For making a polycarbonate resin resistant to flames with any of non-halogen and non-phosphorus compounds, provided is a polycarbonate resin composition having good flame retardancy and having good impact resistance, high stiffness and good chemical resistance. The flame-retardant polycarbonate resin composition comprises a resin mixture of (A) from 1 to 99% by weight of a polycarbonate and (B) from 1 to 99% by weight of a thermoplastic polyester, and contains, relative to 100 parts by weight of the resin mixture, (C) from 0.01 to 3 parts by weight of a polyfluoro-olefin resin, and (D) from 1 to 400 parts by weight of a polycarbonate-polyorganosiloxane copolymer and/or (E) from 0.1 to 10 parts by weight of a functional silicone compound.

The present invention relates to a polycarbonate resin composition, more precisely, to a polycarbonate resin composition not containing halogen and phosphorus but containing a minor additive to exhibit good flame retardancy and have good impact resistance, high stiffness, good melt flowability and good chemical resistance.
As having the advantages of impact resistance, heat resistance and good electric properties, polycarbonate resins have many applications in various fields of, for example, OA (office automation) appliances, information and communication appliances, other electric and electronic appliances for industrial use and household use, automobile parts and building materials. As a rule, polycarbonate resins are self-extinguishable. However, some fields of typically OA appliances, information and communication appliances, and other electric and electronic appliances for industrial use and household use require high flame retardancy, for which are used various flame retardants to improve their flame retardancy.
For improving the flame retardancy of polycarbonate resins, halogen-containing flame retardants such as bisphenol A halides and halogenated polycarbonate oligomers have been used along with a flame retardation promoter such as antimony oxide, as their flame-retarding ability is good. However, with the recent tendency toward safety living with polycarbonate resin products and toward environmental protection from discarded and incinerated wastes of the products, the market requires flame retardation of polycarbonate resins with non-halogen flame retardants. Given that situation, polycarbonate resin compositions with phosphorus-containing organic flame retardants, especially organic phosphate compounds that are non-halogen flame retardants have been proposed, and their flame retardancy is good. Such phosphorus-containing organic flame retardants serve also as a plasticizer, and various methods of using them for making polycarbonate resins resistant to flames have been proposed.
However, in order to make polycarbonate resins have good flame retardancy by adding thereto an organic phosphate compound, a relatively large amount of the compound must be added to the resins. In general, polycarbonate resins require relatively high molding temperatures, and their melt viscosity is high. Therefore, for molding them into thin-walled and large-sized moldings, the molding temperature will have to be more higher. For these reasons, organic phosphate compounds often cause some problems when added to such polycarbonate resins, though their flame-retarding ability is good. For example, organic phosphate compounds often corrode molds used for molding resins containing them, and generate gas to have some unfavorable influences on the working environments and even on the appearance of the moldings. Another problem with organic phosphate compounds is that, when the moldings containing them are left under heat or in high-temperature and high-humidity conditions, the compounds lower the impact strength of the moldings and yellow the moldings. In addition, polycarbonate resin compositions containing organic phosphate compounds are not stable under heat, and therefore do not meet the recent requirement for recycling resin products. This is still another problem with organic phosphate compounds.
On the other hand, for machine parts which will be often stained with oil or copying ink having scattered therearound and for products that will be coated with grease or the like, resin materials are further required to have good chemical resistance in addition to flame retardancy.
To meet the market requirements, proposed is another technique of adding silicone compounds to polycarbonate resins to make the resins have flame retardancy. In this, silicone compounds added to the resins do not give toxic gas when fired. For example, (1) Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 139964/1998 discloses a flame retardant that comprises a silicone resin having a specific structure and a specific molecular weight.
(2) Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 45160/1976, 318069/1989, 306265/1994, 12868/1996, 295796/1996, and Japanese Patent Publication No. 48947/1991 disclose silicone-containing, flame-retardant polycarbonate resin compositions. The flame retardancy level of the products in (1) is high in some degree, but the impact resistance thereof is often low. The technology of (2) differs from that of (1) in that the silicones used in (2) do not act as a flame retardant by themselves, but are for improving the dripping resistance of resins, and some examples of silicones for that purpose are mentioned. Anyhow, in (2), the resins indispensably require an additional flame retardant of, for example, organic phosphate compounds or metal salts of Group 2 of the Periodic Table. Another problem with the flame-retardant polycarbonate resin compositions in (2) is that the flame retardant added thereto worsens the moldability and even the physical properties of the resin compositions and their moldings.
Also known is a flame-retardant polycarbonate resin composition that comprises a polycarbonate resin, a polycarbonate-polyorganosiloxane copolymer-containing resin and a fibril-forming polytetrafluoroethylene (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 81620/1996). Even though its polyorganosiloxane content is low, falling within a defined range, the composition exhibits good flame retardancy. Though its flame retardancy is good, however, the composition is problematic in that its impact resistance intrinsic to polycarbonate resins is often low.
For improving the chemical resistance of polycarbonate resins, it is generally known to add a thermoplastic polyester to the resins. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 181265/1999 discloses a polycarbonate resin composition prepared by adding a polyester resin, an alkali metal or alkaline earth metal perfluoroalkanesulfonate, a fluororesin and a silicone, to a polycarbonate resin. However, since its high-temperature thermal stability in dwell time in an extruder or the like is often poor, the resin composition is difficult to recycle.
The present invention has been made in the current situation as above, and its object is to provide a non-halogen and non-phosphorus, flame-retardant polycarbonate resin composition of which the flame retardancy is good and which has good impact resistance, high stiffness, good melt flowability and good chemical resistance.
I, the present inventor have assiduously studied, and, as a result, have found that, when a thermoplastic polyester, a polyfluoro-olefin resin, and a polycarbonate-polyorganosiloxane copolymer and/or a specific silicone compound are added to a polycarbonate resin, then the above-mentioned object of the invention can be effectively attained. On the basis of this finding, we have completed the present invention.
Specifically, the invention is summarized as follows:
1. A polycarbonate resin composition which comprises a resin mixture of (A) from 1 to 99% by weight of a polycarbonate and (B) from 1 to 99% by weight of a thermoplastic polyester, and contains, relative to 100 parts by weight of the resin mixture, (C) from 0.01 to 3 parts by weight of a polyfluoro-olefin resin, and (D) from 1 to 400 parts by weight of a polycarbonate-polyorganosiloxane copolymer and/or (E) from 0.1 to 10 parts by weight of a functional silicone compound, and of which the silicone content derived from the component (D) and/or the component (E) falls between 0.5 and 10% by weight of the composition.
2. The polycarbonate resin composition of above 1, which further contains (F) from 1 to 50 parts by weight of an inorganic filler.
3. The polycarbonate resin composition of above 1 or 2, wherein the functional silicone compound for the component (E) has a basic structure of a general formula (1):
R1a R2bSiO(4xe2x88x92axe2x88x92b)/2xe2x80x83xe2x80x83(1)
wherein R1 indicates a functional group, R2 indicates a hydrocarbon residue having from 1 to 12 carbon atoms, and a and b are numbers satisfying the relations of 0 less than axe2x89xa63, 0xe2x89xa6b less than 3, and 0 less than a+bxe2x89xa63.
4. The polycarbonate resin composition of any of above 1 to 3, wherein the functional group in the functional silicone compound for the component (E) is selected from an alkoxy group, a vinyl group, a hydrogen residue and an epoxy group.
5. The polycarbonate resin composition of any of above 1 to 4, wherein the functional group in the functional silicone compound for the component (E) is a methoxy group or a vinyl group.
6. The polycarbonate resin composition of any of above 1 to 5, wherein the polyfluoro-olefin resin for the component (C) is a fibril-forming polytetrafluoroethylene having a mean molecular weight of at least 500,000.
7. The polycarbonate resin composition of any of above 1 to 6, wherein the polycarbonate for the component (A) has a viscosity-average molecular weight of from 15,000 to 20,000.
8. The polycarbonate resin composition of any of above 2 to 7, wherein the inorganic filler for the component (F) is talc having a mean particle size of from 0.2 to 20 xcexcm.
9. Housings or parts of electric and electronic appliances, which comprise the polycarbonate resin composition of any of above 1 to 8.


Provided is a sheet conveying device capable of suppressing the recurrence of overlapped feeding in accordance with the detection of overlapped feeding. The sheet conveying device includes a paper-supply roller and a conveying roller. A sheet-detecting unit detects a leading edge position of a sheet. An overlapped-feeding-detecting unit detects overlapped-feeding of sheets. An overlapped-feeding-distance-calculating unit, based on detection results, calculates an overlapped-feeding distance in which sheets are overlapped. A conveyance-control unit causes the paper-supply roller to stop at a timing when a position separated a set length in a sheet-conveyance direction from a sheet trailing edge reaches the paper-supply roller. The conveyance-control unit, in a case where detection of overlapped feeding by the overlapped-feeding-detecting unit occurs a plurality of times, extends the set length based on the overlapped-feeding distance.

The present disclosure relates to a sheet conveying device that conveys sheets such as documents, recording paper and the like.
Conventionally, an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, printer and the like includes a sheet conveying device for feeding recording paper as a sheet, one by one to an image-forming unit. In such a sheet conveying devide, a technique for detecting overlapped feeding using a sensor such as an ultrasonic sensor for detecting overlapped feeding has been proposed.

