting factor when digitizing an analog signal to a digital signal. Moreover, existing jitter isolating and/or cancelling techniques known in the field of this invention relate to delta-sigma based sampling techniques. The delta-sigma based sampling techniques described in this field are only useful for low input bandwidths as these techniques require oversampling. In comparison, a high resolution (e.g., greater than 12 bit) and high speed (e.g., greater than one gigasamples per second) analog-to-digital converter requires tens of resistor-capacitor (RC) system time constants to settle within a tolerable error range when processing analog signals into digital signals. The prior art in this field cannot arbitrarily reduce these RC constants due to kT/C noise source in the analog-to-digital converter. Furthermore, the use of oversampling in the delta-sigma based sampling prior art would require the oversampling ratio ("OSR") times more RC times constants per cycle where the OSR is defined by one half of the ratio of the sampling frequency to the signal's bandwidth. As such, the technique of oversampling described and used in the prior art cannot feasibly be accomplished for these types of analog-to-digital converters.
Based on the conventional technology and current problems in the field of this invention as to isolating and suppressing jitter and/or the resulting aperture noise associated to an ADC, an improvement is needed.

Aperture noise suppression using self-referred time measurements

BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration Inc.


A display control device that may control, in response to user's operation, a list display of a file of contents accumulated in another device connected over a network, and a list display of a folder in a hierarchy for storing the file. The device may include type selection means for selecting a type for the file in accordance with the user's operation; reception control unit for controlling reception of file attribute information coming from the another device about an attribute provided to the folder indicating the type of the file stored in the folder; attribute determination unit for determining, based on the file attribute information, whether the folder is provided with the attribute of the selected type; and display controller for controlling, when the folder is determined as not being provided with the attribute of the selected type, the list display to constrain a display of the folder.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display control device, method, and program and, more specifically, to a display control device, method, and program with which ease of use can be increased.
2. Description of Related Art
The technology designed for a network of a television receiver has recently become popular finally, and thus there is not yet any advanced technology for GUI (Graphical User Interface) and for ease of use with other devices connected over the network.
The network server is generally made ready specifically for the use or is a personal computer. The personal computer is equipped with a high-performance user interface such as high-resolution monitor, keyboard, and mouse. In the personal computer, the operation of such a user interface is defined as so-called "drag and drop" and "shift click", for example, and a large number of files and folders can be operated with ease simultaneously and selectively, can be searched with ease using a keyboard, and others.
Moreover, the number of files, e.g., files of still images, moving images, or audio, is ever growing for storage into devices such as servers. This is resulted from the recent capacity increase of recording media such as hard disk, the widespread use of digital still cameras and portable audio devices, and others.
The applicant of the invention has proposed a meta information server that acquires contents meta information from a device connected over a network, and forwards the acquired meta information to a remote controller. For more details, refer to Patent Document 1 (JP-A-2006-227843).

Display control device, method, and program


A brake device for a vehicle is provided in which a slave cylinder stroke-target motor rotational angle conversion means (M4) converts a target stroke for a slave cylinder into a target rotational angle for an electric motor, and a target electric motor control means (M5) carries out rotational angle feedback control of operation of an electric motor in order to make an actual rotational angle of the electric motor detected by an actual rotation angle sensor (Sd) converge to a target rotation angle. In this process, since a communication means (M7) formed of CAN transmits an actual brake fluid pressure detected by a fluid pressure sensor (Sb) at predetermined time intervals, and correction means (M6, M3) corrects the target rotation angle for the electric motor (the target stroke for the slave cylinder) based on a difference or a ratio of the actual brake fluid pressure and the target brake fluid pressure that is transmitted by the communication means (M7), it is possible to make the slave cylinder generate brake fluid pressure according to the driver braking operation state without being influenced by individual differences of the slave cylinder, change over time of the slave cylinder, or environmental conditions such as temperature.

In an arrangement of a so-called BBW type brake device that converts an amount of operation (or an operating force) of a brake pedal operated by a driver into an electric signal, actuates a slave cylinder having an electric motor based on the electric signal, and actuates a wheel cylinder by brake fluid pressure generated by the slave cylinder, the arrangement including between the slave cylinder and the wheel cylinder an ABS device that can reduce, hold, and increase the brake fluid pressure to be transmitted to the wheel cylinder, is known from Patent Document 1 below.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-174005


A method for avoiding current leakage at the shallow trench isolation edge in a border-less contact process is described. Trenches are etched into a semiconductor substrate. An etch stop liner layer is deposited within the trenches and etched back to leave the etch stop liner layer only on sidewalls of the trenches. The trenches are filled with an isolation layer overlying the liner sidewalls and polished back to leave the isolation layer only within the trenches. Semiconductor device structures, including source and drain junctions, are formed in the active areas. An interlevel dielectric layer is deposited over the device structures. Border-less contact openings are etched through the ILD wherein the liner sidewalls act as an etch stop thereby preventing leakage of the source and drain junctions. The contact openings are filled with a conducting layer wherein the liner sidewalls act as a diffusion barrier to the conducting layer.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the fabrication of integrated circuit devices, and more particularly, to a method of reducing junction leakage in a border-less contact processes in the fabrication of integrated circuits.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
In the fabrication of integrated circuit devices, shallow trench isolation (STI) is often used to isolate active areas from one another. In order to shrink cell size, border-less contact is one of the most important processes in the art. Of major concern is the border-less contact leakage current for shallow junctions, especially at the edge of the STI regions. It is desired to find a method of preventing leakage at the edge of STI regions in a border-less contact process.
Co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/489,967 (TSMC-99-241) to K. B. Thei et al, filed on Jan. 24, 2000 discloses a method of depositing an etch stop layer over a salicide layer and densifying this layer. This etch stop layer prevents leakage at the STI edges during border-less contact formation. Co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/398,293 (TSMC-98-633) to L. Lui, filed on Sep. 20, 1999, teaches forming an etch stop lining layer within via openings to protect the via sidewalls during etching of a trench opening in the formation of a dual damascene opening. U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,103 to Thei et al discloses an etch stop layer formed overlying a silicide layer. U.S. Pat. No. 5,652,176 to Maniar et al shows an aluminum nitride isolation trench liner that prevents junction leakage during border-less contact etching. U.S. Pat. No. 5,447,884 to Fahey et al teaches a nitride STI liner layer that is densified. U.S. Pat. No. 6,121,064 to Lasky et al shows a light-absorbing liner layer of hydrosilicon oxynitride. U.S. Pat. No. 4,533,429 to Josquin and 4,845,048 to Tamaki et al show silicon nitride liner layers on the sidewalls of a trench in a LOCOS process.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an effective and very manufacturable method for forming a border-less contact in the fabrication of integrated circuits.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a border-less contact process while avoiding current leakage at the shallow trench isolation edge in the fabrication of integrated circuits.
Yet another object is to provide a method for avoiding current leakage at the shallow trench isolation edge by forming an etch stop liner film on the sidewalls of the STI trench to protect the STI edge during borderless contact etching.
In accordance with the objects of the invention, a method for avoiding current leakage at the shallow trench isolation edge in a border-less contact process is achieved. Trenches are etched into a semiconductor substrate. An etch stop liner layer is deposited within the trenches and etched back to leave the etch stop liner layer only on sidewalls of the trenches to form liner sidewalls. The trenches are filled with an isolation layer overlying the liner sidewalls to complete formation of shallow trench isolation trenches separating active areas of the semiconductor substrate. Semiconductor device structures are formed in the active areas wherein the semiconductor device structures include source and drain junctions. An interlevel dielectric layer is deposited over the semiconductor device structures. Border-less contact openings are etched through the interlevel dielectric layer wherein the liner sidewalls act as an etch stop during this etching thereby preventing leakage of the source and drain junctions. The contact openings are filled with a conducting layer wherein the liner sidewalls act as a diffusion barrier to the conducting layer to form interconnects to complete fabrication of the integrated circuit device.

