This invention relates to a manufacturing method for an optical information recording medium and a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium, and is applicable for instance to devices for optical disks, capable of focusing a laser beam from an exposure semiconductor laser at high density onto a base disk. This invention compensates the chromatic aberrations of the objective lens with a chromatic aberration optical system or compensates for fluctuations in the wavelength by regulating the temperature of the semiconductor laser.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a manufacturing method for an optical information recording medium and a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium, and is for instance applicable to light exposure devices for base disks. The present invention regulates the temperature of the semiconductor laser by compensating for chromatic aberrations or compensating for fluctuations in the wavelength so that with a laser beam from a laser-pumped semiconductor laser, a base disk can be exposed at high precision.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the process of the related art for manufacturing a base disk, after exposing the disk in the exposure device, an optical disk is manufactured by a stamper. The stamper further produces the base disk in mass quantities and an optical disk is produced after forming a protective film on the base disk.
A perspective view of the optical disk is shown in FIG. 8. After an information recording surface 3 is formed on the base disk 2, a protective film 4 is formed to produce an optical disk 1.
The base disk 2 is disk-shaped member of transparent plastic. Tiny irregularities (convex and concave shapes) are formed on the information recording surface side of this base disk 2. These tiny irregularities are set as various shapes according to the manufacture of the optical disk. In an optical disk for record and reproduction such as the initial minidisk, groove shapes are formed by a laser beam to constitute the guide grooves shown by arrow A in the enlarged view in FIG. 8. In an optical disk solely for reproduction such as a compact disc, concave shapes are formed to constitute the pits shown by arrow B in the enlarged view of FIG. 8. In initial MO (magnetic optical) disks made to ISO standards, both pits and grooves are formed.
Among the optical disks 1 capable of recording/reproducing, phase-change optical disks have an information recording surface formed of laminations of phase-change layers and reflective layers on the surface of the base disk 2 formed with these tiny irregularities. On optical magnetic disks, the information recording surface is formed of laminations of magnetic layers and reflective layers. On an optical disk 1 solely for reproduction (playback), an information recording surface is formed of a reflective layer on the surface of the disk substrate 2.
A diagrammatic sketch of the manufacturing process for the optical disk for producing the disk substrate 2 is shown in FIGS. 9A to 9F. In the manufacturing process for this optical disk, the surface of a glass substrate 5 is ground (polished) flat, the glass substrate 5 washed (FIG. 9A), and a photoresist 6 applied by spin coating (FIG. 9B) to the surface of the glass substrate 5. The photoresist 6 here is applied in a thickness of approximately 100 nm, using a material that is alkali-soluble when exposed to light. The manufacturing method for the optical disk in this way produces a base disk 7 from this glass substrate 5.
Next, in the optical disk manufacturing process, the disk base 7 is set in the exposure device and the disk base 7 driven to rotate at a specific speed (FIG. 9C). While in this state, a laser beam L1 as the exposure light, is focused by means of an objective lens 6 on the photoresist 6 on the disk base 7, and along with modulating the exposure laser beam L1 by means of a modulating signal, the beam position of the exposure laser beam L1 is shifted sequentially to the outer circumference. The scanning track of the exposure laser beam L1 is in this way formed in a spiral shape in the optical disk manufacturing process, and a latent image formed according to the modulation signal in this scanning track.
The latent image formed on the base disk 7 in this way in the optical disk manufacturing process is developed (FIG. 9D) and the portions of the photoresist 6 exposed to light are dissolved away by the developer fluid. In this way, the tiny irregularities are formed on the surface of the base disk 7. The example in FIG. 9D shows that the base disk 7 is formed with the tiny irregularities corresponding to the grooves and lands.
In the next step (FIG. 9E) of the process for manufacturing the optical disk, after a nickel plating layer 8 is formed by nickel (Ni) plating on the side formed with the tiny irregularities, this nickel plating layer 8 is then peeled away from the base disk 7. In this way, in the optical disk manufacturing process, the tiny irregularities of the base disk 7 are transferred to the nickel plating layer, and a frame made by the nickel plating layer 8 then set in a metal mold to make a stamper 9.