Sheet conveying device for conveying sheets such as documents, recording paper, and the like


A discharge tube lighting apparatus is used to drive a plurality of discharge tubes. The apparatus includes a balance coil having a winding input end and a plurality of winding output ends to which the discharge tubes are connected individually; a power section for supplying ac current to the winding input end of the balance coil; and a control section for detecting a peak value of detection voltages corresponding to voltages at the winding output ends of the balance coil and for stopping the supply of the ac current from the power section when the peak value of the detection voltages is higher than a predetermined value.

This invention relates to a discharge tube lighting apparatus, a light source apparatus, and a display apparatus, and more particularly to a discharge tube lighting apparatus which includes a balance coil for driving a large number of discharge tubes to emit light using a smaller number of inverter circuits and a light source apparatus and a display apparatus which use a discharge tube lighting apparatus.
In recent years, image display apparatus which make use of liquid crystal are used popularly. A display apparatus of the type described requires a light source apparatus for irradiating light from the rear side of a liquid crystal panel, and such a light source apparatus as just mentioned is usually called backlight. Together with increase in scale of a display apparatus, increase in scale also of the backlight which composes the display apparatus has proceeded, and a discharge tube is used for the backlight. However, it is not efficient to drive a plurality of discharge tubes individually by means of driving circuits provided individually for the discharge tubes. Thus, a discharge tube lighting apparatus which uses one inverter circuit to drive a plurality of discharge tubes to emit light is used. A light source apparatus that a discharge tube section including a plurality of discharge tubes is driven by such a discharge tube lighting apparatus as described above is used. Further, in a backlight of an increased scale, a plurality of inverters are used, and a backlight is formed from a number of discharge tubes greater than the number of inverters.
Where a plurality of discharge lamps are driven to emit light by a single inverter circuit in this manner, there is a problem that electric current of different magnitudes flows through the discharge tubes. To solve this problem, an apparatus which includes a balance coil has been proposed and is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Sho 56-86495.
Where a balance coil is used, if one of discharge tubes does not discharge, then an excessively high voltage is generated across windings of the balance coil and damages the windings of the balance coil. Therefore, a countermeasure which includes a diac disposed in parallel to each winding to protect the winding is reported. Also a system which detects an anomaly of a discharge apparatus from current flowing through a photo-coupler when a voltage generated in any one of windings exceeds a breakdown voltage of a Zener diode has been proposed and is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-335443.
An example of a balance coil is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2005-317253 and shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B. FIG. 11B shows a schematic view of the balance coil 30 in an assembled state, and FIG. 11A shows, in plan, a bobbin which composes the balance coil 30. Referring to FIGS. 11A and 11B, the bobbin 20 is shaped such that a winding frame thereof is divided into two winding regions by a main partition 22 at an intermediate portion thereof and an auxiliary partition 24 is provided in each of the winding regions so that the winding region is divided into a plurality of (two in the arrangement shown) sections. The two windings are wound separately from each other in the different winding regions on a single bobbin having the main partition 22 formed at an intermediate portion thereof, and each of the windings is wound divisionally in the two sections divided by the auxiliary partition 24. The bobbin 20 is a unitary molded article made of an electric insulating material. Thus, the two windings are provided separately from each other. A magnetic core 28 is combined with the bobbin which has terminals 26 to assemble the balance coil 30. While, in the arrangement shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B, one auxiliary partition is provided in each of the winding regions so that the balance coil 30 has a two-section structure. However, two auxiliary partitions may be provided in each of the winding regions so that the balance coil 30 may have a three-section structure. Naturally, each winding region may be divided into a greater number of sections. However, the number of sections is determined taking the number of windings, the winding wire diameter, and so forth into consideration. The magnetic core is structured such that two E type cores made of a high-permeability magnetic material such as a NiZn type ferrite material or a MnZn type ferrite material are assembled such that the leg portions thereof are disposed in an opposing relationship with each other with ends thereof held in contact with each other.
As described hereinabove, where a balance coil is used, the subject of the current balance of discharge tubes is solved. However, if a line connecting from the balance coil to one of the discharge tubes is not connected by breaking of a wiring line pattern, failure in connection of a connector, or the like, then it is supposed that a high voltage is generated in the wiring line of the balance coil which corresponds to the disconnected line. In such an instance, there is the possibility that a discharge phenomenon may occur between wiring patterns, between the windings of the balance coil, or between the wiring and the core which form a magnetic circuit, whereupon a stench is given off, the balance coil may burn out, or a printed circuit board may be carbonized.
Where the countermeasure described above against such a subject as just described that a diac is disposed in parallel to each of windings is adopted, a high cost is required for the countermeasure and merely the subject of protection of windings for a predetermined period of time can be solved. However, application of a voltage to the diac continues for a long period of time, there is the possibility that the diac may be damaged, resulting in loss of the protection of the same. Further, a detection circuit which uses a photo-coupler can merely detect an abnormal voltage across a winding of a balance coil, but no measures after detection of an abnormal voltage is taken.
It is desirable to provide a discharge tube lighting apparatus, a light source apparatus, and a display apparatus to surely solve the above-mentioned problems by low cost.

Discharge tube lighting apparatus, light source apparatus, and display apparatus


The present invention relates to a polycarbonate resin composition comprising (A) 100 parts by weight of a polycarbonate resin and (B) 0.001 to 20 parts by weight of a siloxane compound which is a polyorganosiloxane having such a structure that at least (1) an aromatic hydrocarbon group, (2) an aliphatic or aromatic organic group having at least one carboxylic acid ester linkage, ether linkage or mixture thereof, and (3) a phosphorus atom-containing group, are bonded to the silicon atoms therein.

The present invention relates to a polycarbonate resin composition and more particularly to a polycarbonate resin composition comprising a polycarbonate resin and a siloxane compound and having excellent transparency and fluidity.
Thermoplastic resins, especially polycarbonate resins are used for a wide range of application because of their many advantageous properties such as high mechanical strength, impact strength, heat resistance, excellent electrical properties and transparency. These resins, however, have the disadvantage of being usually poor in moldability due to their high melting temperature and high viscosity in the molten state.
It is generally known to improve fluidity of polycarbonate resins by reducing their molecular weight, but this method involves the problem of adversely affecting the mechanical properties, particularly impact resistance of the resins.
Attempts have been made to blend various types of plasticizers or other resins for improving fluidity of polycarbonate resins.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (KOKAI) No. 55-18406 proposes blending of a cyclic siloxane compound, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (KOKAI) No. 54-100453 teaches addition of a siloxy-oxyalkylene block copolymer, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (KOKAI) No. 3-79626 discloses a method comprising copolymerization of the silicone chains to a polycarbonate, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (KOKAI) No. 3-84028 proposes a method using a polydimethylsiloxane-added isopropenylphenol as polycarbonate chain terminator, and Japanese Patent No. 3,090,764 discloses a method which comprises reacting a both-end epoxy-terminated organopolysiloxane and a polycarbonate. Any of these proposed methods, however, has its own problems, such as unsatisfactory effect, sacrifice in transparency, mechanical properties, heat resistance, etc., and expensiveness.
An object of the present invention is to provide a polycarbonate resin composition having excellent transparency and fluidity.
In the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a polycarbonate resin composition comprising (A) 100 parts by weight of a polycarbonate resin and (B) 0.001 to 20 parts by weight of a siloxane compound which is a polyorganosiloxane having such a structure that at least (1) an aromatic hydrocarbon group, (2) an aliphatic or aromatic organic group having at least one carboxylic acid ester linkage, ether linkage or mixture thereof, and (3) a phosphorus atom-containing group, are bonded to the silicon atoms therein.
In the second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a polycarbonate resin composition comprising (A) 95 to 5 parts by weight of a polycarbonate resin, (C) 5 to 95 parts by weight of a styrene resin, and (B) a siloxane compound in an amount of 0.001 to 20 parts by weight to 100 parts by weight of (A) and (C) combined, said siloxane compound of (B) being the polyorganosiloxane as defined in the first aspect.
In the third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a polycarbonate resin composition comprising (A) 95 to 5 parts by weight of a polycarbonate resin, (D) S to 95 parts by weight of a polyester resin, and (B) a siloxane compound in an amount of 0.001 to 20 parts by weight to 100 parts by weight of (A) and (D) combined, said siloxane compound of (B) being the polyorganosiloxane as defined in the first aspect.
In the fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a polycarbonate resin composition comprising (A) 99.9 to 50 parts by weight of a polycarbonate resin, (E) 0.1 to 50 parts by weight of a copolyester resin comprising at least two kinds of dicarboxylic acids and a diol, with 1 to 50 mol % of said dicarboxylic acids being constituted by naphthalenedicarboxylic acid, and (B) a siloxane compound in an amount of 0.001 to 20 parts by weight to 100 parts by weight of (A) and (E) combined, said siloxane compound of (B) being the polyorganosiloxane as defined in the first aspect.