Shallow trench isolation scheme for border-less contact process

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company


A pre-distortion circuit that may introduce a pre-distortion signal in a communication channel by determining a harmonic signal of the signal to be output. One or more image correction signals of the signal to be output may be determined. The one or more image correction signals may be complex conjugate signal variations of the signal to be output. The harmonic signal, the one or more image correction signals and the signal to be output may be combined into a combined output signal. The combined output signal may be transmitted to a digital-to-analog converter. The predistortion circuit may be implemented in a FPGA, an ASIC, a digital-to-analog converter, and/or a separate IC package.

Distortion in a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) can result from parasitic effects of the components that form the DAC. Due to the parasitic effect in the DAC, harmonic signals and image signals may be generated that cause distortions in the signals transmitted downstream from the DAC. The distortion introduced by the DAC may be classified as linear or non-linear. Equalizers at the receiver may attenuate the effects of linear distortions. However, non-linear distortions such as harmonic signals and image signals are more difficult to address. Image signals may be those that are above the DAC sampling frequency, or may be signals that may result from DAC defects, for example, parasitics within the DAC, that causes spurious frequency components of the input signal that are scaled down and at arbitrary frequencies.
In a digital media cable communication implementation, interoperability standards, such as the DOCSIS/DRFI standard, exist to provide guidance as to the form of the data to be transmitted to a receiver. The DOCSIS standard is more stringent for fewer channels and, as the number of channels increases, the standard becomes less stringent. In particular, the requirement on the Spurious-Free-Dynamic-Range (SFDR) and the Adjacent-Channel-Leakage-Ratio (ACLR) becomes less stringent as the channel count goes up. Therefore, the digital signal input to the DAC might need to be further processed to substantially eliminate the harmonic and image signals that cause signal distortions.
Field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices and/or application specific integrated circuits (ASICS) are used to apply the digital processing techniques to the digital signals prior to conversion by the DAC for downstream transmission. FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional FPGA or ASIC configuration for providing digital data to a radio frequency (RF) DAC.
The digital signals are processed as complex domain signals that include components having real and imaginary representations. The complex domain data signal is combined by mixer 105 with a digital modulation signal that frequency shifts the data into data blocks of, typically, 6 or 8 MHz data. The 6 or 8 MHz data is combined into several channels by combiner 120, and remains as complex domain data. The combined data is mixed at mixer 107 with another digital modulation signal from up-conversion digital modulator 130. The digital modulation signal from up-conversion digital modulator 130 is at the carrier frequency at which the digital data will be transmitted.
The output of mixer 107 is still a complex domain signal. The complex domain signal output from the mixer 107 is transformed into a data signal including only the real signal components by real domain device 140. The real domain device 140 outputs the real domain data signal to the channel combiner 150. The channel combiner 150 combines the real signals into a block of upconverted channels that are transmitted to a DAC. The described system 100 merely provides data to a DAC and does not actively attempt to attenuate or eliminate the harmonics or image signals introduced by the DAC.
The inventors have recognized the benefits of introducing a pre-distortion into the signal transmitted over the channel to "cancel" (or attenuate) the effects of the non-linear channel distortions prior to inputting the signals to a DAC. The inventive system and method may be used in the above contexts, but as well in other applications that require non-linear harmonic distortions and/or image signal distortions in a transmission signal to be addressed. For example, the inventive system and method may be used in a wireless infrastructure (WIFR) base station where stringent emission specifications are to be met.


In one aspect of the invention a drill bit assembly has a body portion intermediate a shank portion and a working portion, the working portion having at least one cutting element. A shaft is supported by the body portion and extends beyond the working portion. The shaft also has a distal end that is rotationally isolated from the body portion. In another aspect of the invention, a method for steering a downhole tool string has the following steps: providing a drill bit assembly attached to an end of the tool string disposed within a bore hole; providing a shaft extending beyond a working portion of the assembly; engaging a subterranean formation with a distal end of the shaft; and angling the drill bit assembly with the shaft along a desired drilling trajectory.