Next, in the process for manufacturing the optical disk, the disk substrate 2 is made by the plastic injection molding or the so-called 2P method (photo polymerization) using the stamper 9 (FIG. 9F). The tiny irregularities of the base disk 7 transferred to the stamper 9 are now transferred to the disk substrate 2. The latent image of the tiny irregularities described using FIG. 8 is in this way formed on this disk substrate 2 by exposure of the base disk 7 to light in the exposure device.
A flat view showing the exposure device used in light exposure of the base disk 7 is shown in FIG. 10. A diagrammatic sketch for describing the optical system of an exposure device 11 is shown in FIG. 11. The exposure device 11 contains a base disk 7 on a turntable 12, driven to rotate in a specific direction shown by the arrow A. The exposure device 11 drives an optical drive table 13 radially across the base disk 7 as shown by the arrow B. In this way, the exposure device 11 makes an exposure laser beam (LR) scanning track in a spiral shape on the base disk 7 by means of the optical system contained in the optical drive table 13, and makes a latent image consisting of arrays of pits in the scanning track.
A laser light source 14 in the exposure device 11 is a gas laser comprising Ar, Kr, Hexe2x80x94Cd, etc. An (exposure) laser beam LR is beamed within a wavelength of 500 nm and quantity of light of 50 mW to expose the photoresist on the base disk 7 to light. When the laser light source 14 is for a Kr laser, the (exposure) laser beam LR is beamed at a wavelength within 413 nm.
An electro-optical crystal element 15 and an optical detector element 16 compensate (offset) fluctuations of the luminous energy in the (exposure) laser beam LR and emit the beam. In other words, the electro-optical crystal element 15 changes the polarized plane of the (exposure) laser beam LR emitted by the laser light source 14 according to a drive signal and the optical detector element 16 selectively permeates the specified polarized surface components. Next, a beam splitter 17 separates the (exposure) laser beam LR into two beams and outputs these beams and the optical receive element 18 receives the (exposure) laser beam LR on the side permeated by the beam splitter 17 and outputs the detected quantity of light (luminous energy).
A recording optical power control circuit 19 (FIG. 11) generates a drive signal so that the signal level with the light quantity detection results from the optical receive element 18 match a reference voltage REF and drives the electro-optical crystal element 15. The electro-optical crystal element 15 thus forms a feedback loop along with the optical detector element 16, the beam splitter 17, the optical receive element 18, and the optical receive element 18 and maintain the luminous energy (hereafter, quantity of light) of the (exposure) laser beam LR at a fixed luminous energy level.
The electro-optical crystal element 15 along with a feedback loop having a frequency response with an upper limit of 1 [MHz], reduces the noise of the (exposure) laser beam LR.
A lens 21 (FIG. 10) converts the side of the exposure laser beam LR reflected by the beam splitter 17 into a concentrated light beam and outputs it to an AOM (acousto-optic modulator) 22. The AOM22 is driven by a record signal corresponding to the latent image formed on the base disk 7, and performs on/off modulation of this (exposure) laser beam LR. Next, a lens 23 converts the light emitted from the AOM22 into parallel light rays.
Next, the polarized beam splitter 24 bends the optical path of the (exposure) laser beam LR emitted from the lens 23 and emits the beam. The xc2xc wave plate 25 applies a phase change to the (exposure) laser beam LR and emit a circular polarized light.
A beam expander 28 comprises a lens 26 and a lens 27 and expands the diameter of the (exposure) laser beam LR beamed from the xc2xc wave plate 25 and emits the beam. When the focus distance of the lens 26 and lens 27 are respectively set as f1 and f2, the beam expander 28 expands the beam diameter of the (exposure) laser beam LR by f2/f1.
An objective lens 30 receives the (exposure) laser beam LR by way of a dichroic prism 29 and a mirror not shown in the drawing, and focuses the (exposure) laser beam LR on the resist layer of the base disk 7. The optical system with components from the beam expander 28 to the objective lens 30, along with the focus control optical system described later on, are installed in the optical drive table 13 of the exposure device 11. In the exposure device 11, the movement of the optical drive table 13 shifts the light exposure position so that a latent image of pit arrays are formed on the base disk 7.
When the (exposure) laser beam LR is beamed in this way in the exposure device 11, a returning light is acquired from the base disk 7. This returning light follows the reverse of the (exposure) laser beam LR optical path and is linearly polarized by the xc2xc wave plate 25. The returning light consequently permeates a beam splitter 24. A mirror 31 bends the optical path of the returning light permeating through the beam splitter 24, and a lens 32 then guides the returning light into an image device 33. The image device 33 receives the returning light and outputs the received light results. The exposure device 11 can in this way monitor the beam shape of the exposure laser beam on the base disk 7 and is capable of adjusting control items such as focus control.