An amplifier system (120) for radio frequency signals comprises a combination of a phase and gain adjuster (122) and a first amplifier (123) which receives an input signal and generates a first amplified signal having a gain adjusted in accordance with a gain of the phase and gain adjuster. A main amplifier (126) receives the first amplified signal and generates a second amplified signal. A first controller (134) uses a signal derived from the second amplified signal to generate a first control signal. The first control signal is applied to the phase and gain adjuster to control the gain of the phase and gain adjuster. A second controller (170) is connected to receive the first control signal and to generate a second control signal which is applied to the first amplifier. The second control signal is generated to control the first control signal and thereby control noise of the amplifier system. With the second control signal being used to control the first control signal, the phase and gain adjuster (122) can adjust the adjusted signal to make adjustments for a first type of gain variation of the amplifier system.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to linear amplification of RF signals, for example linear amplification of RF signals using a multicarrier amplifier.
2. Related Art and Other Considerations
Amplifiers are typically employed to amplify RF signals in order to provide, e.g., increased power for transmission purposes, particularly transmission over an air interface to a receiver such as (for example) a mobile station (e.g., a user equipment unit (UE) such as a cell phone). But in amplifying an input RF signal, the amplifier may add unwanted components due to non-linear characteristics of the amplifier. Such is particularly true when the type of amplifier utilized is chosen for its power efficiency and/or when plural continuous wave RF input signals are applied to the amplifier. Rather than just producing amplified signals corresponding input signals, such amplifier may also output certain additional signals related to the frequencies of the input signals. In this regard, mathematically the output of the amplifier can be expressed as a DC term; a fundamental term (which includes nominal gain for the input signals and an amplitude distortion); and (typically second and third) harmonics terms. The DC term and harmonics can usually be filtered out rather easily, leaving a passband.
The distortion within the passband is not easily removed, but rather is minimized by designing the overall amplifier system in order to compensate for the non-linear characteristics of the amplifier component per se. Such xe2x80x9clinearizationxe2x80x9d of an amplifier system is important in order to avoid distorted signal trajectories and to avoid errors in determining the logic level of individual digital signals.
There are many techniques that can be used to linearize amplifiers. Among the linearization techniques are the following: Back off (in the case of Class A amplifiers); Feedforward; Vector summation; Predistortion, and Feedback. Several of these linearization techniques are briefly described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,411 to Briffa et al., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. See also, in this regard, Briffa, Mark, xe2x80x9cLinearisation of RF Power Amplifiers,xe2x80x9d 1996.
The feedforward technique is advantageous for broadband linear RF amplifier systems. As mentioned briefly above, since the multicarrier input signal is distorted by the non-linearities in the main amplifier, certain intermodulation (IM) products appear at the output. In essence, the feedforward technique generates an error signal by comparing the input signal with the main amplifier output. The error signal is subtracted from the main amplifier output, leaving a (nearly) distortion-free amplified signal.
FIG. 1 illustrates a simplified, example amplifier system 20 which employs a feedforward technique to minimize distortion. The amplifier system 20 comprises a phase and gain adjuster 22 which receives, via coupler 24, an input signal. Output from the phase and gain adjuster 22 is applied to main power amplifier 26. Output from main power amplifier 26 is applied to a coupler 28, and from one leg of coupler 28 via attenuator 30 to subtractor 32. Both subtractor 32 and first loop controller 34 receive, via delay 36, the input signal as obtained from coupler 24. Output from subtractor 32 is applied both to first loop controller 34 and to a second gain and phase adjuster 40. Output from gain and phase adjuster 40 is applied to auxiliary amplifier 42, whose amplified output is coupled by coupler 44 to line 46. Line 46 emanates from coupler 28 and delay 48. The output signal carried on line 46 at point 51 is applied via coupler 50 and attenuator 52 to third loop controller 54, with third loop controller 54 connected to control gain and phase adjuster 40.
Being in a simplified form for sake of illustration, the amplifier system 20 of FIG. 1 comprises three loops. A first loop of amplifier system 20 includes phase and gain adjuster 22, main power amplifier 26, coupler 28, attenuator 30, and subtractor 32. If the gain and phase shift through phase and gain adjuster 22, main power amplifier 26, and attenuator 30 equals the gain and phase shift through delay 36, an error signal indicative of the distortion of main power amplifier 26 is output by subtractor 32. But in order to equalize gain and phase shift through these paths, first loop controller 34 is used to produce control signals, applied on line 60, to phase and gain adjuster 22.
A second loop of amplifier system 20 comprises attenuator 30, subtractor 32, gain and phase adjuster 40, auxiliary amplifier 42, coupler 44, and delay 48. If the gain and phase shift through attenuator 30, subtractor 32, gain and phase adjuster 40, and auxiliary amplifier 42 equals the gain and phase shift through delay 48, except for a 180 degree phase shift, the distortion is added in opposite phase at coupler 44, thus canceling out the distortion of main power amplifier 26 on line 46. A third loop including attenuator 52 and third loop controller ensures phase and gain equality in these two paths.
Thus, the first loop described above with reference to amplifier system 20 creates an error signal which contains the intermodulation distortion from the main power amplifier 26. The second loop serves to cancel intermodulation distortion at output point 51, while leaving the carriers unaffected.
The characteristics of the components, especially of the power amplifier, can vary considerably due to manufacturing tolerances, temperature changes, and aging. Gain variations of several decibels (dB) are not uncommon. A system as described above can, in principle, accommodate for any gain change, with the phase and gain adjuster compensating for the gain variation. This means, however, that the full dynamic range of the phase and gain adjuster cannot be utilized.
In the above regard, a four-quadrant quadrature phase and gain adjuster has, in general, a relatively high output noise level with the noise being more or less independent of the gain setting. There are exceptions, such as phase and gain adjusters comprising Gallium Arsenide or PIN-diode components. However, the Gallium Arsenide-employing phase and gain adjusters are considerably more expensive than a noiser phase and gain adjuster fabricated with silicon technology. A PIN-diode type phase and gain adjuster may be too slow in its control function for many applications.
In general, a silicon-based phase and gain adjuster typically has 6-10 dB higher output noise than a variable gain amplifier for the same current drain. As an example illustration of this general proposition, assume that a silicon-base phase and gain adjuster in a control range of 6 dB has an output signal to noise ratio of 150 dB at maximum gain. When the gain is 6 dB down, the signal to noise ratio falls to 144 dB. On the other hand, a variable gain amplifier operating in the 6 dB control range would likely have an output signal to noise ratio of 158 dB at maximum gain, and a signal to noise ratio of 152 dB when the gain is 6 dB down.
Undesirable noise attending amplifier performance is significant in various applications, such as (for example) wireless telephony. In this regard, specifications for mobile phone systems typically restrict the amount of noise produced by a transmitter outside the transmitting channel, especially in the receiving band. If the undesired noise can be sufficiently limited, costly and space consuming noise rejection filters can be avoided.
Since the phase and gain adjuster is critical for dynamic range, some other form of gain control has to be employed in order to limit noise. This other form of gain control can be, for example, manufacturing adjustments. Measuring the temperature characteristics and insertion of some element with opposite temperature characteristics can compensate for the variations caused by temperature changes. In some cases, every individual system has to be characterized and calibrated, adding cost to the overall system.
What is needed, therefore, and an object of the present invention, is a simple technique for minimizing or lowering output noise of an amplifier system for radio communications.
An amplifier system for radio frequency signals comprises a combination of a phase and gain adjuster and a first amplifier. The combination receives an input signal and generates a first amplified signal having a gain adjusted in accordance with a gain of the phase and gain adjuster. The first amplifier is preferably a variable gain amplifier. A main amplifier (e.g., second amplifier) receives the first amplified signal and generates a second amplified signal. A first controller uses a signal derived from the second amplified signal to generate a first control signal. The first control signal is applied to the phase and gain adjuster to control the gain of the phase and gain adjuster. A second controller is connected to receive the first control signal and to generate a second control signal which is applied to the first amplifier. The second control signal is generated by the second controller ultimately to control the first control signal and thereby control noise of the amplifier system.
With the second control signal being used to control the first control signal, the phase and gain adjuster (which receives the first control signal) can adjust the adjusted signal to make adjustments for a first type of gain variation of the amplifier system. The second control signal is used to enable the first amplifier to change its first amplifier signal to make adjustments for a second type of gain variation of the amplifier system. For example, the first type of gain variation handled by the phase and gain adjuster can be a fast gain variation, and the second type of gain variation handled by the second amplifier can be a slow gain variation. The second type of gain variation can be, for example, a gain variation attributable to one of amplifier system production differences, aging, and temperature variations.
In one aspect, the second controller generates the second control signal so that the first control signal is maintained essentially constant. In one example mode, the second controller generates the second control signal so that a magnitude of the first control signal is maintained essentially constant. In another example mode, the second controller generates the second control signal so that a sum of absolute values of components the first control signal is maintained essentially constant. In yet another example mode, the second controller generates the second control signal so that an absolute value of a large component of the first control signal is maintained essentially constant.
The amplifier system includes further aspects, such as means for producing an error signal indicative of distortion of the main amplifier, and a distortion compensation circuit which uses the error signal essentially to cancel the distortion of the main amplifier in the second amplified signal (e.g., the output of the main amplifier).

Auxiliary amplifier in feedforward linearization amplification system


A storm water inlet filter system is disclosed which comprises at least two, but preferably three, distinct filter layers. The storm water inlet filter system uses a nested basket structure in which one filter basket fits within another. Preferably a piece of disposable filter media is placed within the internal basket. Polluted water flows first into the inner basket, and onto the disposable filter media. Overflowing water passes into the outermost basket which can remove debris. The storm water inlet filter system can be used with many existing drainage systems, and can be cleaned and the disposable filter media replaced without the use of specialized equipment or training.

