A ergonomic customizeable user/computer interface system for wireless computer control. A hand-attachable user interface device transmits control information upon activation of switches on the interface device. A base interface device receives the transmissions, decodes the information and provides control signals to the computer. The interface system allows for security authorization control and multiple computer or LAN operations with each user interface device. Greater functionality is provided by the use of personality modules in the user interface device for different modes of operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to user/computer interface devices, specifically with respect to graphical interfaces. More specifically, the present invention relates to wireless transmissions from an ergonomic remote control device to a base device for control of computer functions and applications.
2. Description of the Art
In recent years, the process of entering certain types of data and control inputs into computer based systems has been significantly simplified. Traditionally, data entry to a computer has been done with a standard computer keyboard. However, for many users, the keyboard proved to be insufficiently mobile and accessible, inconvenient, and time consuming.
The user/computer interface has been simplified by "graphic user interfaces" (GUIs) and "pointing devices." The user can select an icon from a GUI display to activate the predetermined function or event associated with the icon.
Since GUIs first emerged, alternatives to the keyboard have proven highly desirable for optimum productivity in many applications. Accordingly, auxiliary or keyboard alternative hardware such as light pens, joysticks, trackballs, touch pads, digitizing pads, and the "computer mouse" developed. These new GUI-oriented pointing devices quickly proved to be viable, timesaving alternatives to the keyboard for many types of computer input and control situations. In particular, the mouse has become the single most widely-accepted keyboard alternative input device.
The fundamental operating principle of the mouse relates to the rotation of a spherical trackball carried within the mouse. When the mouse is moved over a flat surface, the trackball, which is partially exposed, freely rotates within the device and generates signals which correspond to pairs of x-axis and y-axis coordinates. The mouse contains means to translate these coordinates into signals to which the attached computer is responsive. Accordingly, when the computer user moves the mouse device across a working surface adjacent to the computer, the cursor indicator on the display screen moves to the location painted to by the computer user. Also, the computer user's operation of one or more buttons aboard the mouse effects other control functions of the computer and computer display, such as the selection of computer usage event options.
Notwithstanding the contributions of mouse products and other alternative input devices, many computer input and control needs remain unmet by the prior art. The mouse requires a prominent, smooth, flat, horizontal space on the user's desk. In practice, a typical user's desk is crowded and inhibits the space required for mouse operation. Most mouse devices are especially difficult to use when away from traditional office facilities, in mobile or restricted locations.
Users who operate their computers while travelling, or who operate computers in non-office situations find few computer input products that specifically address the needs of laptop and notebook computing. Some mouse type devices have been developed for mobile users. However, the computer user must make special adjustments to clamp-on fittings to attach these products to the computer keyboard. Some of these products must first be physically clamped onto the computer for each work session, then must be physically unclamped, when the work session is over. Also, the computer user must move his/her hand back and forth from keyboard to the clamp-on product to operate it. Another main complaint made by many users and industry analysts is that users' thumbs quickly tire, operating the small trackballs provided on these products.
One drawback of the mouse results from hardwired attachment to the computer. The connecting cord from the mouse to the computer is subject to the same "umbilical" problems associated with cords on any appliance which needs to move about, to operate according to design. Some wireless computer input devices exist, but their need for dedicated horizontal surfaces precludes many potential benefits of wirelessness.
Users with physical impairments often find mouse products difficult to operate. Depending on the physical impairment, both mouse and keyboard computing can be difficult, painful, or impossible for impaired users. For users with arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or tendonitis, mouse usage can be an awkward and painful. There is a recognized need for GUI devices which offer prophylaxis for users with physical impairments and repetitive stress injuries. While successful products serve a variety of needs for these users, high costs and highly specific utility of many such products hinder their widespread acceptance.
Technicians and professionals often have advanced or high-functionality needs. Many of these specialized needs are unmet by traditional desktop mouse-type products, or by products such as the aforementioned mobile computer input products. High costs and highly-specific utility of many such high functionality products also hinder their widespread use.
Another mouse drawback is its' simplex, unidirectional design and operation. No mouse currently implements two-way interaction between controlled computers and input devices. Lack of bidirectionality is better appreciated, if one considers the many new applications and benefits of bidirectionality, such as roaming LAN interaction, security and alarms; mobile signaling and paging; and remote interactive applications.
Computer users have local area network (LAN) and security needs which remain unmet by current input devices. LAN users have connectivity needs which extend beyond their own computer. LANs were created to facilitate resource-sharing of limited resources among multiple users. LAN users often access and connect into one or more LANS, or other accessible computers or network environments. It has been estimated that more than half of all computers in business are attached to a LAN.
In addition, as the computer population grows, security grows more important. Computers increasingly store confidential data, and no mouse products are designed or equipped for individually-assignable security to add to a computing installations' security "shield".
No shortage of LAN products or security products exist. However, no security-oriented, individually-assignable computer input and control products are available which allow LAN users to conveniently transport and securely operate personal GUI-oriented pointing devices in multiple LAN locations. "Security-oriented users" need to limit access to critical resources, including hardware, software, data and information, networks, etc. As LANs become more widespread, security becomes much more important, to ensure privacy.
The underside of the mouse trackball is susceptible to the introduction of dirt, liquids, or other substances into the body cavity. This vulnerability can lead to equipment failure and shorter product life.
Another drawback of the mouse is that the user may find the "mouse method" of frequently moving his or her hand back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse to be distracting to their train of thought, time consuming, or inconvenient to optimal operational efficiency.
Several inventors have attempted to address some of these aforementioned drawbacks and problems.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,250 to Mueller discloses an infrared graphic input device for a computer. A remote infrared light source transmits user input commands to a detector device adjacent to the computer. The device must operate within a dedicated horizontal, two-dimensional, smooth, flat surface. The detector apparatus operates according to continuous tracking input principles and does not allow for any straying out of equipment detection boundaries.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,578,674 discloses a method and an apparatus for controlling the cursor position on a computer display screen. This device uses both infrared and ultrasonic principles for determining the direction and the velocity of motion of a positioning device which is monitored by a control base detector. The device requires a two-dimensional plane. To operate from a three-dimensionally defined location, the user must ensure the emitter/detector front face of the positioning device is always directly facing the control base.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,628,541 to Beavers discloses an infrared battery powered keyboard input device for a microcomputer. This device offers the user additional freedom for operating a standard style keyboard without hardwiring constraints. Also, the keyboard cannot be portable to another computer, unless the computer to which the keyboard is ported is a "mirror" microcomputer device. Apparently, the infrared battery operated keyboard likely requires the implementation of a separate mouse if "mouse-type" input commands or functionality/features are needed by the user or are required for optimal productivity.

Ergonomic customizeable user/computer interface device


A method of synchronizing a plurality of end points is disclosed. A spoke is connected to a hub. The connecting of the spoke to the hub includes performing inbound synchronization of all of a set of data items or a subset of the set of data items with a replica. One or more additional spokes are connected to the hub. The connecting of the one or more additional spokes to the hub includes performing inbound synchronization of all of an additional set of data items or a subset of the additional set of data items with an additional replica. A subset of a set of data items stored in the replica or the additional replica is selected for outbound synchronization with any of a plurality of spokes except a spoke from which the subset of data items originated.

Conventional synchronization solutions typically allow connecting two end points, which means that multiple two-way synchronizations partnerships must be set up and managed individually. Other limitations include lack of change tracking, inability to easily recover from human errors of data destruction, lack of flexibility in roles-based administration, and inability to scale for organizations that have vastly different synchronization needs. Additionally, conventional synchronization solutions are often limited to work with only a small set of endpoint devices or applications.

Hub and spoke architecture for cloud-based synchronization


A coupling system for maintaining an end of a tube in substantially sealed alignment within an aperture in a wall, in which the tube is held by a clamp member affixable to the wall adjacent the aperture. A tube end is provided which is formed by a first tube tip member and a second tube tip member which fits concentrically around the first tube tip member. The second tube tip member has a wall thickness substantially less than that of the first tube tip member, and has a radially outwardly projecting annular bead formed thereon. The first tube tip member and the second tube tip member are affixed to each other, but limited axial movement of a portion of the first tube tip member relative to a portion of the second tube tip member is permitted.