The focus control of the optical system on the other hand, detects the distance to the base disk 7 by means of the so-called isolated axis method. In other words, the focus control of the optical system is installed in the optical drive table 13 and beams out a focus control laser beam LF by means of the laser light source 35.
A polarized beam splitter 36 reflects the laser beam LF. Next, a xc2xc wave plate 37 applies a phase change to this laser beam LF and emits a circular polarized light. A dichroic prism 31 reflects the laser beam LF beamed from the xc2xc wave plate 37 to combine and emit it with the (exposure) laser beam LR constituting a permeable light.
The focus control optical system is set in this way to separate the optical axis of laser beam LF combined with laser beam LR, from the optical axis of the objective lens 30 by a specific distance. The laser beam LF is in this way, beamed diagonally onto the base disk 7 and, the optical axis of the reflected light from laser beam LF undergo a regular (specular) reflection on the base disk 7, and are separated from the objective lens 30 optical path according to the distance between the base disk 7 and the objective lens 30.
A dichroic prism 31 reflects the reflected light obtained in this way from the base disk 7 and emits the beam onto the xc2xc wave plate 37. By applying a phase differential to this reflected light, the xc2xc wave plate 37 emits a reflected light from the polarized plane intersecting with the input light of the laser beam LF.
The reflected light next permeates the polarized beam splitter 36 and the position detector element 39 receives this reflected light and outputs a position detection signal according to the change in signal level relative to the position of the received light. The exposure device 11 shifts the objective lens 30 in the direction of the optical axis so that the position detection signal reaches a specified level. Focus control is thus performed so that a latent image can be stably formed by pit arrays.
However the exposure device of the related art has the problem that the laser light source is a gas laser so that large size equipment is unavoidable. The number of exposure devices 11 that can be installed at the manufacturing site is therefore limited by the available installation space so that the optical disks cannot be produced in sufficient quantities. The laser light source of the gas laser incidentally, has approximate dimensions of a length of 1.2 m, a weight of 40 kg, and the exposure device has approximate dimensions of a width of 1.5 to 2.0 m, a depth of 1.0 to 1.2 m, a height of 1 m and a weight of 2 t.
Further problems are that the optical system has a complicated structure, which causes a large equipment size. Time is also required to adjust the optical system.
The optical path of the exposure laser beam LR becomes longer because of the complex structure of the optical system, rendering unavoidable effects from shimmer or turbulence in the air along the optical path so that the accuracy of the light exposure precision tends to deteriorate.
The gas laser further requires liquid cooling. The vibration from the flow path for the cooling fluid is conveyed to sections such as the optical drive table 13 which also adversely affects the accuracy of light exposure precision.
Use of a semiconductor laser was considered in order to resolve all these problems with the related art. More specifically, using a semiconductor laser allows the laser light source to be made more compact, and the overall shape of the light exposure device can be made compact. Further, the output beam from the laser light source can be directly modulated, so that the optical modulating element (lens 21 and 23 in FIG. 10 and AOM 22, 23) can be eliminated and the optical system given a simpler structure. The overall shape of the light exposure device can therefore be reduced and further the task of adjusting the optical system can be simplified. Simplifying the structure of the optical system makes the length of the optical path shorter by a corresponding amount so that a decline in exposure precision due to shimmer or turbulence in the air around the optical path can also be avoided. A yet further advantage is that that cooling fluid is not required so that a decline in exposure precision due to vibration conveyed from the fluid path can be prevented.
During actual use however, secondary modes are present in the semiconductor laser so that the coherence is poor compared to a gas laser and the laser beam tends to spread out plus or minus several nm versus the center wavelength.
In a laser beam having this kind of spreading, the focus position at each wavelength differs when focusing with an objective lens in a phenomenon where chromatic aberrations occurs, and consequently, a small diameter beam spot cannot be made to occur even by focusing the light up to the refraction index of the laser beam. Chromatic aberrations differ according to the wavelength for the refraction rate of the glass or plastic lens material however, generally the shorter the wavelength, the larger the chromatic aberration.