Most streets, parking, lots, and just about any other paved surface comprise storm water drains so that liquids, mostly water from rain or melting snow, will drain away instead of accumulating on the surface. Often these surfaces have a slight grade to guide water to the drains.
Of course, water is not the only thing flushed towards the drain. The flowing water washes all types of refuse towards the drain. Leaves, plastic bags, disposable cups, soda cans, and twigs, are all common litter that could flow into a drain, collect in the drain or further down the sewer, and cause a blockage. Often this risk is mitigated by a storm drain grate which covers the drain and blocks the largest refuse from entering the drain.
A simple storm drain grate is, however, largely ineffective at removing smaller materials and wholly ineffective at removing chemical, biological, or petroleum contaminants. Storm water inlet filters are known in the art, but the added maintenance requirements and often prohibitive costs have impeded acceptance.


A system and method for message ordering in a message oriented network. Sequencing groups of messages is an act that is completely orthogonal to the service/port/operation hierarchy of any of the participants. By separating the two, the invention eliminates making message ordering subordinate to the conversation scope, and replaces it with an ordering that is actually orthogonal to the conversation and/or class factory scope.

A problem with existing communications and network systems is that sometimes it is desirable to ensure that messages sent from a sender are processed in the appropriate order by the receiver. In an asynchronous multi-hop network this can sometimes be a difficult task. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, a network environment 100 may include a set of messages S1 (104), S2 (108), that may travel from the sender S (102), via an intermediary I (106), to the receiver R (110):S—>I—>R
It is possible that the intermediary I, for any number of reasons, may re-order the messages it receives such that it forwards message S2 before it forwards message S1. The result is that receiver R would first receive message S2 and would then receive message S1, which is not the order that sender S had originally intended. In the general case the intermediary I can represent an entire network of intermediaries that could include for example generic intermediaries, firewalls, proxies, mail servers and any other system able to relay a message.
In order to work around this problem it is necessary for the sender S to mark its messages in such a manner that R can determine what their intended order is, and then process the messages in that order. A typical solution to this problem is to include an incrementing integer within S's messages such that the first message will start, typically at a value 0, and the next message will have the value 1, and so on. However, anyone implementing this solution quickly discovers that they have a context problem. For example, assume that S and R are participating in two different sets of message exchanges, the first regarding a purchase order and the second regarding a status request. These two exchanges are completely independent of each other and could be safely processed in parallel. However, by definition using a sequence number requires all of the messages to be processed serially, so it will not be possible to process them in parallel if only one integer is used on both conversations.
FIG. 2 shows an example of a message sequence 120 that includes an incrementing integer. For example, consider that the conversation regarding purchase orders generates messages SP1, SP2 and SP3. Consider also that the conversation regarding status requests generates messages SR1 and SR2. If a single message ID is being used, then the messages (122-130) will be stamped as they leave S, generating a sequence something like that shown in FIG. 2:SP1+1, SP2+2, SR1+3, SP3+4, SR2+5where the value "+N" in each message represents the sequence number for that particular message set.
In the above example, even though the SP messages and the SR messages could be processed in parallel (since they have nothing to do with each other), in practice they won't be because the sequence counter requires them to be generated in the order marked.
Another approach that some message ordering solutions take is to allow the sequence number to be associated with some form of conversation ID or similar identifier. FIG. 3 shows an example of a message sequence 140 that uses conversation ID's. When a conversation ID is being used, then the messages (142-150) will be stamped as they leave S, generating a sequence something like that shown in FIG. 3:SP1+C1+1, SP2+C1+2, SR1+C2+1, SP3+C1+3, SR2+C2+2where the value "+CN+Y" in each message represents the conversation ID and sequence number. The sequence number is 'scoped' to the conversation identifier so that it is no longer sufficient to specifyjust, e.g. 'sequence ID 1'—it is now necessary to also specify "sequence ID 1 in conversation 1'. With the introduction of a conversation identifier it is possible for S and R to hold multiple, simultaneous conversations that can be processed completely independently of each other, and wherein each conversation is individually ordered.
At this point traditional messaging algorithms have to perform some cleanup work. Typically, they will specify what the first identifier number is (usually 0) so that the receiver knows when a conversation starts. They will also specify the maximum size of the integer used for the conversation ID. Finally, they will also specify how to behave when the integer rolls over, i.e. if the maximum integer size is 999 then what to do when 999 messages have been sent. The typical behavior is to start counting at 0 but to also include a flag that says "I am a rollover" to indicate that this isn't a 'true' 0 message but is the result of a rollover. Traditional systems will usually also include an explicit way to reset the counter, i.e. a message can be sent with a '0' and a flag saying "I am resetting the counter to 0". There is usually also some form of associated timer whose meaning is 'if you don't receive another message in the conversation by time X then you can forget about the conversation.' This is important in an asynchronous unreliable network where the receiver may fail/crash or the network may stop working, and in these instances it is undesirable to be stuck holding a lot of state that may never be used.
The traditional approaches described above suffer from a number of flaws. First of all, especially when applied to the world of Web Services, conversation IDs are a particularly bad idea. The Web Services world includes the concept of a service which is broken down into ports, which are themselves then broken down into operations. This structure demands three levels of abstraction and is difficult to manage because one must deal with various features applying at one or more combination of the levels. For example, if you want to configure that messages must be sent over SSL does that configuration apply at the service level, the port level, the operation level, or at some combination of the three levels? Dealing with these issues has proven extremely challenging for users and has made Web Services more difficult to use.
The use of conversations makes the situation worse by adding a fourth level to the hierarchy. Now the system must deal with service, port, operation, and conversation levels. If someone configures a security setting requiring SSL is that at the Service, Port, Operation or the Conversation level? To complicate matters—unlike the Service/Port/Operation hierarchy where each parent completely contains its children (for example, an operation belongs to exactly one port which belongs to exactly one service), the same is not true for conversations. Messages in a single conversation may need to occur across multiple operations or ports although typically they are required to be scoped to a single service. So the configuration issue gets even worse because not only do you have to configure information at four different levels of abstraction but one of those levels—the conversations level—itself crosses two other levels of abstraction.
The conversation model also fails when it comes to message ordering. For example, what happens if S and R need to sequence messages in two different conversations? What happens if messages within a conversation do not all need to be ordered? What happens if you need to sequence messages between more than two participants (for example A sends messages to B who sends messages to C) and there needs to be a global order? The Conversation plus sequence number model cannot deal with any of these scenarios.

System and method for message ordering in a message oriented network


An image sensor including a substrate having a plurality of semiconductor devices formed thereon, an interconnection layer disposed on the substrate, and a plurality of isolated photo-diodes embedded in the interconnection layer is provided. The isolated photo-diodes are located above the semiconductor devices and electrically connected to the semiconductor devices through the interconnection layer. In the above-mentioned image sensor, thickness of the interconnection layer is not limited so as to facilitate fabrication of the SOC CMOS image sensor. In addition, the image sensor is advantageous in relatively high fill-factor, layout area saving and easy being implanted. Furthermore, a method for fabricating the image mentioned above is also provided.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an image sensor and a fabricating method thereof. More particularly, the present invention relates to a System-On-Chip (SOC) image sensor having high fill-factor and a fabricating method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Image sensors have been widely used in various electronic devices, such as web-cameras, mobile phones with built-in camera, digital still cameras (DSC), and digital video cameras (DV). Typically, image sensors are mainly classified into CCD image sensors and CMOS image sensors. In recent years, concept of System-On-Chip (SOC) is gradually introduced into image sensors. Since CMOS image sensors can be fabricated using standard CMOS processes, it is possible to integrate CMOS image sensors with digital and analog signal processing circuitry.
FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a conventional CMOS image sensor. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional CMOS image sensor 100 includes a substrate 110, an interconnection layer 120 disposed on the substrate 110, a color filter array 130 disposed on the interconnection layer 120, and a micro-lens array 140 disposed on the color filter array 130. The substrate 110 includes a plurality of isolation regions 112, a plurality of active regions 114 defined by the isolation regions 112, a plurality of CMOS transistors 116 formed on the active regions 114, and a plurality of photo-diodes 118 formed in the active regions 114. The interconnection layer 120 includes a plurality of insulating films 122 and a plurality of metal films 124 stacked on the substrate 110 alternately. The color filter array 130 includes a plurality of color filters 130R for red light penetration, 130G for green light penetration and 130B for blue light penetration. Additionally, the micro-lens array 140 includes a plurality micro-lens 142, wherein each micro-lens 142 is located on one of the color filters 130R, 130G and 130B, respectively.
There are two major drawbacks for the conventional CMOS image sensor. Firstly, the fill-factor, i.e., the ratio of the sensitive area of photo diode 118 to the area of the pixel 114, is low. That is because the photo diode 118 and 4 transistors 116 in a pixel are fabricated on the same silicon substrate, as shown in FIG. 1. Low fill-factor would decrease the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), deteriorating the quality of the image. This limitation becomes severer with the CMOS technology upgrade or pixel scaling down. Secondly, the conventional CMOS image sensor has thickness and metal layers limitation for the interconnection 120. In order to reduce light R (or G, B) loss before reaching at the photo diode 118 and to suppress the crosstalk between two neighbor pixel 114, the vertical distance between the photo-diode 118 and the color filter array 130 is required to be kept at about 4 micrometers or less. That means both CMOS image sensor and the other circuit parts of SOC can only use at most four layers of metal films 124 for interconnection. In addition, light R (or G, B) scattering and absorption is severer at low-permittivity-dielectric/barrier-dielectric interfaces in region 120 for <=0.13 um Cu/low-k process. These would cause decreases in both S/N and photo sensitivity.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,902,946B2, entitled "Simplified Upper Electrode Contact Structure For PIN Diode Active Pixel Sensor", and U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,187A, "entitled "Elevated PIN Diode Active Pixel Senor Including a Unique Interconnection Structure", discloses a elevated PIN diode sensor, in which the PIN diode is located above the image processing circuitry. However, sensors share a common P-type amorphous silicon layer. This would result in crosstalk between the adjacent sensors.