The present invention relates to coupling systems for mounting tubes obliquely onto surfaces where the surface and the tube may be undergoing relative vibration, and particularly, to coupling systems for mounting tubes to components of a vehicle motor.
A modern motor vehicle requires or is provided with a variety of accessory apparatus which involve the use of tubes to transmit pressurized fluid (such as exhaust) or to provide a vacuum, to a portion of the motor block, carburetor, intake or exhaust manifolds, or other component. For example, an EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) tube directs hot exhaust gases from the exhaust manifold or other part of the exhaust system, to the carburetor or air intake manifold, which improves fuel efficiency, and as well, improves the quality of the vehicle exhaust emissions.
Typically, the tube will be insertingly received at one end directly into an aperture provided in the sidewall of a motor component. The end of the tube may be provided with an outwardly extending, annular bead, to, in part, limit the extent to which the tube extends into the sidewall of the motor component, and as well to provide a surface a clamp member to bear on, to hold the tube end in place. In addition, the bead serves to create a seal between the wall of the engine component and the clamp member, which is typically a simple plate-like retainer member with a bolt extending through one end of the plate-like member into the wall of the motor component. The annular bead is typically simply formed as a corrugation mechanically formed into the end of the tube. When the clamp member is tightened down against the wall of the motor component, the bead, being fabricated from relatively thin and flexible metal material, axially compresses, slightly to form a tight sealing fit between the tube, the aperture and the wall and clamp member.
A typical prior art tube, such as may be used to draw off exhaust gases from an exhaust manifold in a automotive engine, will have an outside diameter to wall thickness ratio of 39:1 to over 62:1. For example, a tube having a wall thickness of 0.012 inches may be formed with an outside diameter of 0.625 inches. In such a tube material, an outwardly projecting annular bead can be formed which may have a radius of, for example, 0.10 inches, extend radially outwardly from the outer diameter of the tube a distance of about 0.11 inches, and have a thickness (measured along the direction of the tube) of about 0.25 inches. The use of such thin-walled tubular material is not practical in some environments. For example, in the environment of a larger engine, thus requiring longer developed tube length, or in an environment where substantially robust duty life is required, with external damage potential, such thin-walled tubes may not be durable enough, or economically practical. Accordingly, it is desirable to employ a tube having a much lower ratio of the outside diameter to the wall thickness. Such a more robust tube may have a ratio of outside diameter to wall thickness of between 17:1 and 20:1. For example, an outside diameter of 0.6 inches would be accompanied by a tube wall thickness of 0,035 inches.
An effective seal at the point of connection of such a thick-walled tube to an engine component housing is difficult to obtain, for the reason that the relatively thicker-wailed tube does not permit the forming of a desirable annular bead having overall dimensions and spring rate similar to those in an annular bead which can be readily formed in a thin-walled tube. The thicker material, when formed into a bead shape, will not deflect elastically under required clamp pressure, leading to undesirable leakage, possible damage or hazard, and inefficiency.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a thicker-walled tube for use in such situations as an EGR tube, for use in heavier duty environments, but which is capable of being sealingly connected to the appropriate component housing in as effective a manner as can be achieved with thin-walled tubes.
One possible solution to this problem, is to affix beyond the end of a thick-walled tube a short extension adapter section of thin-walled tube into which an appropriate annular bead has been formed. The two components are slightly overlapped and welded or brazed. While the adapter extension formed of the thin-walled tube enables an effective sealing connection to be provided, the composite tube which has been formed would prove unsatisfactory in that the thin-walled adapter extension is susceptible to the vibration and other thermal or mechanical forces exerted upon it by the mass of the thick-walled tube. The greater, substantial mass of the remaining length of the heavier tube exerts potentially destructive force on the thin-walled adapter extension, as the tube length grows thermally and moves under the vibrations of the operating engine.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a coupling system for connecting a relatively thick-walled tube to a wall, for example, of a motor component, which has the benefit of the features of a thin-walled tube coupling.
A further object of the invention is to provide a coupling system which has a composite construction utilizing a thin-walled tube adapter portion which is operably connected to a tube end of a thick-walled tube.
Still another object of the invention is to provide such a coupling system which is more able to withstand the vibration and stresses associated with continued operation, with enhanced durability of the seal formed between the bead and the aperture, and improve the connection joint strength between the thin-walled tube adapter portion and the thick-walled tube end.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent in light of the present specification, claims and drawings.

Coupling system for relatively thick-walled tubes


A method for forming metal salicide regions and metal salicide exclusion regions in an integrated circuit (IC) that requires a minimum number of steps and is compatible with standard MOS processing techniques. An IC structure is first provided, with the IC structure including a plurality of MOS transistor structures with exposed silicon surfaces, such as source regions, drain regions and polysilicon gates. A metal layer (e.g., cobalt, titanium, tantalum, nickel or molybdenum) is then deposited over the IC structure in a controlled manner. A photoresist masking layer is then formed on those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed. The metal layer from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide exclusion regions are to be formed is then removed. The photoresist masking layer is then stripped from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed, and metal (in the remaining portions of the metal layer) that is in direct contact with silicon in the exposed silicon surfaces is then reacted to form metal salicide regions. By appropriately controlling parameters of the metal layer deposition step, the metal to be reacted to produce metal salicide, and the metal salicide resulting from the reaction, are caused to have desired properties or attributes. For example, where the metal salicide formation step is a step in forming a polysilicon interconnection, the metal deposition step can be performed in a manner that results in a predetermined sheet resistance or conductivity of the polysilicon interconnection.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to processes for the formation of an integrated circuits structure and, in particular, to a process for the formation of an integrated circuit that includes metal salicide regions and metal salicide exclusion regions.
2. Description of the Related Art
In Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) device manufacturing, selfaligned metal silicide layers (also known as xe2x80x9csalicidexe2x80x9d layers) are useful in reducing the sheet resistance of polysilicon interconnections, source regions and drains regions, as well as contact resistance. See, for example, Stanley Wolf, Silicon Processing for the VLSI Era, Vol. I, 388-399 (Lattice Press, 1986).
FIGS. 1-3 illustrate a conventional process for forming a metal silicide layer over a polysilicon gate, a source region and a drain region of an MOS transistor structure within an integrated circuit (IC). A conventional MOS transistor structure 10 includes a thin gate oxide layer 12 overlying P-type silicon substrate 14 between N-type drain region 16 and N-type source region 18, both of which are formed in P-type silicon substrate 14. A conventional MOS transistor structure 10 also includes a polysilicon gate 20 overlying thin gate oxide layer 12, as well as field oxide regions 22, which isolate MOS transistor structure 10 from neighboring semiconductor device structures (not shown). Gate sidewall spacers 24, typically formed of silicon dioxide and/or silicon nitride, are disposed on the lateral edges of polysilicon gate 20 and thin gate oxide layer 12.
In a conventional metal silicide formation process, a metal layer 28 is deposited over the surface of MOS transistor structure 10, as illustrated in FIG. 2. Metal layer 28 is ordinarily deposited by a multi-directional evaporative or sputtering-based physical vapor deposition (PVD) process or a multi-directional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process and is, therefore, of essentially uniform thickness over the entire surface of MOS transistor structure 10.
Wherever metal layer 28 is in contact with silicon surfaces (i.e. source region 18, drain region 16 and the polysilicon surface of polysilicon gate 20) the metal is reacted to form a metal silicide layer. The reaction conditions, such as temperature and gaseous ambient, employed for the metal silicide layer formation are selected to foster the reaction of the metal layer with silicon surfaces while impeding the reaction of the metal layer with silicon dioxide or silicon nitride surfaces (i.e. the gate sidewall spacers and field oxide regions).
A selective etch is then used to remove unreacted metal from the surface of the gate sidewall spacers and field oxide regions, as well as any unreacted metal residue still remaining above the source region, drain region and polysilicon gate. The etch is xe2x80x9cselectivexe2x80x9d since it does not remove the metal silicide layer that was formed on the surface of the silicon and polysilicon regions. The result, illustrated in FIG. 3, is a metal silicide layer 32 on the surface of drain region 16, a metal silicide layer 34 on the surface of source region 18 and a metal silicide layer 36 on the surface of polysilicon gate 20.
It can be desireable to form integrated circuits that include both MOS transistors structures with metal salicide layers (i.e., metal salicide regions) and MOS transistor structures without metal salicide layers (i.e., metal salicide exclusion regions). For example, it is often beneficial to form input/output (I/O) MOS transistor structures without metal salicide layers in order to provide a relatively high resistance I/O path for electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection.
Conventional processes for the formation of IC structures with metal salicide regions and metal salicide exclusion regions involve a series of steps that form a layer of silicon dioxide over MOS transistor structures where metal salicide exclusion regions are to be formed, prior to the deposition of a metal layer. This series of steps includes depositing a silicon dioxide layer on an integrated circuit structure, forming a photoresist masking layer on the silicon dioxide layer, removing the silicon dioxide layer from the MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed, and then stripping the photoresist masking layer. This series of steps is followed by the deposition of a metal layer and the formation of metal salicide regions.
A drawback of conventional processes for the formation of IC structures with metal salicide regions and metal salicide exclusion regions is the potential for the step of removing the silicon dioxide layer to damage the MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed. For example, if the silicon dioxide layer is removed from the MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed using an HF acid or buffered oxide etchant (BOE), then there is a potential for the HF acid and BOE to attack gate sidewall spacers formed of silicon dioxide. In addition, the conventional processes are relatively complicated and requires many steps since they involve the deposition of a silicon dioxide layer, the formation of a masking layer, the removal of the silicon dioxide layer and the stripping of the photoresist masking layer.
Still needed in the field is a process for manufacturing an integrated circuit structure with a metal salicide region(s) and a metal salicide exclusion region(s) that is simple, requires a minimum number of steps, does not subject MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed to damage by a silicon dioxide layer removal process step, and can be controlled to produce metal salicide regions with predetermined attributes (e.g., sheet resistance).
The invention is a process for forming metal salicide regions and metal salicide exclusion regions during integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing. The process requires a minimum number of steps, does not subject MOS transistor structures to a silicon dioxide removal process step, is compatible with standard MOS processing techniques and provides for the formation of metal salicide regions (such as source regions, drain regions or polysilicon gates) on predetermined MOS transistor structures, while also providing for the formation of metal salicide exclusion regions on other predetermined MOS transistor structures in an IC.
Processes according to the present invention include first providing an IC structure that includes a plurality of MOS transistor structures with exposed silicon surfaces (such as source regions, drain regions, and polysilicon gates). A metal layer (e.g., cobalt, titanium , tantalum, nickel or molybdenum) is then deposited over the IC structure in a controlled manner. If a cobalt layer is used as the metal layer, then a capping layer (e.g., titanium or titanium nitride) is subsequently deposited thereon. A photoresist masking layer is then formed on those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed, followed by removal of the metal layer from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide exclusion regions are to be formed. Next, the metal layer (as well as the capping layer, if any) is removed from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide exclusion regions are to be formed, followed by stripping of the photoresist masking layer from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed. Then, metal (in those portions of the metal layer not previously removed) in contact with the exposed silicon surfaces is reacted to form metal salicide regions. By appropriately controlling parameters of the metal layer deposition step, the metal to be reacted (to produce metal salicide) and the metal salicide resulting from the reaction are caused to have desired properties. For example, where the metal salicide formation step is a step in forming a polysilicon interconnection, the metal deposition step can be performed in a manner that results in a predetermined sheet resistance (xcfx81/t, wherexcfx81=resistivity and t thickness) or conductivity of the polysilicon interconnection.
The key benefits of forming metal salicide regions and metal salicide exclusion regions in accordance with the invention include the following:
by removing the metal layer (and any capping layer) from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide exclusion regions are to be formed before reacting remaining portions of the metal to form metal salicide regions, the reaction is source limited (in the sense that it is limited by the amount of metal available for reaction). When performing the inventive method, there is only a limited amount of metal available to form metal silicide (i.e., the metal that remains after the removal step, and is in contact with exposed silicon). In contrast, when performing conventional methods there is an effectively unlimited supply of metal available for forming salicide. Thus, the invention will significantly limit metal salicide crawl over and under the desired metal salicide exclusion regions (e.g., over and under gate sidewall spacers adjacent to the desired metal salicide regions);
the removal of a metal layer from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide exclusion regions are to be formed (in accordance with the invention) can be accomplished using relatively simple photoresist masking layer formation and metal layer removal processes, while leaving a metal layer on those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed intact; and
the invention completely eliminates the need for silicon dioxide layer deposition on an IC structure and subsequent silicon dioxide layer removal from the MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed. The elimination of these steps not only reduces the required number of process steps to a minimum, but also avoids subjecting the precursor of the metal salicide regions to attack by HF acid or BOE.
In a class of preferred embodiments, the invention includes the steps of:
depositing a predetermined thickness of metal (e.g., cobalt, nickel, tantalum, titanium, or molybdenum) over an IC structure (having exposed silicon surfaces) in any of a variety of ways, optionally with a capping layer over the metal;
then, forming a photoresist masking layer on those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed; then, removing the metal layer (as well as the capping layer, if any) from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide exclusion regions are to be formed;
then, stripping of the photoresist masking layer from those MOS transistor structures where metal salicide regions are to be formed; and
finally, reacting metal (in those portions of the metal layer not previously removed) in contact with the exposed silicon surfaces to form metal salicide regions in a source limited manner.