The material of the objective lens contains a low dispersion glass material such as FCD-1, FCD-10, 434-950. Even with this low dispersion glass however, at an infrared light on a wavelength of 800 nm, the focus point will deviate approximately 70 nm when using an objective lens in the light exposure device of the related art, for every one nanometer that the wavelength differs. Therefore in an exposure laser beam with a wavelength in the vicinity of 400 nm, the amount of deviation becomes even larger.
In the light exposure device 11 on the other hand, an objective lens with a high number of apertures (N.A.) is used of about 0.9. In such a lens with a high number of apertures the depth of the focus point is exceedingly shallow. The focus point depth in other words, is shown by xc2x1xcex/(2xc3x97(NA)2) and when the number of apertures (N.A.) is 0.9, an (exposure) laser beam LR oh a wavelength of approximately 400 nm has a focus depth of xc2x1250 nm.
In contrast, in an optical disk with a recording density for example approximately that of a DVD, the defocus amount allowed by defocus control during exposure is experientially known to be approximately one-third of the focus point depth. When the amount of defocus exceeds this figure, the signal waveform of the recording signal drastically deteriorates. Thus, even if the spread at the wavelength of an exposure laser beam is assumed to be approximately xc2x11 nm, then deterioration of the reproduction signal is likely to occur. Therefore, deterioration in the signal wave form of the reproduction signal is unavoidable when the semiconductor laser comprises the laser light source.
The semiconductor laser further has the disadvantage that the center wavelength fluctuates with changes in temperature. This fluctuation in the center wavelength varies according to the semiconductor material including the semiconductor laser but in for instance an AlGaAs type semiconductor laser with a center wavelength of approximately 835 nm, the center wavelength will change approximately xc2x15 nm for package temperature fluctuations of xc2x120xc2x0 C.
In the light exposure device 11, when the center wavelength of an (exposure) laser beam of this type fluctuates, the (exposure) laser beam defocuses by a corresponding amount on the base disk, the diameter of the beam spot formed on the base disk spreads out, and achieving light exposure with high precision becomes difficult.
Also, by changing the phase differential applied such as with a xc2xc wave plate, the quantity of light (luminous energy) of the permeable light, and reflected light is changed on optical elements having a light detection plane such as a polarized beam splitter, and consequently, the light quantity of the exposure laser beam focused on the base disk is changed. Incidentally, when exposing a DVD pattern to light with an (exposure) laser beam on a wavelength of 413 nm and an optical system with a number of apertures (N.A.) of 0.90, the fluctuations in light quantity of the exposure laser beam must be held within 5 (%Pxe2x80x94P), however according to the conditions of the optical system, a light quantity of this amount will fluctuate just by a change of several nm in the wavelength.
Achieving high light exposure accuracy is therefore difficult when the laser light source is a semiconductor laser. Even if a latent image is formed with the desired, specified high precision, recording at a maximum short bit length of 0.40 nm, and a track pitch of 0.74 nm as used in DVD recording is impossible.
In view of the above problems with the related art, this invention has the object of providing a manufacturing method for an optical information recording medium and a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium capable of exposing a base disk to light at high precision with a laser light source comprised by a semiconductor laser.
To resolve the above problems with the related art, a manufacturing method for an optical information recording medium or a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium of this invention includes a chromatic aberration compensation optical system to compensate for chromatic aberrations in the objective lens for at least the (exposure) laser beam.
To further resolve the problems of the related art, in a manufacturing method for an optical information recording medium or a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium according to one aspect of the present invention, a laser-pumped semiconductor laser emits a laser beam for light exposure, wherein temperature variations in the vicinity of the laser light source are maintained within xc2x11xc2x0 C. by a specified temperature regulator mechanism when the wavelength of the laser beam for light exposure is less than 500 nm.
To also resolve the problems of the related art, a manufacturing method for an optical information recording medium or a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium according to another aspect of the present invention, is provided wherein the temperature of the semiconductor laser is controlled so the wavelength of the exposure laser beam is a fixed wavelength.
To yet further resolve problems of the related art, a manufacturing method for an optical information recording medium or a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium according to another aspect of the present invention is provided, wherein the optical system from the semiconductor laser to the objective lens is a sealed space.