An image forming apparatus including a multi-processor and an image forming method thereof. The apparatus includes a data processing unit to divide input print data into a plurality of divided print data according to a predetermined criterion and to simultaneously process the plurality of divided print data using a multi-processor, and an image forming unit to form an image corresponding to the processed print data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus and method, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus including a multi-processor to simultaneously process a plurality of print data to form an image, and an image forming method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses, such as printers and multi-function peripherals (MFPs), have a print function to form an image according to input print data. A processor used in an image forming apparatus generates image data that the image forming apparatus can recognize by processing input print data, and the image forming apparatus prints the image data.
A processor used in a conventional image forming apparatus cannot simultaneously process a plurality of print data. That is, the processor must sequentially process each of the plurality of print data separately.
Thus, when a plurality of print data is to be processed, the conventional image forming apparatus spends more time to form images corresponding to input print data. For example, if input print data I contains information regarding four colors C, M, Y, and K, the processor sequentially processes print data Ic, Im, Iy, and Ik corresponding to the four colors. As a result, when the conventional image forming apparatus prints the print data I, it takes about four times longer to print the color data C as compared to the time it takes to print a single color when the input print data contains information regarding only the single color, such as only the color data C.
In addition, the processor not only processes print data, but also is involved in a general operation of an image forming apparatus. Thus, the processing load of the conventional image forming apparatus increases when more types of data have to be printed.

Image forming apparatus and method using multi-processor


A device for detecting volatile compounds. The device includes a substrate and a matrix disposed on the substrate. The matrix includes a carboxyl-rich binder, a clay, and a pH-sensitive indicator dye admixed with the binder and the clay. The pH-sensitive indicator dye is dimensioned and configured to change color in response to contact with a pre-determined concentration of a volatile compound.

Meat-based food products are notoriously well known to spoil quickly, even when properly stored in a refrigerator just above freezing (e.g., 4° C.). Meats commonly consumed throughout the industrialized world, such as beef, pork, chicken, and fish are susceptible to rapid spoilage by cryophilic microorganisms (also known as psychrophilic microorganisms). These are spoilage microorganisms, typically bacteria or fungi, which thrive at refrigeration temperatures. As a result, these meat products, even when properly handled and stored, have relatively short shelf-lives at temperatures above 0° C. The shelf-life of meat products is directly related to the initial concentration of contaminating organisms present in the meat at the time it is sold or distributed to the consuming public.
The sources of microbial contamination in food are many and varied. These sources include (among many others) unsanitary agricultural or processing conditions, insufficiently low temperatures during transportation and pre- and post-sale storage, defective packaging, and intentional adulteration food using unapproved ingredients by unscrupulous producers.
There are many conventional methods for measuring the concentrations of bacterial contamination in meat-based food products. See, for example, Salfinger and Tortorello (Eds.), "Compendium of Methods for the Microbiological Examination of Foods, Fifth Ed." © 2015, American Public Health Association, ISBN 978-0875532738. But these methods are laboratory methods requiring specialized equipment and skills. Additionally, many of the assays require 24 to 48 hours of incubation time in a temperature-controlled incubator before the results can be determined. Many of the methods also require a solid nutrient base to support the growth of individual pathogenic cells into bacterial colonies. Even with a century or more of effort, many food-borne pathogenic bacteria are difficult or impossible to incubate into colonies by artificial means.
There have been attempts to measure the bacterial concentration in food by measuring specific metabolic by-products of individual microorganisms. These methods include, for example, electrical impedance assays, ATP assays, antibody-based assays, and carbon-14 radio-labelled substrate assays. Colorimetric methods have also been described. See, for example, Golber, U.S. Pat. No. 3,206,317, issued Sep. 14, 1965, which describes an indicating device for refrigerated food packaging. The device uses a nutrient medium that will support the growth of pathogenic microorganisms. The nutrient medium is inoculated with a small portion or aliquot of the same food that is being packaged. The nutrient medium includes a reduction-sensitive indicator dye. (Examples of indicators that change color in the presence of pH changes associated with microbial growth include phenol red, bromocresol blue, and neutral red.) The dye is responsive to reducing agents generated by microorganisms present in the food. Growth of bacteria in the aliquot of food indicates microbial growth in the larger mass of the packaged food.
See also Berger et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,496,066, which describes a similar approach wherein the metabolic activity of contaminating bacteria induce a colorimetric change in a dye or dye precursor, such as tropinones and dioxanes. Bochner, U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,483, describes using a non-biodegradable substance (tetrazolium) which is chemically reduced to produce a detectable color change in response to bacterial growth.
Edberg, U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,789, describes a selective growth medium for a microbe containing a nutrient indicator which can only be metabolized by a target microbe. When metabolized by a target microbe, the nutrient indicator releases a moiety which imparts a detectable change to the medium.
See also Townsend et al, U.S. Pat. No. 6,387,650, issued May 14, 2020. This patent describes a method for detecting the existence or measuring the concentration of total viable bacteria in a test sample from a food product. Here, a medium is provided which contains three or more different enzyme substrates each having a nutrient moiety and a detectable moiety linked together. When a substrate is hydrolyzed by a bacterial enzyme to create a separate detectable moiety, it causes or produces a detectable signal. The substrates produce detectable signals when any one of a phosphatase enzyme, a glycosidase enzyme or a peptidase enzyme, presumably from a bacterial source, is present in the medium.
Even in the most technologically advanced cultures of the world, or perhaps "especially" in the most technically advanced cultures, meat spoilage remains a continuing threat to public health. Recalls of huge quantities of tainted meat products produced and packaged in large-scale plants have become increasingly common in the United States. For example, in 2008, in the face of massive sanctions and threatened criminal action from the federal government, the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company of Chino, Calif. voluntarily recalled more than 143 million pounds of potentially tainted raw ground beef. In 2011, Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation was the focus of a recall of more than 35 million pounds of ground turkey due to Salmonella contamination. The tainted ground turkey was responsible for one death and the sickening of over 90 people. In 2015, Cargill recalled over 1 million pounds of ground beef tainted with E. coli.
The aggregate economic consequences (to farmers and ranchers, processors, distributors, and consumers alike) are also vast. People around the globe are not inclined to take chances with their food. Except in dire of circumstances, humans of all cultures adopt a "better safe than sorry" attitude when it comes to food safety. As a result, it has been estimated that globally about 1.3 billion tons per year of the edible portion of food raised for human consumption is discarded due to obvious spoilage or suspicions of spoilage.
There thus remains a long-felt and unmet need for a method of determining, quickly and without specialized equipment, whether meat-based foods are safe to consume.

Matrices for detecting volatile organic compounds


A storage element includes a storage layer having a magnetization perpendicular to a layer surface and storing information according to a magnetization state of a magnetic material; a fixed magnetization layer having the magnetization as a reference of the information of the storage layer and perpendicular to the layer surface; an interlayer formed of a nonmagnetic material and interposed between the storage layer and the fixed magnetization layer; a coercive force enhancement layer adjacent to the storage layer, opposite to the interlayer, and formed of Cr, Ru, W, Si, or Mn; and a spin barrier layer formed of an oxide, adjacent to the coercive force enhancement layer, and opposite to the storage layer. The storage layer magnetization is reversed using spin torque magnetization reversal caused by a current in a lamination direction of a layer structure including the storage layer, the interlayer, and the fixed magnetization layer, thereby storing information.