Method for manufacturing an integrated circuit structure with limited source salicidation


There are introduced ways for retrieving or depositing a replica of an electronic document in a computer network. After having selected at least one replica number, a given function is applied. The function requires as input the replica number and a document identifier. The function returns as a result at least one entity identifier, each entity identifier representing an entity in the network that might provide the replica. In a next step, a document related request is addressed to at least one of the identified entities.

Instant access to electronic documents and data becomes increasingly more critical for day-to-day business operations. As a result, storage needs to be reliable and resilient to failures, including localized physical damage. Distributed, replicated storage over a computer network seems the only way out.
Unfortunately, today's distributed/replicated systems either require full, identical replication between the computing entities involved which typically are at least two data centers in different locations, or require in the case of distributed storage, a centralized controller keeping track of the replica distribution. Anyone who is to access more than one replica needs to either know the full list of replicas or needs to have access to a directory service which returns this information, either globally—for all documents—or on a per-document basis.
Distributed storage becomes increasingly more important, as existing inexpensive machines can be used to serve content. With the advent of distributed hash table (DHT) technology, self-organizing storage networks have become feasible and have raised significant interest in the community. Sitting "on top" of the Internet, these scalable overlay networks use the transport capabilities of the underlying network, but add value. DHT technology provides a mapping from resource IDs to hosts (D-->H) that is typically preceded by a mapping from resource name to resource ID (N-->D). This is achieved using minimal routing information in each node. DHTs generally are also prepared to deal with changes in host availability and network connectivity.
DHTs come in a variety of routing flavors, but share the properties that messages are transported on a hop-by-hop basis among constituent nodes of the overlay network. Each hop knows how to get closer to the destination, until it finally reaches the node that claims the requested ID as its own and acts according to the request.
Some of the DHTs operate based on intervals ring topologies, such as described in "Chord: A Scalable Peer-to-peer Lookup Service for Internet Applications", Ion Stoica et al., Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM 2001, August 2001, pages 149-160, some split hyperspaces into manageable chunks, as described in "A Scalable Content-Addressable Network", Sylvia Ratnasamy et al., Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, September 2001, or "Efficient Topology-Aware Overlay Network", Marcel Waldvogel and Roberto Rinaldi, ACM Computer Communications Review, January 2003, Volume 33, Number 1, pages 101-106, whereas others implement a rootless tree, such as described in "Pastry: Scalable, distributed object location and routing for large-scale peer-to-peer systems", Anthony Rowstron and Peter Druschel, IFIP/ACM International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms (Middleware), November 2001, pages 329-350, or "Tapestry: An Infrastructure for Fault-tolerant Wide-area Location and Routing", Ben Y. Zhao et al., University of California, Berkeley, UCB/CSD-01-1141, April 2001.
Many of these DHT systems are able to exploit the locality of the underlay network. Locality aspects are typically separated into geographic layout and proximity forwarding categories adapted from "Exploiting Network Proximity in Distributed Hash Tables", Miguel Castro et al., International Workshop on Future Directions in Distributed Computing (FuDiCo), edited by Ozalp Babaoglu and Ken Birman and Keith Marzullo, June 2002, pages 52-55.
"Accessing Nearby Copies of Replicated Objects in a Distributed Environment", C. Greg Plaxton et al., ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures", 1997, pages 311-320, shows another approach to locality patterns.
An approach of linking DHTs and caching is shown in "OceanStore: An Architecture for Global-Scale Persistent Storage", John Kubiatowicz et al. Proceedings of ACM ASPLOS, November 2000. There, queries passing along the DHT are redirected by Attenuated Bloom Filters (ABF), when there is a high probability that a document cache can be found along that route. Besides the chances for false positives despite continuous ABF update traffic, there is no way for the document originator to address selected replicas when the need arises.
"INS/Twine: A Scalable Peer-to-Peer Architecture for Intentional Resource Discovery", Magdalena Balazinska et al., Pervasive 2002—International Conference on Pervasive Computing, August 2002, shows an example of a resource discovery/directory service on top of a DHT.
US20020114341A1 presents a peer-to-peer enterprise storage, which uses a centralized controller/coordinator.
Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 6,223,206 discloses a method and system for load balancing by replicating a portion of a file being read by a first stream onto a second device and reading the portion with a second stream capable of accessing. This prior art deals with a completely centralized system.
US20030014523A1, US20030014433A1, and US20030014432A1, each introduces a storage network data replicator. There are algorithms disclosed on how to replicate from one instance to the other. It is described which existing replica to select as a source for further replication.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,046, and EP 807 885 B1 both show a system and a method for automatically distributing copies of a replicated database in a computer system. Hosts and disks for determining replica placement are enumerated in order to improve reliability.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,815,649 illustrates a distributed fault tolerant digital data storage subsystem for fault tolerant computer system. Multiple redundant computers are used as a front-end to multiple redundant disks, basically as a network RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks).
According to U.S. Pat. No. 6,470,420, a method is proposed for designating one of a plurality of addressable storage devices to process a data transfer request. A client multicasts a single request to all replicas and they cooperatively select the one to reply.
WO 03/012699 A1 shows systems and methods for providing metadata for tracking of information on a distributed file system of storage devices. Metadata are used to locate the files
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,163,856 a method and an apparatus are shown for file system disaster recovery.
According to another applicant's patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,897,661, there is illustrated a logical volume manager and a corresponding method for having enhanced update capability with dynamic allocation of storage and minimal storage of metadata information. Metadata replication is provided, which is limited to those storage providers who have a need to know.
In WO 02/093298 A3, a modular storage server architecture is described with dynamic data management. This document shows replication according to locality access patterns and hierarchical storage management.
According to US20030028695A1, a producer/consumer locking system for efficient replication of file data is shown which provides locking between concurrent operations.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,147, a replication facility is described, which uses a log file mechanism to replicate documents.
Despite the work done on replication and distributed storage, there currently is a lack of replication mechanism on top of the completely distributed technology which does not suffer from the presence of single points of failure. As replicas not only improve availability, but may also balance load, there have been distributed mechanisms also for the purpose of caching. Besides reliability, caching systems also pose an update problem: As it is not clear, where information is cached, a cache may become stale, if it does not continuously track the status of the original location. This poses a severe challenge in scalability, undoing the off-loading, caching provides.
Hence, it is desirable to provide a mechanism for managing replicas in a computer network, which mechanism is reflected in appropriate methods, computing entities and computer program elements for retrieving and/or depositing replicas in a computer network.