To also resolve the problems of the related art, a manufacturing method for an optical information recording medium or a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium of according to another aspect of the present invention is provided, wherein the optical system from the semiconductor laser to the beaming of the exposure laser beam onto the objective lens is maintained as one integrated piece by a holding member of an integrated exposure optical system.
To further resolve the problems of the related art, a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium of according to another aspect of the present invention is provided with a holding member of an exposure optical system for holding the semiconductor laser, automatic light quantity regulator means and optical system in one integrated, replaceable piece.
To still further resolve the problems of the related art, a manufacturing device for an optical information recording medium according to another aspect of the present invention is provided with an imaging means to capture an image of the returning light isolated by the light isolator means and output the imaging results and, a light quantity detection means to receive the light returning from the light isolator means and output the light quantity detection results.
According to another aspect of the present invention, by installing a chromatic aberration compensation optical system to compensate for the chromatic aberration of at least the objective lens for the exposure laser beam, the occurrence of chromatic aberrations can be prevented even in exposure laser beams with a widened wavelength, a tiny beam spot formed, and a sufficient margin for defocusing can be obtained.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a laser-pumped semiconductor laser emits a laser beam for light exposure, and when the wavelength of the exposure laser beam for light exposure is less than 500 nm, temperature variations in the vicinity of the laser light source are maintained within plus or minus one degree by a specified temperature regulator mechanism so that changes in the wavelength of the exposure laser beam can be sufficiently reduced.
Also, according to another aspect of the present invention, by controlling the temperature of the semiconductor laser so that the wavelength of the exposure laser beam becomes a fixed wavelength, a decrease in light exposure precision due to fluctuations in the wavelength can be prevented.
Further, according to another aspect of the present invention, by installing the optical system from the semiconductor laser to the objective lens in a sealed space, disturbances and turbulence from the inflow of outside air can be prevented and a drop in light exposure precision can be prevented.
Still further, according to another aspect of the present invention, by maintaining the optical system from the semiconductor laser to the beaming of the exposure laser beam onto the objective lens in a holding member of one light exposure optical system, the task of adjusting the optical system can be simplified and the assembly task simplified by a corresponding amount so that maintenance and servicing is significantly improved.
Yet further, according to another aspect of the present invention, by comprising a holding member of an exposure optical system for holding the semiconductor laser, the automatic light quantity regulator means and the optical system in one integrated, replaceable piece, the task of adjusting these mechanisms can be simplified, the assembly task simplified by a corresponding amount, and the maintenance and servicing significantly improved.
Even further, according to another aspect of the present invention, by comprising an imaging means to capture an image of the returning light isolated by the light isolator means and output the imaging results and, a light quantity detection means to receive the light returning from the light isolator means and output the light quantity detection results, convenience is provided since exposure is performed while monitoring the current status, and the task of adjusting the optical system can be further simplified.

Manufacturing method for optical recording medium and manufacturing device thereof


An organic thin film device, including first and second organic thin films containing acceptor and doner molecules, respectively, stacked one on another, in which at least one of the first and second organic thin films contains a chemical species having a dipole moment P.sub.2, and the second dipole moment P.sub.2 and a dipole moment P.sub.1 produced by charge transfer between the acceptor and doner molecules satisfy the following formula: EQU (P.sub.1 .multidot.P.sub.2).vertline.r.vertline..sup.2 -3(P.sub.1 .multidot.r)(P.sub.2 .multidot.r)<0. wherein r represents a positional relationship between P.sub.1 and P.sub.2. Also disclosed is an organic thin film device, including the first and second organic thin films, and at least one of the first and second organic thin films contains at least one pigment skeleton which is inclined with respect to the lamination direction of the organic thin films.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an organic thin-film device, and more particularly to an organic thin-film device which employs a Langmuir Blodgett (LB) film and has a small threshold value of the external potential.
2. Description of the Background Art
A. Aviram et al. of IBM have presented an idea of using molecules comprising tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) and tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) which are linked with each other by several number of methylene chains, as a rectifier (Chemical Physics Letters, Vol. 29, No. 2, p.277). It, however, in itself is very difficult to synthesize such molecules themselves, and, even if they could by synthesized, it is difficult to orient the TCNQ and TTF in the state that no charge transfer complexes are formed.