This invention relates to drill bit assemblies, specifically drill bit assemblies used in directional drilling. Often in oil, gas, or geothermal drilling applications subterranean formations may dictate drilling along deviated paths to avoid harsh conditions or to improve hydrocarbon production. Methods for deviating tool strings in the prior art include, but are not limited to whipstocks, bent subs, positive displacement motors, and actuators placed in bottom-hole assemblies.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,420,049 to Holbert, which is herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains, discloses directional drilling carried out by orienting and positioning a whipstock having a curved guide surface at a predetermined rotational angle with respect to the desired azimuth so as to compensate for lateral deviation of the original bore or rathole. The curved guide surface of the whipstock is given a radius of curvature in a longitudinal direction corresponding to that of the drainhole section radius and is provided with a concave face in a transverse direction which defines lateral wings along the guide surface to control the advancement of the drilling tool along the desired course and avoid objectionable helixing. Proper orientation and guidance of the drill tool by means of the radius whipstock as described permits accurate determination of the drainhole orientation vertical drill distance between the zenith and nadir of the drainhole as well as the actual drilled depth between those points.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,706,905 to Barr, which is herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains, discloses a modulated bias unit, for use in a steerable rotary drilling system, comprises a number of hydraulic actuators spaced apart around the periphery of the unit, each having a movable thrust member which is hydraulically displaceable outwardly for engagement with the formation of the borehole, and a control valve operable to bring the actuators alternately in succession into and out of communication with a source of fluid under pressure, as the bias unit rotates. The fluid pressure supplied to each actuator may thus be modulated in synchronism with rotation of the drill bit, and in selected phase relation thereto, so that each movable thrust member is displaced outwardly at the same rotational position of the bias unit so as to apply a lateral bias to the unit for the purposes of steering an associated drill bit. To enable the biasing action to be neutralized or reduced there is provided an auxiliary shut-off valve in series with the control valve, which is operable to prevent the control valve from passing the maximum supply of fluid under pressure to the hydraulic actuators.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,581,699 to Chen, et al., which is herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains, discloses a bottom hole assembly for drilling a deviated borehole and includes a positive displacement motor (PDM) or a rotary steerable device (RSD) having a substantially uniform diameter motor housing outer surface without stabilizers extending radially therefrom. In a PDM application, the motor housing may have a fixed bend therein between a first power section and a second bearing section. The long gauge bit powered by the motor may have a bit face with cutters thereon and a gauge section having a uniform diameter cylindrical surface. The gauge section preferably has an axial length at least 75% of the bit diameter. The axial spacing between the bit face and the bend of the motor housing preferably is less than twelve times the bit diameter. According to the method of the present invention, the bit may be rotated at a speed of less than 350 rpm by the PDM and/or rotation of the RSD from the surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,354 to Buytaert, which is herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains, discloses a rotary steerable system for use in a drill string for drilling a deviated well. The system utilizes a mechanical gravity reference device comprising an unbalanced weight which may rotate independently of the rotation of the drill string so that its heavy portion is always oriented toward the low side of the wellbore and which has an attached magnet. A magnetic switch that rotates as the drill string rotates is activated when its axis coincides with the axis of the magnet, and this activation results in a thrust member or pad being actuated to "kick" the side of the wellbore.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Drill bit assembly for directional drilling


Methods and apparatus for flip chip substrates with guard rings. An embodiment comprises a substrate core with a die attach region for attaching an integrated circuit die; at least one dielectric layer overlying a die side surface of the substrate core; and at least one guard ring formed adjacent a corner of the substrate core, the at least one guard ring comprising: a first trace overlying the dielectric layer having rectangular portions extending in two directions from the corner of the substrate core and in parallel to the edges of the substrate core; a second trace underlying the dielectric layer; and at least one via extending through the dielectric layer and coupling the first and second traces; wherein the first trace, the at least one via, and the second trace form a vertical via stack. Methods for forming the flip chip substrates with the guard rings are disclosed.

Flip chip mounting of integrated circuit dies on substrates is increasingly used. Ball grid array (BGA) and stacked packages incorporate the use of an integrated circuit having conductive terminals, such as solder balls or solder bumps, formed on bond pads, that are mounted with the active surface facing a substrate that has conductive lands arranged corresponding to the conductive terminals. The integrated circuit die is mounted to the substrate by a solder reflow process, for example. Alternatives for the conductive terminals include copper studs, copper bumps, or solder or copper pillars or columns. An underfill material may be provided beneath the integrated circuit die and surrounding the conductive terminals to provide thermal stress relief to the integrated circuit die. However, thermal stress and mechanical stress have been observed between the die and the substrate, particularly in the corner regions. Conventional approaches to the stress include forming copper regions in the corners of the substrate outside of the die area; however die to substrate stress problems such as substrate cracking are still observed. As integrated circuit dies continue to increase in area and the number of terminals increases, the line spacing and line width of the conductor traces on the substrate are reduced, and integrated circuit die to substrate stress continues to increase.
Corresponding numerals and symbols in the different figures generally refer to corresponding parts unless otherwise indicated. The figures are drawn to clearly illustrate the relevant aspects of the embodiments and are not necessarily drawn to scale.

Methods and apparatus for flip chip substrate with guard rings outside of a die attach region

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


An inventive headwear for securely placing eyeglasses is disclosed. The headwear can be, for example, a modified baseball cap having elastic keepers located upon the sides of the crown portion of the cap. The temples of a pair of eyeglasses are inserted into the keepers, the keepers exerting a downward pressure upon the temples to keep the eyeglasses securely positioned upon the visor of the headwear.

Sunglasses conveniently keep sun glare out of a wearer's eyes and improve a wearer's visibility for such tasks as driving and playing sports. However, when a wearer enters a dimly lit building, or when nightfall arrives, the wearer must search for a place to put his sunglasses. It is also common for a wearer to take his sunglasses off during an activity, set them down on a convenient nearby surface, and forget about them later on. This forgetful habit leads to millions of sunglasses being lost annually and also necessitates that the absent-minded wearers continually purchase new sunglasses. This cycle of losing sunglasses and having to purchase new ones can become expensive, as many quality brands of sunglasses cost over one hundred dollars.
One solution to this problem is for the wearer to place his sunglasses into a pants or shirt pocket until they are needed again, but pocket articles such as keys, or even the coarse fabric of many pants pockets can lead to scratching of sunglass lenses.
Another solution is represented by inventions which place a pair of keepers for retaining a pair of sunglasses upon a headwear article, such as a baseball cap, for example. This arrangement is represented in U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,159 (Martin); U.S. Pat. No. 6,647,554 (Yan) and U.S. Des. Pat. No. D503,261 (Pedersen). The solution of placing sunglasses on a hat in this manner serves the dual purpose of keeping a pair of sunglasses in the possession of the wearer, while keeping the lenses safe from damage. However, the embodiments of this concept represented in the cited patents tend to retain a pair of sunglasses too loosely, thereby causing the sunglasses to often fall from the hat, when the hat is removed quickly from the head, for example. If the sunglasses fall to the ground, their lenses can be damaged by the hard ground surface, or the wearer can destroy the sunglasses to stepping on them.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved headwear having a sunglass keeper which snugly retains a pair of sunglasses or eyeglasses upon the headwear under any normal wearing condition.
The foregoing reflects the state of the art of which the inventor is aware, and is tendered with a view toward discharging the inventor's acknowledged duty of candor, which may be pertinent to the patentability of the present invention. It is respectfully stipulated, however, that the foregoing discussion does not teach or render obvious, singly or when considered in combination, the inventor's claimed invention.


A moving yoke comprises a first yoke member, a second yoke member, swivellable relative to the first yoke member about a first axis, and a third yoke member having an arcuate portion. The second yoke member has an arcuate support portion, and the arcuate portion of the third yoke member is supported by the arcuate portion of the second yoke member to enable slidable movement relative thereto along an arcuate path.