Retrieving a replica of an electronic document in a computer network

International Business Machines Corporation


A light emitting device includes: a first light emitting element mounting unit including: a first substrate; a first light emitting element on a first surface of the first substrate; and a first substrate holder which includes a first column, and a first protrusion which extends from the first column toward the first light emitting element and bonded to the first surface of the first substrate; and a second light emitting element mounting unit including: a second substrate; a second light emitting element mounted on a first surface of the second substrate; and a second substrate holder which includes: a second column, and a second protrusion which extends from the second column toward the second light emitting element and bonded to the first surface of the second substrate. The second light emitting element mounting unit is stacked on the first light emitting element mounting unit.

1. Technical Field
Embodiments described herein relates to a light emitting device having a plurality of light emitting elements.
2. Related Art
In recent years, a light emitting device has become known in which a plurality of light emitting elements held by a holding member are stacked so as to emit a plurality of light beams. As such a light emitting element, for example, a semiconductor laser diode has been used, and as such a holding member, for example, a copper-tungsten (CuW) substrate has been used. Since such a light emitting device has a structure in which copper-tungsten (CuW) substrates that are holding members and light emitting elements are alternately stacked, the thickness of the copper-tungsten (CuW) substrates becomes a factor for the pitch of the light emitting elements (see e.g., JP-A-2001-339122 and JP-A-2009-524223).
However, since such a copper-tungsten (CuW) substrate is difficult to make thinner, and the thickness accuracy becomes poor when the substrate is thinned, it has been difficult to stack light emitting elements with a narrow or high pitch accurately.


Embodiments of methods, system, and computer program products are provided that may facilitate monitoring of data processing system events. For example, data processing system event data may be collected and sent to an event handler program module. Once the event handler program module receives the data processing system event data, a remote program module, which resides in a different address space than the event handler program module, may be notified. The data processing system event data may then be sent from the event handler program module to the remote program module. Data processing system events may, therefore, be monitored from a remote location without the need to log in to the data processing system to manually extract the event data. Moreover, the data processing system event data may be sent from the event handler program module to the remote program module as events occur, thereby providing event notification in real-time. As a result, a remote program module need not expend processing resources polling the data processing system to determine if any events have occurred and remote personnel need not log in to the data processing system to check for events. A remote program module may monitor multiple data processing systems and may send event data to another remote program module. Thus, a scalable, hierarchical monitoring system may be constructed.

The present invention relates generally to the field of data processing or computing systems, and, more particularly, to remote monitoring of events in data processing or computing systems.
Data processing systems may periodically log events that occur during operation. An event log may be maintained for a variety of reasons, such as, but not limited to, record keeping, problem analysis and debugging, inventory management, and billing. For example, a retailer may have multiple stores that are spread apart geographically. Each store may have a retail point of sale (POS) data processing system that is used to process purchases by customers and may also be used to manage store inventory, track sales trends, and provide accounting information. The retail POS data processing system at each store may maintain a log of event data and may further provide an interface to allow the event data to be viewed and/or processed locally. The retailer, however, may have a hierarchy of managing offices that are responsible for various groupings of stores. These managing offices, which are typically remotely located, may find reviewing the event data at the various stores for which they are responsible to be inconvenient. For example, a managing office may establish communication with a store using a dial-up connection and then use commands to query the store""s database for event data or, alternatively, may download the store""s event data for subsequent processing. Unfortunately, a manual approach as described in the foregoing may be labor intensive and may also be error prone.
Embodiments of the present invention may include methods, systems, and computer program products that may facilitate monitoring of data processing system events. For example, data processing system event data may be collected and sent to an event handler program module. Once the event handler program module receives the data processing system event data, a remote program module, which resides in a different address space than the event handler program module, may be notified. The data processing system event data may then be sent from the event handler program module to the remote program module. Data processing system events may, therefore, be monitored from a remote location without the need to log in to the data processing system to manually extract the event data. Moreover, the data processing system event data may be sent from the event handler program module to the remote program module as events occur, thereby providing event notification in real-time. As a result, a remote program module need not expend processing resources polling the data processing system to determine if any events have occurred and remote personnel need not log in to the data processing system to check for events.
In particular embodiments of the present invention, the data processing system event data may be sent to the event handler program module over a socket interface. This may allow the present invention to be practiced in data processing systems that use a communication protocol that supports the socket interface, such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP).
In further embodiments of the present invention, communication may be established between the event handler program module and the remote program module via a distributed object Application Programming Interface (API). Moreover, the distributed object API may be used to send the data processing system event data from the event handler program module to the remote program module. In particular embodiments of the present invention, the distributed object API may be the JAVA(trademark) Remote Method Invocation (RMI) API, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) API, or the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) API.
In still further embodiments of the present invention, once the remote program module receives the data processing system event data, a second remote program module, which resides in a different address space, may be notified and the data processing system event data may be sent to the second remote program module. In this manner, a hierarchical monitoring system may be constructed in which one remote program module may send the data processing system event data to another remote program module. In particular embodiments of the present invention, remote program modules may communicate with one another via a distributed object API. Furthermore, the distributed object API may be used to send the data processing system event data from one remote program module to another remote program module. The distributed object API may be the JAVA RMI API, the CORBA API, or the DCOM API.
In other embodiments of the present invention, the data processing system event data may be classified into multiple categories. These categories may include, for example, whether an event is an error, a warning, or an informational event. In particular embodiments of the present invention, one remote program module may send to another remote program module only the data processing system event data that are classified in categories that satisfy a predetermined criterion.
In still other embodiments of the present invention, after the data processing system event data is sent to a remote program module, the data may be optionally filtered using criterion, such as date, severity, event number, etc., and then displayed on an output device using a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI may be, for example, a Web browser or other suitable graphical interface that facilitates display of the data processing system event data.
In yet other embodiments of the present invention, the data processing system may be a point of sale (POS) system as is used, for example, in many retail stores for processing customer purchases.
Thus, the present invention may be used to facilitate remote monitoring of data processing system events. For example, in a retail application, a managing office may remotely monitor event data from one or more stores over which it has supervisory authority. Advantageously, the present invention is scalable, which may allow managing offices in the business hierarchy to remotely monitor event data received at offices and/or stores for which they have management responsibility. The present invention may use standardized protocols for communication, such as sockets and/or distributed object APIs, to allow for easy integration with data processing systems that already support these protocols.
Although the present invention has been described above primarily with respect to method aspects of the invention, it will be understood that the present invention may be embodied as methods, systems, and/or computer program products.