Then, a method has been proposed in which donor molecules and acceptor molecules are made into separate solutions and the solutions are successively spread on a liquid surface to form a laminate film by stacking the different monomolecular films according to a Langmuir Blodgett process (hereinafter "LB process"), as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Specification No. 62-65477. In recent years, techniques in which thin-films comprising organic molecules are formed by the LB process have undergone rapid developments, and this has led to increased research into organic thin film devices. These devices exhibit superior performance by controlling a charge transfer between donor molecules and acceptor molecules using external energy such as voltage and light beam. In these devices, however, a reasonably large external energy is required in order to obtain a desired performance, i.e., to normally operate these devices, and the devices have problems in their efficiency, operability, heat generation, durability, etc.


In one aspect of the present invention, a stator of a linear compressor comprises first stator pieces that are circumferentially and sequentially arranged about an axial direction and are radially disposed, second stator pieces that are provided between outer parts of the adjacent first stator pieces, and an outer side, away from a motor axis, of the second stator pieces assembled at an outer circumference of the stator. The stator can reduce the magnetic losses of the stator caused by the gap, and improve the efficiency of the motor. It can also improve the performance, stability, durability and reliability of the linear compressor. It can also reduce the bulk of the linear compressor.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the present invention. The subject matter discussed in the background of the invention section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background of the invention section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background of the invention section or associated with the subject matter of the background of the invention section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background of the invention section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in the background of the invention section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present invention.
As shown in FIG. 1, a linear compressor has a casing 1. An air inlet 1a for a refrigerant to enter and a vent 1b for discharging the refrigerant are opened on the casing 1. A motor 2 and an oil supply pipe 3 for conveying a lubricant 6 to the motor 2 are installed inside the casing 1. The motor 2 has a shell 21. The shell 21 is supported on an inner wall surface of the casing 1 by using multiple springs. Parts such as a cylinder 11, a piston 12, a compression cavity 18, a discharging cavity 19 connected to the vent 1b, an inner stator 14, a coil 17 placed inside the inner stator 14, an outer stator 15, a rotor 16, and a rotor frame 22 are installed inside the shell 21. Of them, the cylinder 11, the inner stator 14, the outer stator 15 and the rotor 16 are cylindrical. The outer stator 15 is fixed on an inner wall surface of the shell 21.
A front flange 13 that provides a fixing effect is disposed at the right end (corresponding to the right side of FIG. 1) of the shell 21. The front flange 13, the cylinder 11, the compression cavity 18, the discharge cavity 19, the inner stator 14, and the coil 17 are connected together to the outer stator 15 and the shell 21. During the movement of the piston 12, the movements of these members are synchronized. The rotor 16 is fixed on the rotor frame 22, which are both supported between the inner stator 14 and the inner wall surface of the shell 21 through a spring 5. When the coil 17 is electrified, the magnetic field intensity of the magnetic field formed by the inner stator 14 and the outer stator 15 is changed. Under the magnetic field force, the rotor 16 moves back and forth (in a left-right direction in FIG. 1) along an axis thereof. The rotor 16 actuates, through the rotor frame 22, the piston 12 to move back and forth along the axis of the cylinder 11, so as to compress the refrigerant gas inside the compression cavity 18 to achieve refrigeration.
As shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, the stator of the motor of the linear compressor generally comprises several stator pieces 7 that are circumferentially and sequentially arranged about an axial direction and are radially disposed. Each stator piece 7 may be formed by stacking the same stator laminations, that is, by forming a stator lamination group. Because each stator lamination group is arranged and disposed sequentially along the circumferential direction, certain angles are defined between adjacent stator lamination groups. A gap 8 is defined between the angle and an outer circumference of the inner stator. The greater the radial length of the stator lamination group, the greater the spacing between the adjacent stator lamination groups and the outer circumference of the inner stator is, and the greater the gap 8 is. Especially, a stator with a coil inside usually has a relatively large volume, and thus cannot be fixed as tight as a stator without a coil.
Because of the gap 8, a small quantity of silicon steel sheets is actually used, and magnetic saturation occurs easily. When magnetic saturation is reached, if a current is further increased, the magnetic field intensity no longer increases. Magnetic saturation occurring to stacked silicon steel sheets, it becomes difficult to increase the capacity of a motor. A potential problem for the linear compressor may be that an electromagnetic force fails to drive a piston to the top dead center, therefore the compression efficiency is lowered and the efficiency of the motor is lowered.