This invention relates to a moving yoke, particularly but not exclusively for supporting a light, mirror, television monitor, camera or any other device for sending or receiving electromagnetic radiation.
It is known to provide automated lighting including a moving yoke to support the light source. The yoke of this known lighting comprises a platform swivellable about a vertical axis through 360xc2x0 and support arms upstanding from the platform which support a housing containing a light source for pivotable movement through less than 360xc2x0 about a horizontal axis. This yoke allows a light source to be swivelled through 360xc2x0 with the swivel axis extending in a plane which bisects the light source and also allows the light source to be pivoted about the horizontal axis.
The present invention seeks to provide a more versatile yoke which allows additional movements to take place.
According to the present invention there is provided a moving yoke comprising a first yoke member, a second yoke member swivellable relative to the first yoke member about a first axis, the second yoke member having an arcuate support portion, and a third yoke member having an arcuate portion, which is supported by the arcuate portion of the second yoke portion to enable slidable movement relative thereto along an arcuate path.
Preferably, the third yoke member also has means for supporting an object, such as a light, for pivotable movement about a second axis. In this case, conveniently, the third yoke member can be arranged in a position relative to the second yoke member such that the second axis is perpendicular to, and coplanar with, the first axis and can be moved from this position through an arcuate path of 90xc2x0 in order to bring the second axis parallel to, and offset from, the first axis.
Preferably, the yoke includes means, typically in the form of electric motors, for power operably swivelling the second yoke member relative to the first yoke member about said first axis, for sliding the arcuate portion of the third yoke member relative to the arcuate portion of the second yoke member and, where the third yoke member has support means, for pivoting the support means about said second axis.
Conveniently, the third yoke member includes an arcuate rack engageable with at least one pinion gear which can be rotated to move the third yoke member relative to the second yoke member along said arcuate path. In this case the pinion gear is, preferably, rotatable by an electric motor supported by the second yoke member.
The third yoke member may comprise two parts rotatable relative to one another. In this case, one part may include the rack and the other part may include the support means.
In one embodiment, the support means of the third yoke member supports a light source.
The invention will now be more particularly described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings.


A selective wetting material is formed by plasma depositing a film on a substrate from a two-component reaction of a silicon donor and organic precursor, and photo-oxidizing selected regions of the deposited film to form wetting regions to which a liquid will selectively adhere. When the liquid is an electrically conductive material, the process may be used to form printed circuits on a circuit board. When the substrate is optically transparent and the non-photo-oxidized regions of the film are removed, the process may be used to form a photomask.