Methods, systems, and computer program product for remote monitoring of a data processing system events

International Business Machines Corporation


A gravimeter, a gravimeter system, and a method for measuring gravitational acceleration within a borehole are described herein. The gravimeter includes a proof mass that is constrained by springs and an optical interferometer for measuring displacement of the proof mass. The optical interferometer generates a light path from a light source to a reflective surface on the proof mass. Spatial displacement of the proof mass from a reference position to a position of gravitational equilibrium is determined by measuring a change in length of the light path. In turn, gravitational acceleration can be determined from the spatial displacement of the proof mass. A number of such gravimeters can be used in a gravimeter system to make measurements of gravitational acceleration in variety of different directions.

Gravimetry can be used to identify hydrocarbon reservoirs within underground formations and to characterize those hydrocarbon reservoirs on a large-scale. In particular, a device called a "gravimeter" can be used to determine a measure of gravitational acceleration at a particular location adjacent to an underground formation. This measure of gravitational acceleration can be used to determine characteristics of the underground formation, such as the bulk density or specific gravity of the underground formation.
One example of a conventional gravimeter is a Lacoste-Romberg gravimeter. A Lacoste-Romberg gravimeter uses a zero-length spring to monitor gravitational force that is applied to a small proof mass. Conventional gravimeters also use other technologies. For example, other conventional gravimeters use the time of flight of a free-falling object or the oscillation time of a pendulum to determine gravitational acceleration. In yet other examples, gravimeters use cold atomic fountains, current-carrying vibrating strings, or torsion balances to determine the force of gravity.
Such conventional gravimeters and other available gravimeters are difficult to adapt to rugged borehole environments. High temperatures and dynamic temperatures are common in borehole environments (e.g., 175° C. and above). Furthermore, tools that enter borehole environments are often subject to shock and vibrations. These problems are compounded because the gravitational force is an extremely weak force. Such conditions make it challenging to achieve the sensitivities for an accurate gravimetric measurement.

Systems, devices and methods for borehole gravimetry


Keratinic fibers are colored by a two-component composition for coloring keratinous fibers comprising a first preparation (A) comprising at least one oxidation dye precursor and a second preparation (B) comprising at least one care component, wherein the two preparations are packaged separately from one another in the compartments of a two-compartment tube.

(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a two-component composition for coloring keratinous fibers which is made up in a two-compartment tube, to a corresponding two-compartment tube and to a process for coloring keratinous fibers using this composition.
Nowadays, human hair is treated in many different ways with hair-care preparations. Such treatments include, for example, the cleaning of hair with shampoos, the care and regeneration of hair with rinses and treatments and the bleaching, coloring and shaping of hair with coloring and tinting formulations, wave formulations and styling preparations.
Coloring or tinting preparations containing substantive dyes as their coloring component are normally used for temporary colors. Substantive dyes are dye molecules which are directly absorbed onto the hair and do not require an oxidative process for forming the color. Such dyes include, for example, henna which has been used since olden times for coloring the body and the hair. They are generally far more sensitive to shampooing than oxidative colors, so that an often unwanted shift of tone or even visible "decoloring" occurs much more quickly.
So-called oxidation colorants are used for permanent, intensive colors with corresponding fastness properties. Oxidation colorants normally contain oxidation dye precursors, so-called primary intermediates and secondary intermediates. The primary intermediates form the actual dyes with one another or by coupling with one or more secondary intermediates under the influence of oxidizing agents or atmospheric oxygen. Oxidation colorants are distinguished by excellent, long-lasting coloring results. A mixture of a relatively large number of oxidation dye precursors normally has to be used for natural-looking colors. In many cases, substantive dyes are also used for shading.
The significance of care products with a long-lasting effect is growing due not least to the serious stressing of the hair by such color-changing treatments, but also to permanent waving, shampooing and harmful environmental factors. These care products influence the natural structure and properties of the hair. Thus, after treatment with a care product, the wet and dry combability of the hair, the hold, strength and volume of the hair can be optimized or the hair can be protected against high splitting rates.
Accordingly, it has long been common practice to subject the hair to a special aftertreatment in which the hair is treated with special active components, for example, quaternary ammonium salts or special polymers, usually in the form of a rinse. Depending on the formulation, the combability, hold and volume of the hair are improved and the splitting rate reduced by this treatment.
The active components available generally act preferentially on the surface of the hair. Thus, there are known active components which provide the hair with shine, hold, volume, better wet or dry combability or prevention of splitting. Just as important as the outward appearance of the hair, however, is the inner structural cohesion of the hair fibers, which can be seriously affected, in particular, by oxidative and reductive processes, such as coloring and permanent waving. Active components capable of permanently counteracting this change in the inner structure have also been proposed recently.
So-called combination preparations have recently been developed to reduce the complexity of the usual multistage processes, particularly where they are directly applied by the user. Besides the usual components for coloring the hair, these preparations also contain active components which previously had been reserved for the hair aftertreatment preparations. Accordingly, the consumer saves an application step. At the same time, packaging costs are reduced because one less product is used.
However, some of the known active components have the disadvantage that they cannot be stably formulated in the colorants.
(2) Description of Related Art
Including Information Disclosed Under 37 C.F.R. §§1.97 and 1.98.
Not Applicable

Caring oxidation coloring agent in a tube

Abstract: The compartment openings in the tube are oriented in such a way that the contents of each of the chambers is emitted simultaneously into a common space.


An apparatus is disclosed for the application of a polymer resin to a threaded fastener, where the fastener includes a cylindrical body and the threads of the fastener are formed in a bore extending diametrically across the body. The apparatus generally comprises a conveyor, a resin application station and a fastener orientation station. The conveyor carries the fasteners along a predetermined path of travel, and includes one or more fastener support members that permit the individual fasteners to rotate about the axes of their cylindrical bodies. The application station comprises a nozzle which directs a stream of the resin toward the travel path of the fasteners. The orientation station includes a guide member which operates to rotate each of the fasteners relative to the conveyor as they move toward the application station, and to thereby properly orient the fasteners so the threaded bore of each fastener will intersect the resin stream as the conveyor carries the fasteners along the travel path and through the spray station.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for applying polymer resin materials to threaded fasteners, and more particularly, to an apparatus for mechanically handling and orienting a small threaded fastener to properly position it for application of the resin to an internally threaded bore located in a cylindrical body of the fastener.
It is common practice today in the fastener industry to apply various polymer resins to threaded fasteners. Among the most common practices is the application of a resilient polymer, typically nylon, to the fastener""s threads to provide a self-locking function. Such fasteners, when assembled with another complementary threaded element, are resistant to loosening due to vibration or other external forces. In order to economically produce these self-locking fasteners, it is essential that the application of the polymer resin be accomplished by means of automated equipment, with production rates oftentimes in the range of thousands of pieces per hour. Such automated apparatus and processes, in turn, typically require some form of mechanical handling and part orientation equipment to ensure the proper placement of the resin to the desired threads of the fastener.
When the fastener involved is relatively small and comprises an internally threaded element, the problem of proper part orientation can be more difficult. In the case where the part is asymmetrical, this problem can be further exacerbated.
The present invention represents an efficient and cost effective solution to the problem of properly positioning a small threaded fastener having a cylindrical body with internal threads extending along a bore in the body, where the bore extends diametrically across the body along an axis generally perpendicular to the axis of the body.
The present invention is directed to an apparatus for the application of a polymer resin to a threaded fastener, where the fastener includes a cylindrical body and the threads of the fastener are formed in a bore extending diametrically across the body. The apparatus generally comprises a conveyor, a resin application station and a fastener orientation station. The conveyor carries the fasteners along a predetermined path of travel, and includes one or more fastener support members that permit the individual fasteners to rotate about the axes of their cylindrical bodies. The application station comprises a nozzle which directs a stream of the resin toward the travel path of the fasteners. The orientation station includes a guide member which operates to rotate each of the fasteners relative to the conveyor as they move toward the application station, and to thereby properly orient the fasteners so the threaded bore of each fastener will intersect the resin stream as the conveyor carries the fasteners along the travel path and through the spray station.
In one preferred embodiment, the guide member of the orientation station comprises a resilient guide surface which is biased toward the travel path of the fasteners and is shaped to complement the configuration of the travel path. In this way, as each of the fasteners carried by the conveyor enters the orientation station, the circumference of its cylindrical body engages the guide surface causing the fastener to rotate. However, the bore which extends through the cylindrical body forms an interruption in the circumference of the body. As a result, the fastener will rotate as it passes along the surface of the guide member, but will stop rotating and remain rotationally stationary when the interruption on the fastener""s circumference is juxtaposed with the guide surface. In this way, each fastener exiting the orientation station is properly positioned for receipt of the resin stream as it subsequently enters the application station.

Apparatus for application of polymer resin onto threaded fasteners


A system for facilitating the reorganization of the information technology of a business organization into a structure that is modular and, thus, interchangeable between business units within the enterprise, and particularly within World Wide Web enterprises involving several correlated companies.