In addition, when the motor is electrified and working, after an alternating current flows through the excitation coil on the inner stator, an induced magnetic field is produced between the inner stator and the outer stator, the interval defined between the combination forms a magnetically conductive resistance to cause a magnetic loss, therefore lower the efficiency of the motor of the compressor.
Further, because there are a number of gaps within the stators, a fringe effect exists in the magnetic field around the gap, which causes the coil of the additional loss and a relatively high temperature rise, and in severe cases, the safety and service life of the motor are affected. To avoid the occurrence of magnetic saturation, the volume of a stator in which a coil is placed may be increased to lower the magnetic flux density; however, this causes an increased volume of the motor of the linear compressor, and further causes an increased volume of the compressor.
Moreover, in the process of manufacturing the linear compressor, these stator laminations need to be fixed to form into a cylindrical part. For the existing linear compressors, stator laminations are mainly fixed by two methods, specifically:
1) A corresponding protrusion or groove is stamped on the stator laminations, and adjacent stator laminations fit each other by using these protrusions and grooves. By using this method, stator laminations are not securely fixed, and become loose easily when a motor vibrates during working.
2) As shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5, grooves are defined at the side end of each stator lamination. When these stator laminations are formed into a cylindrical part, an annular fixing component 4 is configured in interference fit manner inside an annular space define within a groove. Because interference fit is needed in this method, during assembly, because of the effect of pressure, deformation can easily occur to a stator lamination, so that the overall size assembly precision of a linear compressor of a motor is affected.
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.

Stator of linear compressor and fixing method thereof, linear motor, and linear compressor


This method includes: generating data of a mask surface with respect to visualization data arranged in a virtual three-dimensional space, for calculation values at respective calculation points; identifying, from a first data storage storing, as time-series data, positions of the calculation points and calculation values at the calculation points, a first point whose position is closest to a predetermined point on the mask surface; reading out, from the first data storage, a position of the identified first point in each time; arranging the mask surface in each time based on a direction of a user's sight line and the read position in each time so as to make the mask surface perpendicular to the direction of the user's sight line and have the predetermined point on the mask surface arranged at the read position; and drawing polygon data of the visualization data and the mask surface in time series.

Enormous sized data that exceeds terabytes or petabytes is sometimes outputted from an application that is executed on a large-scale computer. This output data is data expressing a wide variety of phenomena such as physical or chemical phenomena, and in order to observe such phenomena, graphical illustration (or in other words, visualization) of that output data is required. However, when simply making visual all of the data that is outputted from a simulator in fields such as biology, nanotechnology or the environment, there are cases in which, due to complex arrangement of data in space, a portion that is to be paid attention to cannot be observed because of data that is behind that area of interest. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1, when vectors representing physical quantities that are obtained through numerical calculation (generally, includes simple calculation values that are not physical quantities) are arranged at plural points in 3D space without any design or plan, it is not possible to easily recognize what kind of phenomena or condition is portrayed.
With respect to such situation, conventionally, a method of observing the 3D space after deleting unnecessary areas is a typical method, however, as the amount of data increases on a large-scale, the task itself of setting unnecessary areas before searching for and determining areas of interest is difficult. Moreover, because the data structure differs depending on the respective method of simulation, it is difficult to separate out areas of interest. There has been no effective method for solving such problems.
Incidentally, there is a technique for realizing the blur similar to that in real-world cameras in graphics. More specifically, with respect to a depth point that is to be focused on and was selected according to the desire of an operator operating a graphics terminal, a calculation processing unit finds the Z-axis distance of that depth point from 3D data of an object, which is stored in a data storage unit, and the calculation processing unit uses a "blur function" to further calculate the degree of the blur of that object according to the Z-axis distance that was calculated, and provides the degree of the blur to a display processing unit together with the object data. The display processing unit displays the object on a display screen according to that object data and blur function. By doing so, in the virtual space whose center of the screen is the depth point, objects having a larger absolute value distance along the Z axis are displayed with the blur. However, a processing that is normally not performed for the 3D data of the object is required, and when there is an enormous amount of 3D data, the processing load is large.