The invention relates generally to the formation of photosensitive organosilicon films by plasma-initiated polymerization utilizing direct application of electrical energy, and more particularly, to the formation of photosensitive films from a silicon donor and an organic precursor for use as a selective wetting material.
Selective wetting materials can be used in applications associated with the fabrication of electrical circuits.
An integrated circuit is a three-dimensional structure of alternating patterned layers of conductors, dielectrics and semiconductor films. The patterned layers are formed by lithographic processes that consist of two steps: delineation of the patterns in a radiation sensitive material, usually a polymer; and transfer of the patterns into underlying, previously deposited thin films, using an appropriate etching technique.
Conventional photolithography (that is, photolithography employing light at 350 to 450 nm wavelength) is used to fabricate solid-state devices with features of 6 xcexcm or smaller. Incremental improvements have allowed the use of light in the range of 350 to 450 nm wavelength to produce ever smaller features. However, the ultimate resolution of a printing technique is governed, at the extreme, by the wavelength of the light, or radiation, used to form the image, with shorter wavelengths yielding higher resolution. The same physical principles also govern the resolution limits in microscopy. Additionally, the same basic positive photoresist, consisting of a photoactive compound that belongs to the diazonaphthoquinone chemical family and a novolac resin, has been in pervasive use since the mid-nineteen seventies, and will likely be the resist of choice for several more years. The manufacturing facility has also been driven to cleaner specifications due to the smaller geometries of the parts being produced. The cost of introducing a new photolithographic technology, which includes the cost associated with the development and implementation of new hardware and resist materials, is a strong force pushing refinement of current photolithographic processes and conventional clean room design instead of pursuing revolutionary techniques. The technological alternatives to conventional photolithography are largely the same as they were a decade ago: short wavelengths of light (220 to 280 nm), the so-called deep ultraviolet range photolithography; scanning or projection electron beam; and x-ray or scanning ion beam lithography.
Unfortunately, conventional resists are not appropriate for use with the new lithographic technologies that are necessary for producing line widths under 0.5 xcexcm. The most notable deficiencies of the conventional novolac-quinonediazide resists are their sensitivity and absorption characteristics. Additionally, the absorption of conventional photoresists is too high to allow uniform imaging through practical resist film thicknesses (approximately equal to 1 xcexcm). Thus, no matter which technology becomes dominant after photolithography has reached its resolution limit (that is, 0.3 to 0.5 xcexcm), new resists and processes will be required, necessitating enormous investments in research and process development. The introduction of new resist materials and processes will also require a considerable lead time to bring them to the performance level currently realized by conventional positive photoresists. Clearly, conventional wet chemistry photoresists have limited applicability for the future of solid-state device fabrication. Liquid resist chemicals are very difficult to obtain in a pure state and are expensive. The process of applying a wet resist does not lend itself to large or odd shaped substrates, and the required baking step makes this process unsuitable for temperature sensitive substrates.
Consequently, there are advantages to a photoresist which is easily applied and processed in a vacuum chamber or series of enclosed chambers with no requirement for being brought to atmosphere. Such a photoresist permits the elimination of wet chemistry processes, and consequently, provides substantial benefits in the reduction of costs and generation of hazardous wastes. Furthermore, it eliminates the exposure of operators to the hazardous liquids and vapors generated by the conventional resist process. Finally, the dry plasma deposited photoresist allows the further development of integrated manufacturing modules without the necessity of clean rooms.
Despite intensive research on the plasma deposition of amorphous silicon from monosilane (SiH4 ), there have been only a few reports exploring the formation of Sixe2x80x94Si bonded polymers from monosubstituted organosilanes. Haller reported an example of selective dehydrogenative polymerization, but no photochemical studies were described. See Haller, Journal of the Electrochemical Society A, Vol. 129, 1987, p. 180, and Inagaki and Hirao, Journal of Polymer Science A, Vol. 24, 1986, p. 595. Studies on the plasma chemistry of methylsilane (MeSiH3 ) have involved higher radio-frequency powers and temperatures which promote formation of amorphous silicon carbide (SiC) rather than reactive polymeric product. See Delpancke, Powers, Vandertop and Somorjai, Thin Solid Films, Vol.202, 1991, p. 289. Low power plasma polymerization of tetramethylsilane and related precursors has been proposed to result in the formation of Sixe2x80x94Cxe2x80x94Si linkages. See Wrobel and Wertheimer, Plasma Deposition, Treatment and Etching of Polymers, Academic Press, New York, Chapter 3. Such materials lack sufficient absorption in light above approximately 225 nm wavelength, but have been studied as far ultraviolet (193 nm wavelength) resists by Horn and associates. See Horn, Pang and Rothschild, Journal of Vacuum Science Technology B, Vol. 8, 1991, p. 1493. Polymer chemistry teaches the use of the basic silanes are insignificant as a monomer for polymerization type of polymer. Furthermore, polysiloxanes are differentiated from the basic silanes, and contrasted as being very important in terms of monomers for polymerization. See Stevens, Malcom P., Polymer Chemistry, An Introduction, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1975: p. 334. As used herein, polymerization is the process whereby monomers are bound together forming various length chains but essentially repeating the basic building block of the monomer without significant chemical or physical alteration of the beginning monomer.
Work has been reported on the synthesis of soluble poly-alkylsilyne network polymers ([SiR]n) which exhibit intense ultraviolet absorption (associated with extended Sixe2x80x94Si bonding) and may be photo-oxidatively patterned to give stable siloxane networks. See Bianconi and Weidman, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 110, 1988, p. 2341. Dry development is accomplished by selective anisotropic removal of unexposed material by chlorine or hydrobromic acid reactive ion etching. See Hornak, Weidman and Kwock, Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 67,1990, p. 2235, and Horn, Pang and Rothschild, Journal of Vacuum Science Technology B, Vol. 8, 1991, p. 1493. The exposed, oxidized material may be removed by either wet or dry fluorine based chemistry. Kunz and associates have shown that this makes polysilynes particularly effective as 193 nm wavelength photoresists. See Kunz, Bianconi, Horn, Paladugu, Shaver, Smith, and Freed, Proceedings of the Society of Photo-optical and Instrumentation Engineers, Vol.218, 1991, p.1466. The high absorbability and the wavelength limits photo-oxidation to the surface, eliminating reflection, and the pattern is transferred through the remainder of the film during the reactive ion etch (RIE) development. Studies of organosilicon hydride network materials containing reactive Rxe2x80x94Sixe2x80x94H moieties have found that such high silicon compositions as [MeSiH0 5]n exhibit superior photosensitivity and function as single layer photodefinable glass etch masks. See Weidman and Joshi, New Photodefinable Glass Etch Masks for Entirely Dry Photolithography: Plasma Deposited Organosilicon Hydride Polymers, Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 62, No. 4, 1993, p. 372. However, cost and availability of the exotic organosilicon feedstocks have significantly inhibited the transfer of such photosensitive organosilicon hydride network materials into microcircuit fabrication. Further, films deposited from single component organosilicon feedstocks possess limited latitude in alteration of deposited film characteristics, such as the radiation frequency of photosensitivity and selectivity during etch processes.
Organosilicons have been used to produce various types of films, as disclosed by the following references.
Sachdev et al. teaches the deposition of an organosilicon film by plasma polymerizations. However, the deposited film is not itself photosensitive. Sachdev et al. uses the film as a barrier and uses a conventional spun-on resist to pattern it. Sachdev et al. does not teach the use of a plasma-deposited film as a photoresist; a conventional photoresist is used to pattern the plasma-deposited film, which is then used as an etch mask. Endo et al. describes the plasma deposition of a silicon carbide layer. A single organosilicon gas that may react with other materials is used to deposit a durable silicon carbide type of film. Furthermore, Endo et al. does not teach film photosensitivity. Nakayama et al. discloses the use of an oxygen plasma to modify a silicon surface to allow a conventional photoresist to adhere to the material. The conventional photoresist is then used to pattern the silicon layer. A photosensitive organosilicon film is not deposited. There is no plasma depositing of a film; the oxygen plasma is used to modify the surface structure which is followed with conventional techniques for patterning the silicon film. Geisler et al. describes a method of plasma-coating a plastic substrate using organosiloxanes and an inert gas to facilitate adhesion of a reflective layer of a metal with minimal surface damage to the substrate. None of these references teach a selective wetting material formed from a photosensitive plasma polymerized organosilicon film produced from a two-component plasma reaction wherein the first component comprises a silicon donor that is non-carbon containing and non-oxygenated and the second component comprises an organic precursor that is non-silicon containing and non-oxygenated, with selective regions of the film being photo-oxidized to produce a selective wetting material that when brought in contact with a liquid, the liquid will selectively wet and adhere to the photo-oxidized regions of the film, and will not adhere to the non-photo-oxidized regions of the film.
A conventional circuit board is produced by depositing an electrically conductive material, such as silver, on the surface of a substrate (or circuit board) formed from an electrically insulated material, such as a glass epoxy laminate. Selected regions of the deposited electrically conductive material are removed by etching in a patterning process that can be accomplished by photolithography. The remaining regions of electrically conductive material form the printed conductors on the circuit board. The process is inefficient in that the entire surface of the board is first coated with the electrically conductive material, and then some of the deposited material must be removed to define the printed circuit paths or conductors on the board. Therefore there is the need for a process that can form printed circuits on the board without first blanket coating of the board with the electrically conductive material and then selectively removing regions of the electrically conductive material.
One aspect of the present invention is a process for forming a plasma-deposited selective wetting material on a substrate by forming a photosensitive film on a substrate from a two-component plasma reaction. The first component comprises a non-carbon containing and non-oxygenated silicon donor and the second component comprises a non-silicon containing and non-oxygenated organic precursor. The film is patterned with radiated electromagnetic energy through a mask in the presence of oxygen to produce a selective wetting material that has one or more photo-oxidized regions. When the selective wetting material is placed in contact with a liquid, the liquid selectively wets and adheres to the photo-oxidized regions and does not adhere to the non-photo-oxidized regions.
When the liquid is an electrically conductive material, the deposition and drying of the liquid adhering to the photo-oxidized regions can form printed circuits on a circuit board.
When the non-photo-oxidized regions of the selective wetting material are removed and the substrate is an optically transparent material, the substrate with the remaining photo- oxidized regions covered by the deposited and dried liquid can form a photomask.
Additional objects, advantages and other useful features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in this art from the following description, wherein a preferred embodiment of this invention is shown and described, simply by way of illustration of one of the modes best suited to carrying out the invention. As will be realized, the invention is capable of other and different embodiments, and its several details are capable of modifications in various, obvious aspects, all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the description is to be regarded as illustrative in nature, and not restrictive. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the processes particularly pointed out and claimed in the appended claims.