The past decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. The effect has, in turn, driven technologies which have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. A major one of these technologies is the Internet or Web (the terms are used interchangeably herein) related distribution of documents, programs, media and all other data processing entities. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communication distribution channels and the Web or Internet, which had quietly existed for over a generation as a loose academic and government data distribution facility, reached "critical mass" and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion.
As a result of this expansion, extraordinary worldwide communication channels and resources have become available to businesses on a relatively inexpensive basis. This has commenced an era which will forever change how business processes are conducted. Business organizations including business enterprises (the term is used here to define organizations of such scope that many divisions and separate but interrelated companies are involved) are becoming increasingly modular in nature, i.e. with many shared processes and functions. This is, of course, greatly facilitated by the distribution and tracking functions provided by the Web.
Business entities must out source various functions or activities to other enterprise divisions, companies, partners and even contractor or subcontractor organizations. As a result of Internet functions and capabilities, these out source participants may be in different cities or countries.
However, this out sourcing or like collaboration between different organizations and companies requires the sharing of resources, such as business processes and databases. Each out sourcing company often has to make available to one or more of the others, databases, application programs and other resources that the others may need to complete their activity. This gives rise to the obvious need for up to literally hundreds of points of contact between business entities, dependent upon the size of the business enterprise or organization.
In addition, with the development of the Web, virtually all organizations have been driven to perform a substantial portion of their sales, marketing and customer distribution functions over the Web. These activities coupled with the above-described organizational functions have become known as e-Business, and their business organizations known as e-Business enterprises. To deliver value to their customers, companies of all sizes use partners: suppliers, complementary providers, distributors and shippers correlated through the Web.
Many companies and even large enterprises have responded to all of the above changes in the market place environment and needs on a piecemeal basis by adding resources and function as needed within each of their individual business entities or functions without any overall organization-wide overall plan. The business organizations wrestling with the complexities of plugging such individual resources and functions into the business organization or enterprise as needed are seeking information technology-centric protocols to solve many of these problems.

Computer controlled system for modularizing the information technology structure of a business enterprise into a structure of holonic self-contained modules

Abstract: A computer controlled system is provided for modularizing the information technology structure of a business organization into a structure of interchangeable holonic self-contained modules, with each module performing a set of related functions comprising means for providing a plurality of sets of self-controlling holons, with each holon in each set performing a business capability of the same type as performed by the other holons in its respective set but each set of holons performing a different business capability type than the other sets of holons. A plurality of integration holons are provided, with each integration holon respectively integrating the holons in one of said sets to provide a coordinated overall business capability of one of said different types. The system also provides for modularizing the information technology structure of a business organization so that each integration holon integrates the holons in one of the sets to unitary overall combination business capability holon. Such combined sets of holons may perform a World Wide Web business capability, an internal business organization capability and/or a data processing organization type of capability.


Systems and methods allow users to leverage multiple disparate cloud solutions, offered by disparate service providers, in a unified and cohesive manner. A system includes an image database configured to store a virtual machine image in a stored image format and an engine configured to allocate a task among two or more disparate cloud services. The engine is further configured to convert the virtual machine image from the stored image format to a deployed image format, wherein the deployed image format conforms to formatting for one of the two or more disparate cloud services, and deploy the virtual machine image in the deployed image format to a virtual machine instance of the one of the two or more disparate cloud services.

Cloud services providers deliver powerful capabilities which enable users to easily access computing resources at a cost. Processing, storage, content delivery, and other local and network functions benefit from the sharing-based economies of scale produced using cloud technology.
The complexity required to efficiently utilize cloud services can inhibit some companies and individuals from taking advantage of all the benefits that cloud services provide. Learning the complexity and investing in utilizing a particular cloud service solution also "locks in" users to a particular environment, decreasing flexibility and competition.
This disclosure is directed to solving one or more of the problems in the existing technology.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Systems and methods for cloud computing data processing


Semiconductor packages described herein include a thermal capacitor designed to absorb transient heat pulses from a power semiconductor die and subsequently release the transient heat pulses to a surrounding environment, and/or a recessed pad feature. Corresponding methods of production are also described.

Cooling capability is a disadvantage for SMD (surface mount device) based power electronics. However, SMD-based systems provide high efficiency and are thus widely used. Some power SMD package solutions provide a low thermal resistance to the top and bottom sides of the package and no longer use bond wire or clip interconnects, but instead use solder bumps for source and gate connections. The drain connection is formed by a plated copper can (lid) which is bonded to the drain side of the power semiconductor die. The can/lid provides a low thermal resistance to the top side of the package and is well-suited for cooling through the top side of the package, thereby providing a double-sided cooling solution.
However, the can/lid approach requires a relatively large gate pad size which reduces the active area of the power semiconductor device and therefore increases die cost and lowers overall efficiency. In addition, the can/lid approach does not easily support thin semiconductor dies (e.g. 40 μm to 60 μm thick or even thinner) due to bond line thickness issues which arise when thermal material creeps up the sidewall of a thin power semiconductor die. Excessive creepage may result in electrical problems, which is difficult to avoid in the case of thin semiconductor dies.
Thus, there is a need for an improved SMD-based power semiconductor package and related methods of manufacture.

Semiconductor packages and methods of manufacturing thereof


This transmission input circuit is provided with an adjustment processing section which turns ON a switch at an empty timing where transmission current from a slave device is not flowing, to allow a reference current to flow from a constant current circuit to a current detection resistor, generates in the current detection resistor a target adjustment voltage, in which a threshold voltage corresponding to the reference current is added to a load current detection voltage corresponding to the load current, and adjusts a digital value so that a reference voltage output from a digital variable resistor matches with the target adjustment voltage.