The present disclosure relates to a storage element and a storage device incorporating the storage element. The storage element includes a storage layer which stores a magnetization state of a ferromagnetic layer as information and a fixed magnetization layer in which a magnetization direction is fixed, and changes the magnetization direction of the storage layer by the flow of an electric current.
In information equipment such as a computer, as random access memory, DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) which rapidly operates and is high-density has been widely used. However, since DRAM is a volatile memory which loses information when the power is turned off, a nonvolatile memory which does not lose information when the power is turned off has been anticipated.
As a candidate for nonvolatile memory, magnetic random access memory (MRAM) which stores information on the basis of the magnetization of a magnetic material has attracted attention and been studied. As a method of performing data storing in MRAM, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-193595 discloses a storage element using a spin torque magnetization reversal in which magnetization of a magnetic material which performs storage is reversed by a spin torque flowing between two magnetic materials. This element has attracted attention due to a relatively simple structure and a large number of rewritable times.
Similar to MRAM, a storage element using the spin torque magnetization reversal is configured a MTJ (Magnetic Tunnel Junction) in many cases. This configuration uses a phenomenon that, when spin polarized electrons which pass through a magnetic layer fixed to a given direction enter another free magnetic layer (where a direction is not fixed), a torque is applied to the magnetic layer (this phenomenon is also referred to as a spin transfer torque). In this case, when a current equal to or more than a given threshold is made to flow, the free magnetic layer is reversed. 0 and 1 are rewritten by changing a polarity of a current.
An absolute value of a current for the reversal is equal to or less than 1 mA for an element in the scale of about 0.1 μm. In addition, since this current value is reduced in proportion to the element volume, scaling is possible. Furthermore, since a word line which is necessary for generating the recording current magnetic field in MRAM is not necessary, there is also an advantageous effect in that a cell structure is simple.
Hereinafter, MRAM using the spin torque magnetization reversal is referred to as "a spin torque MRAM" or "ST-MRAM (Spin Torque-Magnetic Random Access Memory). The spin torque magnetization reversal may be sometimes referred to as a spin injection magnetization reversal.
As examples of ST-MRAM, there is ST-MRAM using an in-plane magnetization as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-193595 and ST-MRAM using a perpendicular magnetization as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-81215.
In ST-MRAM using the in-plane magnetization, a material can be selected with high degrees of freedom and a method of fixing the magnetization is relatively easy. However, in the case of the perpendicular magnetic layer, the material is limited to a material having a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy.
Recently, as disclosed in Nature Materials, Vol. 9, p. 721 (2010), for example, an interface anisotropy-type perpendicular magnetic layer using the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy which is developed at the crystal interface between Fe and an oxide has attracted attention.
When the interface anisotropy is used, the perpendicular magnetic layer can be obtained by a FeCoB alloy as the magnetic material and MgO as the oxide and thereby the trade-off between a high magnetoresistance ratio (MR ratio) and the perpendicular magnetization can be realized. Since the interface anisotropy acts favorable for both of the storage layer and a reference layer, the application to the perpendicular magnetization-type spin torque MRAM is expected.


One exemplary embodiment is directed to a method (and corresponding system) for managing a request-for-proposal (RFP). The method comprises receiving, at a website, information about the RFP from a customer for the RFP and receiving, at the website, proposals responsive to the RFP from a set of bidders. If requested by the customer, disclosing to each of the bidders a detailed comparative metric relating to the proposal for each of the other bidders. The detailed comparative metric comprises a comparative metric other than a total project cost for the respective proposal.

Corporations and other entities typically are sophisticated consumers of legal services. Such entities frequently use request-for-proposal (RFP) processes to obtain legal services. These processes generally are managed manually. Typically the customer will send out a set of instructions to service providers. The set of instructions indicate how the service providers should respond to the RFP. A service provider can then submit written responses to the RFP that include information on how the service provider would perform the requested work and the rates it would charge for such work. The customer then typically compares the submitted proposals manually. This manual process of submission and comparison suffers from a number of inefficiencies. For example, legal service providers who submit proposals in response to an RFP may not format their proposals or otherwise provide the fee proposal and other information in the manner the customer might expect. In turn, if service providers do not provide information in a consistent format, the comparison of the submitted proposals is not easily facilitated. The entities that conduct these RFP processes often then spend significant time following-up with the legal service providers to obtain correct information and/or to translate manually the provided information from the proposals into a consistent format.
Further, because proposals are submitted separately, calculating detailed comparisons of various metrics between the fee data that is submitted can be cumbersome and time consuming. In addition, there typically is no efficient and centralized means to provide written answers to questions service providers may have about an RFP. Instead, such questions typically are communicated to the customer on an ad hoc basis. For each such question, the customer will have to decide whether the answer to the question should be communicated to only the service provider asking the question or to all of the service providers and then individually provide the answer to each such service provider.
Moreover, it is often the case that receiving proposals that are submitted in response to an RFP is only the first step in the RFP process. After receiving the proposals from the legal service providers, many customers for legal services go back to one or more of the legal service providers in order to let them know how one or more aspects of their respective proposals compared against other proposals. This is done in an effort to elicit a more competitive proposal from that provider. Typically, however, the service provider does not have any direct means to see how key metrics of its proposal compare against corresponding key metrics of competing proposals. The service provider, therefore, is only prompted to update its proposal based upon the limited information that is typically provided to the service provider by the customer. Because the service providers likely only have limited information about changes their competitors are willing to make to their proposals, each service provider often has limited reason to update its proposal.
Manually managing such an RFP process is typically time consuming. Although there are automated tools for managing an RFP process, such tools typically are not well-adapted for use by corporations and other entities in connection with complex and/or sophisticated legal projects. For example, such RFP tools typically assume that all potential bidders are essentially the same and typically are configured to award the project to the bidder that has proposed the lowest price. Such a simplistic decision calculus often is not appropriate for complex and sophisticated legal projects.

Method, medium, and system for selective disclosure of information from competing bidders


The invention provides a method and system of authentication and online sharing of documents by electronic means, through a third party, conducted via a communication network. The method involves, creation of a website, subject to the control of an administration entity; uploading the scanned version of the original document by the user at the allotted location in the website, using the obtained user name and created password; assigning a uniquely identifiable indicia to the scanned document; sending the scanned document to the authenticating entity; accessesing and verifying the authenticity of scanned document by the authenticating entity, by comparison with the original document available in the database of the authenticating entity. The authentication is performed through an electronically simple mechanism only once, in which, irrespective of the date of issue of the document, the document may be attested and the record may be maintained permanently.

The advent of communication networks, such as the Internet has substantially increased the availability of information to people, about employment and education prospects overseas or outside their state of residence. As a result, it is a common occurrence in the modern day scenario for people to migrate for the purposes of employment, education and the like.
In such a scenario, the institution in the country or state in which education or employment is sought performs a check to confirm the authenticity of copies of the documents provided for the purpose of entry. In order to perform the check, it is necessary that a third party attest the copies of the related documentation. The third party is conventionally an agency, which has been authorized beforehand, to perform the task of authentication.
Prior to the advent of the communication networks, such as the Internet, the procedure for attesting a document for the purpose of authentication is performed manually. Initially, the user who intends to seek employment or education prospects from an institution obtains photocopies of the original documents, which are required to be authenticated. Further, the documents that are required to be authenticated are submitted to the third party, which has been authorized to perform the task of authentication, beforehand. After the third party performs the attestation of the photocopies of the certificate, the user submits the photocopies of the certificate to the institution, which intends to perform the process of confirming the authenticity of the photocopies of the documents. The institution employs an external agency to determine if the documents are authentic. If the documents are determined to be authentic by the external agency, the organization is intimated by the external agency. If the documents are authentic, the organization approves the user for the education or employment. However, if the documents are not found to be authentic, the organization rejects the user for the education or employment. As a result, this procedure of performing authentication of documents by attesting them manually is cumbersome. Further, the procedure of performing authentication of documents by attesting them manually is time consuming.
A few proposals exist in the art in which, the attesting of the document is performed in an electronic mode.
For instance, a proposal in the art reveals a method for preparing safe electronic notarized documents in electronic commerce. The proposal disclosed therein, describes a method for preparing a safe electronic notarized document in electronic commerce and primarily includes the steps of preparing a primary electronic notarized document, based on transaction detail information, a customer certificate, a merchant certificate, a notarizing organization certificate, and a certifying organization certificate by a notarizing organization.
Subsequently, a digital signature is affixed to the primary notarized document by using a private key of the notarizing organization so as to form a secondary electronic notarized document, and transmitting the secondary electronic notarized document to a customer or a merchant. Further, the secondary electronic notarized document of the first step is decoded by the customer or merchant by using a private key of the notarizing organization.
Furthermore, a digital signature is affixed on the decoded secondary electronic notarized document of the second step by the customer or merchant by using a private key of his or her own so as to form a tertiary electronic notarized document, and transmitting the tertiary electronic notarized document to the notarizing organization. Thereafter, decoding the tertiary electronic notarized document of the third step is performed by using an open key of the notarizing organization and an open key of the customer or merchant so as to form a biquadratic electronic notarized document, and comparing the biquadratic electronic notarized document with the primary electronic notarized document of the first step.
A final electronic notarized document is subsequently created for proving a realization of notarization of the transaction by utilizing the digitally signed tertiary electronic notarized document of the third step and the digitally signed message digest of the fifth step, and sending the final electronic notarized document to the customer or merchant; and storing the final electronic notarized document of the sixth step by the customer or merchant after receipt of it from the notarizing organization.
Yet another proposal in the art reveals an electronic notary. The system has application in the electronic verification process. The operation can be described as comprising the following steps: whenever there is a need for verifying a document, one can transmit the document image through FAX or computer network to an independent third party institute or company. The company can process the document image by locking the document image and extracting the pictorial and texture features, then encrypt these features, time stamp, place, and the items needed to be verified into a machine readable mage code.
Yet another proposal in the art reveals a method in which, after inputting all of the required information, the customer uploads the electronic document to an electronic document repository. An electronic transaction manager determines when all of the required information from each of the parties is present and amalgamates all of the information into a single final electronic document. The parties required to execute the electronic document are notified that the electronic document is ready to be electronically signed and electronically notarized. The signatories go to a notary public or a mobile notary public may travel to a location designated by the requesting signatory. The signatory inputs a manual, hand-written signature to the electronic document, using a electronic signature capture input device. The notary public inputs a manual, hand-written signature to the electronic document, using the electronic signature capture input device.
Yet another proposal in the art, reveals methods and systems to authenticate that an original digital record has not been altered, methods and systems for affixing electronic signatures to such digital records, for verifying integrity and validity of such records and any electronic signature(s) applied thereto, including determining that such records and any associated digital signatures have not been altered, and more specifically, for providing a distributed method and system for such determination and authentication in which the contents of these records need not be disclosed.
The proposals in the art provide a solution to the aforesaid requirement of attesting a document by electronic means. However, the proposals in the art do not reveal a simple mechanism by which, a user can upload the scanned documents of his original certificates at a location such as a website and an attestation and online sharing of the document can be performed by electronic means.
Proposals in the art do not reveal a method and system, in which a user who requires the attestation and online sharing of the document is capable of doing so, by a less cumbersome method.
Proposals in the art do not reveal a method and system, in which a user who requires the attestation and online sharing of document to be performed is capable of doing so, by a less time consuming method.
Proposals in the art do not reveal a method and system, in which a user who requires the attestation and online sharing of document to be performed is capable of doing so by a simple and user-friendly method, even though the mode used is electronic.