Plasma deposited selective wetting material


A stator for an electrical machine is proposed that has a stator winding (45) that is held by a stator core (10) that is formed into an annular shape. The stator core (10) has grooves (14) and teeth (13) on its radially inwardly oriented circumference. The stator core (10) is composed of layered stator sheet metal lamellae (11), the direction of the layers defining an axial direction (a). It is provided that at least a first stator sheet metal lamella (20) has a higher flexural strength than second stator sheet metal lamellae (21), the at least one first stator sheet metal lamella (20) having a thickness (dLE) in the axial direction (a) that does not exceed 4 mm.

An electrical machine has been known in the related art for a long time, the stator of which is manufactured using the "strip packet technique". To manufacture said stator, individual sheet metal lamellae are first stamped out, then a certain number of said sheet metal lamellae is stacked, one on top of the other, until the desired axial width of the core is obtained. Said layered sheet metal lamellae form the stator core, which therefore has parallel teeth and grooves that are common for a stator. A prewound core winding is available in approximately flat form and is inserted in the grooves of the essentially flat core. The assembly composed of core and core winding is then bent into a round shape, resulting in a common hollow-cylindrical stator. After the assembly composed of stator core and winding is bent into a round shape, the two ends are joined.
To facilitate bending, it is desirable to attach an end lamella on at least one end face of the stator core, which has a higher rigidity than other lamellae referred to as "main lamellae". The stator is prevented from being spread in the area of the stator teeth.
For reasons of energy, production engineering and handling, it is not possible to use just any stator sheet metal lamella that is more rigid. The consequences of a more rigid end lamella are also highly dependent on the sizing of the electrical machine.


The invention relates to a covering for an airbag having at least one airbag that is articulated on the stationary covering region surrounding the airbag cover by a textile hinge, wherein the airbag cover and the covering region surrounding the airbag cover are formed from a sheet material made of plastic, the rear face of which supports a textile surface element having sacrificial threads (2) that extend substantially at right angles to the hinge axis (3) and tear in the region (A) of the hinge when the airbag is activated, and wherein the textile surface element also has stop threads that, when the airbag is activated, allow the airbag cover to pivot about the hinge axis (3) without tearing in the region of the hinge in order to hold the airbag cover securely after activation of the airbag, wherein the non-tearing stop threads are arranged such that said threads are compressed in the form of corrugations and/or loops only in region (A) of the hinge and therefore have a greater length there than in the regions (B) outside the hinge and the region compressed in the form of corrugations and/or loops is located in the plane of the textile surface element.

The approach is well known in which the flat textile element of a plastic cover panel of an airbag is provided across its entire length with stop filaments that are corrugated so as to be able to expand when the cover panel covering the airbag swings away as the airbag is activated and is thereby held in place by the stop filaments, thereby preventing the cover panel from flying into the passenger compartment. What has been found, however, with this approach is that the stop filaments require a considerable quantity of filament material.


A method and system is provided for autogenic generation of a subterranean fluid flow, such as may be applied, for example, to enhance oil recovery or pollution abatement. In general, the method and system includes placing an electromagnetic apparatus down the borehole of an applicator well, and radiating energy into a permeable formation to achieve displacement flooding effects.

The invention relates to providing subterranean fluid flow within a permeable formation.
In the oil production industry, an oil well is typically drilled hundreds or thousands of feet to reach a permeable formation containing an oil reservoir. In this context, a permeable formation refers to any subterranean media through which a fluid may flow, including but not limited to soils, sands, shales, porous rocks and faults and channels within non-porous rocks. When techniques are used to increase or concentrate the amount of fluid in an area of a reservoir, that area is commonly referred to as an enhanced pool.
During the primary stage of oil production, the forces of gravity and the naturally existing pressure in a reservoir cause a flow of oil to the production well. Thus, primary recovery refers to recovery of oil from a reservoir by means of the energy initially present in the reservoir at the time of discovery. Over a period of time, the natural pressure of a reservoir will decrease as oil is taken from the well. In general, as the pressure differential between the reservoir and the well decreases, the flow of oil to the well also decreases. Eventually, the flow of oil to the well will decrease to a point where the amount of oil available from the well no longer justifies the costs of production, including the costs of removing and transporting the oil. Many factors may contribute to this diminishing flow, including the volume and pressure of the oil reservoir, the structure, permeability and ambient temperature of the formation, and the viscosity, composition and other characteristics of the oil.
As the amount of available oil decreases in the primary stage of recovery, it may be desirable to enhance production through the use of secondary or tertiary stages of production. Secondary recovery generally refers to the injection of secondary energy into the reservoir to enhance oil flow to a production well. Secondary recovery methods include, for example, injecting materials such as steam, air or natural gas into a reservoir to displace oil in the direction of a production well.
Tertiary recovery generally refers to processes that attempt to recover oil beyond the conventional primary and secondary recovery methods. Tertiary processes include such techniques as miscible fluid displacement, microemulsion flooding, thermal methods, and chemical flooding methods. Such methods may be technologically sophisticated and entail considerable financial risk because of the level of financial investment required.
One method of enhancing oil production is to inject a solvent into a reservoir that is miscible both in oil and in the brine waters found in the reservoir. As an example, natural gas may be injected into a reservoir at a sustained pressure to cause the gas to diffuse into the reservoir and extract some of the hydrocarbons from the oil. The resulting light hydrocarbon solvent is generally miscible with both the oil and the brine found in the reservoir.
Generally, as a miscible solvent passes through a reservoir, some of the oil is displaced in an accumulating oil bank in the path of the solvent, and some of the oil is dissolved in the solvent. The mixture of oil and solvent may be referred to as a miscible bank. As the miscible bank moves through the formation, it increases in oil content, and the outer boundary of the miscible bank may eventually be indistinguishable from the oil bank being displaced.
An advantage to the miscible solvent approach is that such solvents can generally wash oil from formations that might otherwise remain clinging to a formation if non-miscible displacement fluids were used. In some applications, it may be desirable to conduct secondary or tertiary reservoir injections in stages. For example, an initial miscible solvent injection stage may be followed by subsequent sweeping stages where gasses or nonmiscible liquids are injected to displace the oil-enriched solvent that may remain in the formation.
Steam flooding is another technique that may be used to enhance recovery. With this technique, steam is injected into a reservoir to displace the oil and increase the reservoir temperature, thereby providing a decrease in the viscosity of the oil. Some of the steam diffusing into the reservoir may also serve to distill lighter hydrocarbon fractions from the oil, resulting in a miscible bank preceding the injected steam. In addition, some of the steam may form a nonmiscible displacement bank as it condenses to water. The advantages of steam flooding include relatively inexpensive production costs, and the fact that steam carries a large amount of heat per unit of mass.
Another method of enhancing recovery involves heating a reservoir at the site of a production well to create a heated zone of oil. The advantages of such processes may include higher reservoir pressure, lower oil viscosity, and causing the oil to swell due to heat effects. Such methods may be referred to in this respect as in situ heating methods. As an example, a heated production zone may be achieved by periodically injecting steam into the reservoir at the production well.
In general, recovery enhancement techniques can be used either individually, successively or in combination. However, typically even where secondary or tertiary recovery methods are implemented, there eventually comes a point when the production available from a well has diminished below a threshold economic level, and the costs of production are no longer justified. Such a situation may be exacerbated where the implementation of enhanced recovery methods has imposed a significant increase to production costs.
Thus, due to the economic balance between diminishing oil recovery and the expense of enhanced production, in many cases, well production may be discontinued where there is still a substantial amount of oil remaining in a reservoir, but it is simply too difficult or expensive to produce.