In a conventional monitoring system, a sensor such as a fire hazard sensor and a gas sensor is connected from a receiver device to a transmission line to monitor for abnormalities such as a gas leakage (for example, refer to Patent Documents 1 and 2). In this monitoring system, a digital signal, which is a downstream signal such as control information, is transmitted in a voltage mode from the receiver device to a terminal. Meanwhile, the terminal transmits a digital signal, which is an upstream signal such as sensor information, in a current mode to the receiver device.
FIG. 15 shows the conventional monitoring system. As shown in the diagram, transmission lines 102a and 102b serving also as power supply lines are led out from a receiver device 100 serving as a master device, and an analog type sensor 104 and a relay device 106 serving as slave devices are connected thereto. To the analog type sensor 104 and the relay device 106, there are respectively set a unique address.
The analog type sensor 104 detects a concentration of smoke caused by a fire hazard occurrence or an analog value of the surrounding temperature, and transmits smoke concentration data or temperature data to the receiver device 100. The receiver device 100 determines the presence or absence of a fire hazard occurrence based on the smoke concentration data or the temperature data, and issues a fire hazard warning if a fire hazard occurrence is determined.
Sensor lines 108a and 108b are led out from the relay device 106, and a plurality of ON/OFF type sensors 110 which do not have a transmitting function, are connected thereto as loads. When the ON/OFF type sensor 110 detects an indication of a fire hazard occurrence, it allows an alarm current to flow to the relay device 106 via the sensor lines 108a and 108b. When the relay device 106 receives this alarm current, fire hazard alarm data is transmitted from the relay device 106 to the receiver device 100. Then, the receiver device 100 issues a fire hazard warning.
The receiver device 100 sequentially specifies a slave device address, and transmits a polling downstream signal to respective slave devices (the analog type sensor 104 and the relay device 106) in a voltage mode. The slave device which has received this polling downstream signal distinguishes its own address, and returns a transmission current serving as an upstream signal which indicates a normal state, to the receiver device 100.
FIG. 16 is a diagram which shows, with an equivalent circuit, the receiver device 100, the analog type sensor 104, and the relay device 106 in the conventional system shown in FIG. 15. The relay device 106 supplies electric power to the ON/OFF type sensors 110 connected thereto as a load, to thereby steadily supply operating current, and therefore, the ON/OFF type sensors 110 can be treated as the load 122 illustrated as a resistor. Therefore, a load current Iz according to the load 122, steadily flows to the transmission lines 102a and 102b.
The analog type sensor 104 is provided with a constant current source 112 and a switch 114. In the analog type sensor 104, for example, with respect to the polling from the receiver device 100, a CPU 116 returns an upstream signal indicating normality to the receiver device 100 as a current pulse signal of a predetermined bit length.
The current pulse signal transmitted from the analog type sensor 104 is input to a transmission input circuit 118 of the receiver device 100, and a current detection voltage pulse signal proportional to this current pulse signal is generated and transmitted to a CPU 120. As a result, the CPU 120 which has read the current detection voltage pulse signal recognizes the analog type sensor 104 as being normal. That is to say, in a state where the load current Iz flows from the load 122 to the transmission lines 102a and 102b serving also as power supply lines, the transmission input circuit 118 detects the presence or absence of transmission current from the analog type sensor 104 serving as a slave device.
FIG. 17 is a circuit diagram of the conventional transmission input circuit 118 provided in the receiver device 100 shown in FIG. 16. In FIG. 17, in the transmission input circuit 118, a predetermined power supply voltage Vc is applied to the transmission line 102a, while the signal line 102b side is connected to a current detection resistor R11 via a diode D11.
As shown in FIG. 15, the relay device 106 and the analog type sensor 104 are connected to the transmission lines 102a and 102b, and the load current Iz dependant on the load 122 of the relay device 106 flows at an empty timing where no transmission current Ia is flowing. When the analog type sensor 104 outputs a transmission signal, the transmission current Ia with the load current Iz added thereto flows.
A detection voltage according to the line current which is produced at both ends of the current detection resistor R11 shown in FIG. 17 is applied to the negative input terminal of a comparator 122. A capacitor C11 is connected to the positive input terminal of the comparator 122, and the capacitor C11 is further connected to the input side of the diode D11 via a switch SW11.
The switch SW11 is switched by the CPU 120 at an empty timing where transmission current Ia from the slave devices such as the analog type sensor 104 is not flowing, and it sample-holds in the capacitor C11, a reference voltage Vr, in which a threshold voltage Vf serving as a forward drop voltage of the diode D11 is added to a load current detection voltage Vz of the current detection resistor R11. That is to say, it sample-holds Vr=(Vz+Vf) as a reference voltage Vr.
FIG. 18 is a time chart showing a signal waveform of each section in FIG. 17. FIG. 18(A) shows the input voltage of the comparator 122, and FIG. 18(B) shows the timing of sampling of the capacitor C11 performed by the switch SW11.
As shown in FIG. 18(A), in a state where the transmission current Ia is not present, a load current detection voltage Vz due to the load current Iz flowing through the transmission lines 102a and 102b, is input as a base voltage. Moreover, with switching of the switch SW1 at an empty timing with no transmission current Ia, a reference voltage Vr, in which the threshold voltage Vf serving as the forward drop voltage of the diode D11 is added to the load current detection voltage Vz of the current detection resistor R11, is sample-held in the capacitor C11.
When the transmission current Ia flows due to transmission of a transmission signal from a slave device, at the current detection resistor R11 there is produced a transmission current detection voltage Va corresponding to the transmission current Ia, having the load current detection voltage Vz added thereto. The comparator 122 extracts a reception voltage component (voltage pulse component) which exceeds the reference voltage Vr=(Vz+Vf) held in the capacitor C11, and inputs this as a transmission current detection signal to the CPU 120 which then performs a fire hazard warning process or the like.
FIG. 19 is a time chart shown with the time axis of FIG. 18 contracted. Pulse signals are transmitted with the transmission current Ia from the slave device side at a constant cycle, and at an empty timing thereof, a reference voltage Vr=(Vz+Vf), in which a threshold voltage Vf serving as a forward drop voltage of the diode D11 is added to a load current detection voltage Vz, is sample-held in the capacitor C11. Then, a voltage component which exceeds the reference voltage Vr of a transmission current detection voltage Va obtained immediately thereafter is detected, and input to the CPU 120 as a transmission current detection signal.
Although the load voltage Vz corresponding to the load current Iz is shown as a constant voltage, the load current Iz gently changes according to the environment temperature and the like.
[Prior Art Documents]
[Patent Documents]
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. H09-91576
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. H06-301876


An audio data processing circuit comprises a memory and a processing circuit. The processing circuit is configured to store audio data in the memory in at least one buffer, each buffer having a size. The processor is configured to detect a type of application providing the audio data and, based on the type of application detected, to change at least one of the size and number of buffers in which the processing circuit stores audio data.

Electronic devices are used to run different types of applications. Some applications have greater user interactivity than others. For example, an application which plays an MP3-format audio file typically has less user interactivity than a gaming application.
For applications having greater interactivity, the output of audio should be responsive, requiring a lower latency between the application layer and the audio chip. Lower latency provides audio output that most closely matches the video output associated with the game. For applications having lesser interactivity, the output of audio should have a greater latency, which helps minimize audio stutter.
Audio buffer management is conventionally designed for either high latency applications or low latency applications, or for a compromise between the two.
There is a need for a system and method for improving audio buffer management in a device which may run both high latency and low latency applications. Further, there is a need for a system and method for improving audio buffer management in a device which can operate applications having latency requirements not known at the time of manufacture of the device. Further still, there is a need for a system and method for adapting an audio buffer management scheme dynamically and transparently to accommodate a variety of different applications.

System and method for dynamic audio buffer management


The invention relates to an assembly system used to form insulating floors, in which two types of elements are coupled to one another, namely: hollow prismatic floor modules (100) including one face (110) which forms the load-supporting useful surface and containing cylindrical elements (160, 162, 164, 166) for receiving coupling elements (200); and coupling elements (200) comprising cross-shaped elements with U-sections forming the arms thereof, intended to receive the vertical faces (140, 142, 144, 146) of the floor modules (100), and posts (230) which are coupled to the corresponding hollow cylindrical elements (160, 162, 164, 166) of the floor modules (100) to be joined. The geometric configuration of the modules (100) and the coupling elements (200) ensure that the load on the assembled floor is transmitted to the ground through the vertical walls (140, 142, 144, 146) of the prismatic body (100), the coupling elements (200) and a central cylindrical load body (170). The modules (100) can be made from insulating material and be provided with a non-slip useful surface.

There are multiple examples in literature related to connectable elements, especially blocks designed to form constructions and double floors, for example. The following are some of them.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,645,033 (Thomsen, 2003} assigned to Interlego, is an example of the developments by this company in the area of assemblable construction toys, most of which show a similar structure and operation. In this patent, construction elements are described that include a body in the form of box that has a surface with upper and lower sides and a plurality of faces that extend towards underneath this surface, as well as a plurality of projections for connection that extend downwards until a distance smaller than the height of the walls, that are coupled with projections on the upper surface of another similar element, where the projections have an equal height to the difference between the walls and the projections for connection; this idea has been developed from designs like the shown one in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,570,170 (Kishi, 1971).
In an alternative proposed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,848,927 (Frederiksen, 1998), the coupling between the upper and lower pieces is obtained when modifying the form of the projection in the lower piece to a hemisphere in order that it fits to the interior of a hollow cylindrical projection towards underneath of the upper piece.
Although the previous examples offer alternatives for the coupling of units one on another one, for the purposes of the invention it is necessary to consider the connection side to side of individual elements. In this way, the U.S. Pat. No. 6,050,044 (McIntosh, 2000) describes a block of construction with lateral male/female joints of the "dovetail" type. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,728,310 (Valtolina et al, 1988) offers a lateral connection by means of interconnection elements that are coupled between parallel and perpendicular ribs of relatively flat panels.
All these references are limited applications in the scope of the construction toys, reason why their dimensions allow that a connection by superposition of minimal areas between blocks is sufficient to maintain the integrity of the connected set. In the scope of the industrial applications, we have the following examples of assemblable floors:
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,889,631 (McGregor, 2005) describes modules for the formation of floors for cattle, where the individual modules are mounted on rails on the ground; the panels, made of metal and plastic, offer in their sides, a series of projections and hollows (male/female) to be coupled to each other, but always the joint line must remain on preset rails. This is the same basic idea of panels described in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,953,501 (Moreau, 1990), or in U.S. Pat. No. 6,647,684 (Gank, 2003) where a frame with male/female pieces is formed, and panels are confined in its interior which offer the surface of useful load. Many later developments are based on this idea of the substructure for panels support, and it is the technique mainly used for the construction of "double" floors for uses in computer rooms, for example, in which the space between both surfaces, the ground and the double floor, is used to confine electrical or data transmission systems.
Alternatively to the necessity of a previous substructure for the support of the useful surface, the U.S. Pat. No. 4,198,795 (Barnidge, 1980) proposes the use of self-supported individual modules, with elements for coupling in the vertical sidewalls. One more alternative it is considered in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,592 (Harinishi, 1987), where it is described a structure of floor for gymnastics that includes a panel, a substructure fixed to the ground and a plurality of inter-modular I-shaped supports where the ends form U-shaped channels which receive the lateral ends of the modular panels.
Between the most recent developments, it is worth to mention the United States patent application No. US2004/0258870 (Oakey et al, 2004) describing a reconfigurable floor and the method of assembling of the same, that allows to the elaboration of a variety of designs and the easy assembly/disassembly for its reuse.
Finally, there is a Mexican patent application PA/a/2006/003673 (Leon, 2006), the teachings of which are incorporated by reference, wherein a solution to the problem of installation of assemblable floors for diverse uses is described, based in two basic elements: a low-height tile of polygonal shape, preferably square-based, and a union element between pairs of tiles; the union is made by means of projections in the union element, fitted in corresponding hollows in the lower face of the body of the prismatic tile, nevertheless, this alternative have problems to guarantee a good isolation between the ground and the surface of the assembled floor, mainly due to the space between two contiguous tiles, that can serve as "bridge" for an electrical charge.