Electronically implemented method and system for authentication and sharing of documents via a communication network


In the semiconductor memory device, one of a source and a drain of a first transistor is connected to one of a source and a drain of a second transistor, a gate of the first transistor is connected to one of a source and a drain of a third transistor and one of a pair of capacitor electrodes included in a capacitor, the other of the source and the drain of the first transistor and the other of the source and the drain of the third transistor are connected to a bit line, the other of the pair of capacitor electrodes included in the capacitor is connected to a common wiring, and the common wiring is grounded (GND). The common wiring has a net shape when seen from the above, and the third transistor is provided in a mesh formed by the common wiring.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor memory device which includes a circuit including a semiconductor element such as a transistor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Semiconductor memory devices are broadly classified into two categories: a volatile device that loses stored data when power supply stops, and a non-volatile device that retains stored data even when power is not supplied.
A typical example of a volatile semiconductor memory device is a dynamic random access memory (DRAM). A DRAM stores data in such a manner that a transistor included in the semiconductor memory device is selected and charge is stored in a capacitor connected to the transistor.
In a DRAM, since charge of a capacitor is lost instantaneously after information is read out, rewriting needs to be performed every time information is read out. In addition, when a transistor included in the DRAM is off, charge is lost due to leakage current (off-state current) between a source and a drain and the like; therefore, a data retention time is short. Accordingly, a writing operation (a refresh operation) is needed in a predetermined cycle, which results in increase in power consumption. In addition, data is lost when supply of power is stopped, and thus another memory device using, for example, a magnetic material or an optical material is needed in order to retain data for a long time.
Another example of a volatile semiconductor memory device is a static random access memory (SRAM). An SRAM retains stored data by using a circuit such as a flip-flop and thus does not need refresh operation. This means that an SRAM has an advantage over a DRAM. However, there is a problem in that cost per storage capacity becomes high because a circuit such as a flip flop is used. Moreover, as in a DRAM, stored data in an SRAM is lost when power supply stops.
A typical example of a non-volatile memory device is a flash memory. A flash memory includes a floating gate between a gate electrode and a channel formation region in a transistor and stores data by retaining charge in the floating gate. Therefore, a flash memory has advantages in that the data retention time is extremely long and refresh operation which is necessary in a volatile memory device is not needed (e.g., see Patent Document 1).
However, a gate insulating layer included in the semiconductor memory device deteriorates by tunneling current generated in writing, so that the semiconductor memory device stops its function after a predetermined number of writing operations. In order to reduce adverse effects of this problem, a method in which the number of writing operations for the semiconductor memory devices is equalized is employed, for example. However, a complicated peripheral circuit is needed to achieve this method. Moreover, employing such a method does not solve the fundamental problem of lifetime. In other words, a flash memory is not suitable for a semiconductor memory device in which data is frequently rewritten.
In addition, high voltage is necessary to retain charge in the floating gate or remove the charge, and a circuit for generating high voltage is also necessary. Further, it takes a relatively long time to retain or remove charge, so that it is not easy to increase the speed of write and erase operations.

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


A tray for transporting a wafer is herein provided, which can control the temperature of the wafer upon the processing thereof, and which can easily fix the wafer without reducing the effective area on the surface of the wafer and without requiring much time for the adhesion of the wafer thereto and without requiring any post-treatment after the wafer is detached from or attached to the tray. The tray 302 is one which comprises a base body consisting of an insulating material and an electrostatic chuck electrode 306 embedded in the base body, wherein the terminal at a load-dispatching or power supply portion for energizing the electrostatic chuck electrode is a spring-type terminal 305a, the spring-type terminal is so designed that the tip of the same can come in touch with the electrostatic chuck electrode, and further the tray is so designed that a sealing member 305b is provided at the periphery of the load-dispatching portion so that any heat-exchanging medium never passes around the contact portion or area between the tip of the spring-type terminal and the electrostatic chuck electrode and that the tray can thus fixe the wafer S thereto through the electrostatic chucking. Thus, the wafer is fixed to this wafer-transporting tray by the action of the electrostatic chucking.

Conventionally, when collectively treating a large number of, for instance, wafers according to the plasma technique to produce semiconductor devices, it has been common to use a tray for transporting wafers. At that time, wafers or the like are simply placed on the tray or fixed thereto through the use of a holding or pressing jig or by the adhesion thereof to the tray with the use of, for instance, a sheet, a tape or grease, prior to subjecting them to a plasma treatment.
In this respect, it has been known that, when producing, for instance, a semiconductor device or a liquid crystal device and collectively treating a large number of waters or the like, the wafers or the like are fixed to a tray for transporting the same using a pressing means, and a tray composed of a protective substrate and a semiconductor substrate, serving as a tray for transportation, is conveyed, while it is set on an electrostatic chuck (see Patent Document 1 specified below).
It has also been known that semiconductor wafers or the like are processed, while they are held on a processing base by the adhesion of the same to the processing base through a foamed releasable sheet (see, for instance, Patent Document 2 specified below) or that a material to be processed such as a substrate is adhered to a processing base using a thermally releasable adhesive member such as a foamed releasable sheet (see, for instance, Patent Document 3 specified below).
The means for fixing a wafer onto a tray will hereunder be described, while referring to FIG. 1 which shows an example of the system for fixing a wafer to a tray through the use of a pressing jig as the pressing means described above and for simultaneously fixing the tray onto a processing stage using a mechanical clamping means.
Referring to FIG. 1, a tray-supporting stage 101 is provided with a plurality of or a number of flow paths 101a for allowing a heat-exchanging medium (such as helium (He) gas) to flow through the same. More specifically, the system for fixing a wafer to a tray as shown in FIG. 1 is so designed that a heat-exchanging medium introduced into the flow paths 101a first passes through the interior of the tray-supporting stage 101 and it is then supplied to the back face of a tray 102, which is placed on the tray-supporting stage 101, and simultaneously supplied to the back face of a wafer S to thus cool the tray 102 and the wafer S at the same time. The system for fixing a wafer to a tray as shown in FIG. 1 is likewise so designed that the marginal peripheral portion of the wafer S placed on the tray 102 is fixed onto the tray 102 by a holding or pressing jig 103 and the tray 102 is fixed onto the tray-supporting stage 101 by the action of a mechanical clamping member 104. In the case of this system, problems arise such that the fixation of the wafer S to the tray 102 requires much time, that the stability of the fixation of this type is insufficient in its reliability and that the effective areal region on the surface of the wafer S, which can be processed, is considerably reduced since the portion of the wafer S at the marginal periphery thereof, which comes in close contact with the pressing jig, cannot be subjected to the desired processing and, in other words, there are generated dead areas free of any processing at the portions used for holding or clamping the wafer.
Alternatively, another means for fixing a wafer onto a tray will hereunder be described, while referring to FIG. 2 which shows an example of the system for fixing a wafer to a tray by adhering the wafer to the tray through the use of an adhesive sheet such as the foregoing foamed releasable sheet and for simultaneously fixing the tray to a processing stage through the use of a mechanical clamp or an electrostatic chuck.
Referring now to FIG. 2, a tray-supporting stage 201 is provided with a plurality of or a number of flow paths 201a for allowing a heat-exchanging medium (such as helium (He) gas) to flow through the same. More specifically, the system for fixing a wafer to a tray as shown in FIG. 2 is so designed that a heat-exchanging medium introduced into the flow paths 201a can be supplied to the back face of the tray 202 mounted on the tray-supporting stage 201 to thus cool the tray 202. The system for fixing a wafer to a tray as shown in FIG. 2 is likewise so designed that the wafer S to be placed on the tray 202 is fixed onto the tray 202 through a heat-conductive adhesive sheet 204, while the tray 202 is fixed onto the tray-supporting stage 201 by a mechanical clamping member 203 or an electrostatic chuck means (not shown) which is embedded in the tray-supporting stage 201. In the case of this system, problems likewise arise such that the fixation of the wafer S to the tray requires much time, that the stability of the fixation of this type is insufficient in its reliability and that the system is inferior in the cooling efficiency.