Radio frequency steam flood and gas drive for enhanced subterranean recovery


A structure of plate positioning arrangement is disclosed. The structure of plate positioning arrangement comprises a shank extending at a bottom surface of a head of the positioning element, and a cap produced through a plastic injection molding process for covering and surrounding the edge of the head is for providing a receiving space below the head for fitting a fixing element. A through space is formed at a central region of the fixing element for fitting the shank of a positioning element, wherein the shank is fixed with a resilient element. Thus the cap is capability to allow the positioning element move in the same way within the through space of the fixing element.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the structure of plate positioning arrangement, and more particularly relates to a cap made of a plastic material for covering around the head of a positioning element, for providing a horizontal motion capability to the positioning element within a through space of a fixing element after the positioning element secured by the fixing element.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to continuous development of the industry, the process and manufacture of many products require various work facilities, for example, lathe, miller, driller and flusher facilities. However, the mechanical device or speed adjustment device of these facilities is usually located inside a case. For the convenience of maintenance or speed adjustment during the operation of the facility, a movable plate is provided on the outer case of these devices so that the maintenance personnel may get access the devices. The conventional scheme of fitting such a movable plate use a plurality of threaded elements to directly fix the movable plate onto the facility. However, such kind of fitting scheme has defects due to the negligence of the operator. Besides, the threaded element is easy to be misplaced while disassembling the movable plate. Therefore, an improved method for avoiding such a defect has been disclosed as by using a positioning element, which comprises a cap, a threaded portion and a positioning set for buckling to apertures of the movable plate, and the threaded portion is for securing onto another plate. When disassembling the movable plate, the positioning element can be still secured to the apertures of the movable plate by the positioning set, thus the positioning element will not be misplaced. However, since the cap of this conventional positioning element is made of a metal, therefore a pressing process is required to substantially secure the threaded portion within the positioning portion after fitting the threaded portion into the positioning portion of the cap. For enhancing the grip for allowing the operator to use his/her hand to turn the cap for assembling or disassembling of the movable plate, there is a need for performing a gripping process on the outer flange of the cap by using a gripping facility. Because the cap is made of a metal, and therefore the color of such cap is merely metallic and usually mismatch with that of the movable plate or facility. Furthermore, if the operator uses greasy hands while assembling or disassembling the movable plate, it would be difficult to turn the cap. Besides, the process for manufacturing the conventional positioning structure is more complicated, and therefore to produce such positioning element is accordingly more costly and difficult.
Accordingly, in the view of the foregoing, the present inventor makes a detailed study of related art to evaluate and consider, and uses years of accumulated experience in this field, and through several experiments, to create a new structure of plate position structure having the features of easily visible together with better appearance of the present invention. The present invention provides an innovated cost effective which can manufactured using a more simplified process.
In accordance with the above objects and other advantages of the present invention as broadly embodied and described herein, the present invention provides a structure of plate positioning arrangement comprising a shank extending at a bottom surface of a head of the positioning element, and a cap produced through a plastic injection molding process for covering and surrounding the edge of the head for providing a receiving space below the head is for fitting a fixing element. A through space is formed at a central region of the fixing element for fitting the shank of a positioning element, wherein the shank is fixed with a resilient element. Thus the cap has a capability to allow the positioning element to move in the same way within the through space of the fixing element.
According to an aspect of the present invention a gripping portion at the flange of the head of the positioning element is provided for securing the positioning element onto the wall of the receiving space of the cap so as to avoid idling of the cap during operation.
According to another aspect of the present invention is to dispose a buckling portion around the head of the fixing element, and a buckling protrusion at an inner side of the bottom edge that is located in the receiving space of the cap. The buckling portion of the fixing element is for bearing on the buckling protrusion of the cap to prevent from slipping.

Structure of plate positioning arrangement


A radiation imaging system includes a radiation imaging cassette and a console device. A communication mode between the cassette and the console device is switchable between a wired mode and a wireless mode. Due to shortage of a battery of the cassette, the communication mode is switched to the wired mode to start charging the battery and send image data from the cassette to the console device through a cable. The console device has first and second judging sections. The first judging section judges whether or not a charge level of the battery exceeds a predetermined threshold value. The second judging section judges whether or not radiography is in progress. If it is judged that the charge level of the battery exceeds the predetermined threshold value and the radiography is not in progress, a window that indicates permission for switching to the wireless mode is displayed on a monitor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation imaging system having a console device and a radiation imaging cassette that contains a flat panel detector in a cassette casing, and a radiation imaging program.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
In a medical field, a radiation imaging system that uses radiation such as X-rays is widely known. The radiation imaging system is constituted of a radiation generation device for applying the radiation to a patient's body part to be examined, and a radiation detector for detecting the radiation that has passed through the body part. As the radiation detector, an IP cassette containing an imaging plate (IP) and a flat panel detector (FPD), which has the advantage that can directly convert the radiation into image data, are in practical use. Moreover, a portable FPD cassette that contains the FPD in a casing of the same shape and size as that of the IP cassette is recently developed to allow loading of the FPD on the conventional radiation imaging system.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2009-297187 and 2005-006979 disclose the radiation imaging system that is provided with the FPD cassette having a battery and an antenna and a console device for communicating with the FPD cassette by wireless. Besides, a cable is connectable between the FPD cassette and the console device, to carry out communication and charge of the battery thereby.
In this radiation imaging system, a communication mode of the image data from the FPD cassette to the console device is selectively switchable between a wireless mode and a wired mode as occasion demands. The wireless mode is selected in the case of giving high priority to flexibility in handling of the FPD cassette, while the wired mode is selected in the case of giving high priority to stability in communication.
When the wireless mode is selected, the battery supplies the FPD cassette with drive power. If the FPD cassette has almost run out of the battery and loses the ability of sending the image data by wireless, switching from the wireless mode to the wired mode allows the FPD cassette to send the image data through the cable. Also, the FPD cassette can get the drive power and charge the battery through the cable.
The FPD cassette is generally used in the wireless mode without plugging the cable from a handling viewpoint. However, as described above, when the FPD cassette is almost run out of the battery or is used in an unstable communication environment such as a ward of a hospital, a doctor sometimes plugs the cable to switch from the wireless mode to the wired mode as a temporary measure.
In such a case, it is desirable to return the communication mode from the wired mode to the wireless mode as soon as the battery charge is completed or a communication condition is recovered. However, the doctor cannot know the time of completion of the battery charge or recovery of the communication condition. If the cable is unplugged while the radiation imaging system processes data through the cable, operation of the system becomes unstable. Especially, in the system that follows an operation sequence in which a preview image is sent before sending an actual image, the doctor tends to have wrong idea that all processes have been completed at the time of checking the preview image, and hence easily unplugs the cable during transmission of the actual image.
The majority of doctors want to switch the communication mode at a break of radiography. Taking the case of successively carrying out the radiography of plural patients as an example, if the doctor knows that the communication mode is switchable to the wireless mode in the middle of the radiography of the certain patient, the doctor often makes continuation of the radiography a higher priority than switching of the communication mode. At the time of finishing the radiography of that patient, the doctor easily forgets about switching to the wireless mode and starts the radiography of the next patient. As a result, the doctor easily loses an opportunity for return to the wireless mode.