A display assembly includes an electronic display that comprises a collection of substrate layers and that has a first outline. The display assembly also includes a cover lens that: (i) is affixed to the electronic display, (ii) has a second outline that is larger than the first outline, and (iii) forms a stepped area at an overlap between the first and second outlines. The display assembly further includes a frame that: (a) supports a portion of the electronic display on at least two opposing sides of the electronic display, (b) attaches to the cover lens such that a substantial portion of the stepped area is covered by a portion of the frame, and (c) connects to a housing of an electronic device such that the display assembly is supported by the housing of the electronic device via the frame being connected to the housing of the electronic device.

Electronic devices often include at least one display assembly for outputting content based on signals received from circuit components of the electronic device. Such display assemblies often also include an electronic display that is affixed to a cover lens. In some electronic devices, a light guide frame may be positioned adjacent a light guide to form a display assembly. Electronic devices may also include a device housing that receives a display assembly and that is attached, or affixed, to at least a cover lens of the display assembly.
Common electronic displays are liquid crystal displays (LCD), light-emitting diode (LED) displays, and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. Current electronic displays can be laminated, using adhesive, to a cover lens. Some LCD electronic displays include multiple substrate layers having technical features for adjusting polarized light that interacts with liquid crystal material of an LCD layer. Under current design practices, a housing of an electronic device is sometimes attached to a non-display area of a cover lens to which the electronic display is affixed.

Frame assembly for an electronic device display


The present invention provides an alternative scaffold for peptides displayed on filamentous phages through novel fusion proteins primarily originating from pVII. Libraries of filamentous phages can be created from fusion proteins, and a phage display system comprising a phagemid and a helper phage is a part of the invention. An aspect of the invention is a kit containing a phage display system comprising a phagemid and a helper phage that contains a nucleic acid encoding the fusion protein of the invention.

The use of combinatorial approaches for protein identification, characterization and modification has been highly successful in both academic and commercial research and development. In this respect, filamentous bacteriophage, or phage, display technology has paved the way being the first library platform and still thrones as the dominating technology. Thus, phage display is widely applied in both basic and applied protein discovery, as well as in development of both novel protein-based diagnostics and therapeutic, which are the class of compounds most rapidly growing world-wide.
The principle of combinatorial phage display technology is based on the genotype—phenotype linkage offered by the property that each virion will only display on its surface the very same proteins that are encoded by the genome encapsulated by its protein coat. The phage particle itself is highly resistant to a variety of physiochemical conditions; hence phage display offers superior versatility in many selection regimes as compared to competing combinatorial technologies.
Phage display of heterologous polypeptides has been achieved using all five structural proteins of the filamentous phage coat, but only pIII- and to some extent pVIII-display have gained widespread use (FIG. 1).
When the heterologous fusion is only a short peptide, multivalent display systems using phage genome-based vectors are preferred, whereas for larger fusions requiring folded domains most applications will benefit from the phagemid systems. In the latter case, antibody-pIII phage display is by far dominating the field, but alternative scaffolds are emerging at dawns early light, continuing the need for expansion of protein engineering tools of tomorrow. For many applications, it would be highly advantageous to be able to make, specifically and in a controlled manner, bispecific phage particles in that more than one of the coat proteins displayed a fusion peptide in the context of the same virus particle. Also, such a system should not interfere with already established display approaches and in particular pIII and pVIII display.
Endemann and Model, 1995 (PMID: 7616570), reported that the minor coat protein pVII was not accessible in the intact phage and that pVII was not functional with another protein fused to its N-terminus. Thus, this report concluded that pVII cannot be used for phage display.
Gao et al, 1999 (PMID: 10339535) and patent application WO0071694, describes heterologous peptide phage display on pVII using the octapeptide FLAG tag, as well as simultaneous phage display on pVII and pIX to generate functional heterodimeric polypeptides harbouring complex folding topologies (antibody Fv). These authors aimed at developing an alternative means for antibody display. The pVII and pIX fusion proteins were expressed from a phagemid employing a dicistronic constellation, hence the resulting functional phage particles inevitably contained varying amounts of pVII and pIX fusion proteins due to complementation by wild type pVII and pIX protein donated from the helper phage genome. As mentioned above, it had previously been suggested that pVII and pIX were not functional with another protein fused to their N termini, and Gao et. al. gave two possible reasons for their success, either alone or by the combination of both.
One possible reason was that a prokaryotic leader sequence (signal sequence) was attached N-terminally to the fusion proteins, thus ensuring targeting of the recombinant protein to the periplasmic space and thereby prevented accumulation in the cytoplasm. Another possible reason was that the recombinant proteins were expressed from a phagemid, not a phage genome as by Endemann and Model, hence wild type pVII and pIX from the helper phage inevitably needed for phagemid rescue were complementing the recombinant pVII and pIX fusion proteins, thus preserving wildtype functionality that otherwise may have been lost due to the recombinant modification. I.e. the phages would comprise a mix of wild-type and fusion proteins. The authors mention that the pVII-pIX display format would be particular useful for combinatorial display of heterodimeric arrays, which, for unknown reasons, appear to yield a particular powerful enrichment during panning protocols. The authors do not envisage using pVII as sole displaying protein (as phagemid or phage genome) or using pVII display in combination with display at another coat protein (different from pIX) to achieve bispecific display.
Kwasnikowski et al. (PMID: 16277988) described genetically stable fusion of scFv fragments to gene VII directly in the phage genome. I.e. the resulting phages comprised no native pVII protein, and the pVII display was multivalent. The authors speculate that one of the reasons for successful pVII display in the phage genome format is that they supported the fusion gene with a prokaryotic signal sequence that directs the fusion protein to the periplasmic space. The authors argued that the unique feature of their system is that the pVII displaying phages bears unmodified, wild-type pIII minor coat protein. Since it has been reported that multiple copies of functional pIII are required for host cell infection, the presence of wild-type pIII of the phage surface may facilitate recovery of selected antibodies with larger diversity. Thus, the authors do not envisage bispecific display, nor do they envisage pVII display without a prokaryotic signal sequence targeting to the periplasmic space.
Khalil et al (PMID: 17360403) describes an application exploiting the feature of a bispecific filamentous phage virion in which an exogenous peptide is displayed at each distal tip of the very same virion. They achieved this by using the combination of a common pIII phage genome vector complementing a pIX display phagemid. In this setting, the phage genome vector served as a helper phage in rescuing the phagemid, thus being reminiscent of the approach described herein of creating a bispecific phagemid virion by rescuing a pIII display phagemid by the use of a pVII modified helper phage genome. Moreover, the bispecific virions of Khalil et al display a peptide-pIII fusion that allows for a controlled biotinylation of their virion. There are however, several features that differ between these two avenues of obtaining a bispecific virion, as well as obtaining defined virion biotinylation, which make them unique from each other.
Firstly, the approach of Khalil et al cannot be used in combination with pIII phagemid display, as it is their phage genome vector that carries their pIII fusion, hence bispecificity cannot be obtained upon phagemid rescue and it would also highly likely be deleterious to the functionality of both pIII fusions.
Secondly, and as the authors also themselves pinpoint, genomic pIX modifications are not regarded as a viable strategy due to overlapping genes in the phage genome, thus they do not envision or speculate in making any modified helper phage genome that can be used for pIII phagemid (or pVIII) rescue and by this way donate a defined phenotypic feature to both distal tips of the very same virion. Khalil et al do never mention the use of modified pVII in either phagemid, or phage genome display.
Thirdly, Khalil et al do not speculate in modifying a single phage genome to achieve a bispesific virion, by exploiting simultaneous modification of more than one capsid gene within the very same genome. They merely use standard pIII peptide display through a commercially available phage genome vector.
Forth, Khalil et al only make bispecific virions displaying short peptides, not folded domains, and do never speculate in exploiting such display at either on, or both modified capsid proteins.
Fifth, Khalil et al achieve site-specific biotinylation of their pIII displayed peptide through in vitro chemical conjugation, not by an enzymatic reaction either in vitro or in vivo. The authors never envision enzyme mediated biotinylation of a displayed moiety by displaying an enzymatic substrate such as AviTag.
Finally, does Khalil et al. not show any type of display without the use of a N-terminal signal sequence.