Tray for transporting wafers and method for fixing wafers onto the tray


A rekeyable lock cylinder includes a plug body with a keyway opening along a longitudinal axis and a multiple of channels transverse to the axis. A locking bar generally parallel to the longitudinal axis, the locking bar having an extension. A slide movably mounted to an end section of the plug body, the slide having a slot which selectively permits passage of the extension during a rekeying procedure.

The present disclosure relates to rekeyable lock cylinders.
When rekeying a cylinder using a traditional cylinder design, the cylinder plug is removed from the cylinder body and the appropriate pins are replaced so that a new key can be used to unlock the cylinder. This typically requires removal of the cylinder mechanism from the lockset and disassembly of the cylinder to some degree to remove the plug and replace the pins. This requires a working knowledge of the lockset and cylinder mechanism. Additionally, the process usually employs special tools and requires access to pinning kits to interchange pins and replace components that may become lost or damaged in the rekeying process.
Some rekeyable cylinder designs utilize the familiar experience of rotating the key in the lock cylinder such that no special knowledge, training, or tools to rekey the lock cylinder are required. In some instances, however, the cylinder is rotated before the new key is fully inserted. This may result in a mismatch between the new key and the plug and is referred to as a "blown cylinder."

Rekeyable lock assembly with blown cylinder protection


A cancellation system is disclosed for processing incoming and outgoing signals in a transform domain to create a cancellation signal for reducing or removing unwanted interference. Data is ordered based on Good-Thomas indexing into a two dimensional array in a buffer. The two dimensional array may have lr rows and lw columns. From the buffer, the columns of data undergo a Winograd small transform. The rows of data undergo a Cooley-Tukey operation to complete the transform operation into the frequency domain. Multipliers scale the transformed data to generate a cancellation signal in the frequency domain. Inverse (Cooley-Tukey) and Winograd transforms perform inverse processing on the cancellation signal to return the cancellation signal or data to the time domain. Re-ordering the data and combination of the cancellation signal or data with incoming or outgoing signals achieve interference cancellation.

As is commonly understood, there is a continuing need to increase the data communication rate. Certain communication systems are equipped with multiple channels between stations, and each station communicates using multiple channels. As a result, the total aggregate throughput is greatly increased as compared to systems that utilize a single channel. A particularly noteworthy example is in current 1000BASE-T and future multiple gigabit Ethernet, where all four twisted copper pairs of the Category 5 unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable are used for transmission of data.
While multi-channel communication links speed data transfer, such systems suffer from drawbacks. One such drawback is that multi-channel communication links suffer from coupling. In wired communications systems, a major source of interference is reflections of the transmitted signal due to imperfect impedance matching, often due to connectors. In systems which use multiple pairs, such as Ethernet, interference is caused both on the pair a signal is transmitted on ('echo') and on the other pairs (near end crosstalk, known as 'next'). These signals degrade the performance of the receiver, and inhibit operation, particularly when a full duplex link is established over long distances. This is particularly true when the received signal has much lower power than the reflections.
In an ideal communication link, each channel of a multi-channel link would be completely decoupled from the other channels. Thus, each received signal would consist of the desired far end (FE) signal and a small amount of random noise. However, an ideal environment rarely exists, and hence the interference of NEXT and echo invades the signal that is received. Thus, the received signal is largely a combination of the far end signal and unwanted NEXT and echo components. This undesirably limits the detection of the far end signal such that some form of active interference cancellation must be implemented.
Therefore, transceivers employ time domain echo and next cancellers, which are adaptive filters. These structures use their knowledge of the transmitted signal to iteratively update a model of the transfer function so that they can accurately reproduce the echo and next signals, and cancel them at the receiver. At high sampling rates however, the echo response can be many taps long. Interference cancellation is complex, and implementation of interference cancellation in an electronic system requires a large degree of processing capability which for an integrated circuit has implications on area and power requirements.
In this regard, the prior art interference cancellation processing consumes an undesirably large amount of electrical power and generates an undesirable amount of heat. These factors lead to increase cost of ownership for products that incorporate prior art interference cancellation systems.
One approach to improve efficiency and reduce power consumption and complexity is to use a frequency domain canceller. Typically a set of transmit samples are collected in a block, the block is transformed into the frequency domain, and then filtering is applied in the frequency domain. Finally the data is transformed back into the time domain and used for cancellation. This reduces the number of multiplies needed, which can result in significant power reduction, particularly for a hardware implementation.
The disadvantage of this approach is that the block operations introduce substantial latency into the canceller. Excessive latency can limit the application of communications systems; end-users may prefer other technologies. For example, for applications such as scientific computing, excessive latency lowers the performance of 'clusters' of high performance computers.
A second issue with the application of the frequency domain approach is that well-known FFT structures are most efficient for complex signals. However, directly using complex Cooley-Tukey based transforms for real signals results in substantial inefficiencies. In a hardware implementation this translates into increased power consumption, which is undesirable. One way to efficiently use a complex transform engine for real signals is through the use of a 'real adjust' operation. This enables an N-point real FFT to be calculated using an N/2-point complex FFT and N additional complex multiplications, as well as some low-cost addition operations. This technique is described in 12.3 FFT of Real Functions, Sine and Cosine Transforms, pages 510-520, Numerical Computing in C: The Art of Scientific Computing, Second Edition, William H. Press, Saul A. Teukolsky, William T. Vetterling, Brian P. Flannery, 1992. Techniques such as the real adjust are often used in software implementations, and they can also be used in hardware. Typically in hardware systems the FFT is implemented using a pipelined architecture, to maximize power efficiency and minimize latency. Use of this structure places restrictions on the output ordering. These efficient implementations of FFT algorithms produce outputs in an order which does not match that required by the real adjust algorithm. This breaks the pipeline structure of the datapath, and requires that additional buffering be introduced to line up the data for the real adjust process. This adds significant latency and power to the canceller. Furthermore, during the inverse transform an inverse real adjust operation must be performed, which consumes further power and increases latency for the same reasons.
Other known operations or transforms used to implement real or complex FFTs include the Cooley-Tukey algorithm, split-radix transforms, real-split-radix transforms, Winograd transforms, Prime-Factor transforms, the Bruun algorithm, Rader's algorithm, Bluestein's algorithm but these operations do not overcome the drawbacks of the prior art.
Latency can be reduced by using a smaller block size in the frequency domain transform. Upon implementation however, this increases power, as the block operation (transform-multiply-inverse transform) must then be performed more frequently. This is particularly a concern for very long filters. Another proposed solution to reduce latency is to 'parallelize' the transform and/or multiplications by using more physical circuitry to perform the calculation in parallel, but this introduces complications in the implementation and can lead to inefficiencies and increased power consumption. Furthermore in a hardware implementation parallelization increases area which increases power loss through leakage even when the circuit is not active.

Frequency domain echo and next cancellation


A system and method for providing voice communication to an occupant of a vehicle through a mobile device. The system communicates with a mobile device with an occupant of the vehicle, for example using a telematics controller or network access device. The system receives an identification from the mobile device and transmits a request, as well as, the identification to a service provider. The service provider then initiates a communication to the mobile device based on the request and identification.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to providing a user of a vehicle voice communication with a service provider through a mobile device.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, there has been a desire for a low-cost, data-only telematics solution. Such a module may have no voice capability, and may only have power and controller area network (CAN) bus connections to the vehicle. The module could likely include a data-capable network access device (NAD) (e.g., CDMA 1× or GSM GPRS/EDGE) and a vehicle bus interface.
This system could have all of the usual telematics capabilities such as stolen vehicle tracking (SVT), door/window control, remote start, diagnostics, etc., but may not directly have voice capabilities. However in this scenario, the system would lack certain voice related features that are currently available from telematics systems, especially in an emergency call environment.
In view of the foregoing, it is apparent that there is a need for a system that provides voice communication to an occupant of a vehicle through a mobile device.

System for providing voice communication


The present invention relates to a method for dynamically modifying the user interface of a deployed application. The method including: a deployed application executing on a user device in accordance with pre-stored configuration data to provide at least part of the user interface; and the deployed application receiving modified configuration data from a server. The at least part of the user interface may be modified in accordance with received modified configuration data. The present invention also relates to a method for dynamically modifying the user interface of a deployed application. The method includes a deployed application executing on a device in accordance with pre-stored configuration data to provide at least part of the user interface; and the deployed application modifying at least part of the user interface in response to user input. The at least part of the user interface may be user interface navigation data. A user device and system are also disclosed.

User interfaces exist to facilitate interaction between a user and a software application. Typically, software developers have envisaged that the user interface should remain static to reduce confusion for the user and to make the application easier to learn.
However, this adherence to static user interfaces results in reduced functionality, particularly, in mobile applications where it may be advantageous to evolve the user interface for a specific user to provide additional functionality whilst accommodating the limitations of a reduced screen space to display the user interface.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method, user device and system to dynamically modify the user interface of deployed applications which overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art, or at least provides a useful alternative.

Method, user device and system for dynamically modifying a user interface within a deployed application