Radiation imaging system having radiation imaging cassette and console device, and radiation imaging program


Measurement of circulating ST2 and natriuretic peptide (e.g., NT-proBNP) concentrations is useful for the prognostic evaluation of subjects, in particular for the prediction of adverse clinical outcomes, e.g., mortality, transplantation, and heart failure.

Clinical evaluation for determination of risk of mortality due to heart failure may not always be straightforward. The decision whether to treat a subject aggressively or conservatively, or to admit the subject as an inpatient or to send them home, may sometimes be made solely on a physician's clinical assessment or "gut feeling" as to the individual's actual condition. A formula for determining a subject's likelihood of mortality would significantly enhance the physician's ability to make informed treatment decisions, improve patient care and reduce overall healthcare costs. A multi-marker approach for risk stratification has been generally proposed for patients with acute coronary syndromes, see, e.g., Sabatine et al., Circulation 105(15): 1760-3 (2002)), and methods for predicting risk of a major adverse cardiac event are describe in U.S. Pat. No. 8,090,562.


A wire electrical discharge machine to cut a workpiece by generating an electrical discharge in a dielectric working fluid between wire electrodes arranged in parallel and the workpiece includes: a work tank that stores the dielectric working fluid; a Z-axis stage that is disposed in a lower portion of the work tank and moves the workpiece in a Z-axis direction that is a vertical direction; a pillar that extends upward from the Z-axis stage and has an upper end portion located above the highest level of a fluid level of the dielectric working fluid in the work tank; an adjuster that is installed downward from a portion of the pillar located above the highest level of the fluid level, is disposed above the highest level of the fluid level, and adjusts the position or posture of the workpiece in a direction other than the vertical direction.

In a wire electrical discharge machine that cuts a workpiece into a plurality of pieces at a time by generating an electrical discharge in a dielectric working fluid between wire electrodes stretched in parallel and the workpiece, an adjuster that moves the workpiece in a direction other than a vertical direction or an adjuster that changes the posture of the workpiece is included in order to cut the workpiece in a specified crystal orientation. Hereinafter, both are collectively referred to as an adjuster.
The workpiece needs to be immersed in a work tank filled with the dielectric working fluid, and the adjuster also needs to be immersed in the dielectric working fluid. However, in the case where the adjuster is immersed in the dielectric working fluid, it is difficult to make only a movable portion a waterproof structure so that the entire adjuster needs to have a waterproof structure. Making the entire complicated adjuster a waterproof structure is difficult and leads to an increase in cost. Note that even if the adjuster is made of a rustproof material such as stainless steel, surface oxidation, electrolytic corrosion, and adhesion of rust cannot be avoided under the environment in which the adjuster is immersed in the dielectric working fluid, so that durability thereof is reduced. Therefore, the problems such as the increase in cost and the reduction in durability occur in the case where the adjuster is immersed in the dielectric working fluid.
Patent Literature 1 discloses a wire saw in which a workpiece is attached to a lower portion of a workpiece supporting mechanism, a working fluid is supplied onto a wire while the wire is caused to run, and in this state, the workpiece is cut by being pressed against and brought into contact with the wire by the workpiece supporting mechanism. When the mechanism disclosed in Patent Literature 1 is applied to the wire electrical discharge machine, the adjustment mechanism can be disposed outside the work tank and thus need not have a waterproof structure.


A hollow sealing structure includes a substrate, an element part provided on a first surface of the substrate, a cap that covers the element part, and a resin layer that covers the cap. The substrate includes a positioning part positioning the cap. The cap includes a fixation part being arranged at the positioning part and fixing the cap on the substrate. The resin layer is connected to the positioning part and the fixation part.

Communication devices used in a high frequency band such as BS/CS broadcasting devices, microwave communication devices, and radar devices are increasingly used in recent years. In general, with a higher frequency, energy attenuation of electromagnetic wave becomes greater when propagating through a substance having a high relative permittivity. As a result, there is a problem of deteriorated communication performance. For this reason, in an electronic component of a communication device, there has been employed an airtight sealing structure in which an air layer, which has a low relative permittivity, is formed around an element part of an electronic component to thereby seal it in a hollow space, in order to sufficiently bring out its high frequency characteristic.
In electronic components, there are required various types of characteristics including high performance, superior reliability, miniaturization, and cost reduction. In addition to improvements to the element part itself, there is a need for improving the package that seals an element in a hollow space (hollow sealing structure). Examples of requirements for a hollow sealing structure include superior air tightness, cost reduction, and ensuring sufficient mounting area.
As a hollow sealing structure that seals an element part in a hollow space, for example, a hollow sealing structure proposed in Patent Document 1 includes a substrate, an element part provided on the substrate, a resin cap that covers and hollow-seals the element part, and an adhesion part that adheres the resin cap onto the substrate. The resin cap has a fixation film.
A configuration proposed in Patent Document 2 includes a substrate, an element part provided on the substrate, and a cap that covers and hollow-seals the element part. On the substrate, there is provided a step for positioning the cap.
Moreover, a configuration proposed in Patent Document 3 includes a substrate with a hole formed therein, an element part provided on the substrate, and a cap that hollow-seals the element part and that has a projection part provided thereon. The projection part of the cap is arranged in the hole of the substrate and fixes the cap.