Moreover, a technique also exists in which, in order to display a stereo image that is closer to an object in real space, the blur is generated in an image for areas other than the point of interest included in a display image, according to the distance with the object, which is an element that is the object of attention, or the like. More specifically, the position of the point of interest is acquired, and a blurred image is generated based on 3D information relating to the display image. When generating the blurred image, the distance of the display element, which is arranged at the position corresponding to the position of the point of interest, from the viewpoint is calculated as a reference distance, and display elements whose difference from the reference distance exceeds a predetermined threshold value become a target of a generation processing of the blurred image. In the case of such a kind of processing as well, a special generation processing of the blurred image must be carried out for each of the display elements having a distance longer than the reference distance, and thus the processing load is high.
Furthermore, there is also a technique for displaying blurred polygons in at least one of the front direction and rear direction of the point of interest in a virtual space. More specifically, based on 3D coordinates in the virtual space, the Z value of each polygon is calculated in the depth direction from the position of the viewpoint, and a first image is generated by carrying out the perspective transformation of only polygons having a small Z value onto a screen plane. The perspective transformation is a processing to conduct the coordinate transformation based on the screen transformation matrix M. Moreover, the second image is generated by deteriorating the image quality of the first image and making the size of the second image equal to the size of the first image. Then, in order to display each of polygons in the first image at and around the depth position of the point of interest, and to display each of polygons in the second image when going in the direction toward the rear of the point of interest, a processing for making the first image semitransparent based on a transparency factor α, which is calculated based on the Z values of the respective polygons is carried out, and the processed first image is synthesized with the second image to generate the display image. According to this technique, a special processing is required in which, after generating a special first image, the second image corresponding to the first image is generated.
Moreover, a technique is known in which, in the process of determining the position of objects and generating 2D images of the objects, a 2D image having a simplified shape is generated for objects that are located far away from the position of the viewpoint, and generation of a 2D image itself is omitted for objects that are located even further away from the position of the viewpoint, and such objects are not displayed. In case of adopting such a kind of technique, when the position of the viewpoint gradually gets further away from a certain object, and reaches the point away from the certain object by a certain distance, the object, which was drawn in detail up to that point, is changed suddenly to a rough drawing, or when the position of the viewpoint gradually moves closer from a position far from a certain object, and reaches the point away from the certain object by a certain distance, the object that was not displayed up to that point suddenly appears on the screen. So, there is a problem in that a person viewing that graphic image has a feeling of something being strange at the point where the precision of the drawing changes, or at the point where the display of the object is switched between displaying and not displaying. In order to solve such a kind of problem, there is a technique, which provides a graphics apparatus for generating and outputting a 2D image of an object as seen from a designated position of the viewpoint in the direction of the designated view line, based on 3D structure data that expresses the structure of an object. This graphics apparatus includes a semitransparent plane positioning means for determining a position at arranging a semitransparent plane at the position of the view point, which corresponds to calculation for defocusing the objects located on the far side in the direction of the view line: and image defocusing means for performing a defocusing operation for a 2D image or part of the 2D image that corresponds to an object or part of the object that is located behind the position of the semitransparent plane that was arranged by the semitransparent plane positioning means, when viewed from the viewpoint in the direction of the view line. However, the semitransparent plane is a means for defocusing objects that are far from the viewpoint to some degrees and that originally can hardly be seen, and is not something to be used by a user to intentionally designate a desired range to be viewed.
As described above, there is no technique for displaying a region to which the user wants to pay attention in a form that makes it easier to grasp the region, when the large amount of data such as the numerical calculation results is visualized.

Visualization processing method and apparatus with mask surface


An electrical device includes a circuit board (101), a light source (104), and a light guide (105). The light guide receives light from the light source and conducts the received light to an end of the light guide so that the light crosses, in a direction parallel with the circuit board, an edge of the circuit board. The end of the light guide constitutes a display surface for showing the light to a user. On a fringe area extending from the edge of the circuit board a distance (D) towards the opposite edge of the circuit board, the light guide is between geometrical planes parallel and coinciding with surfaces of the circuit board. Hence, the light guide does not require room in directions perpendicular to the circuit board. Therefore, for example, more connectors, key buttons, and/or other instruments can be placed on a control panel of the electrical device.

In many cases an electrical device comprises a circuit board furnished with electrical components. The electrical device can be, for example but not necessarily, an Internet Protocol "IP" router, an Ethernet switch, a MultiProtocol Label Switching "MPLS" switch, and/or an Asynchronous Transfer Mode "ATM" switch. The circuit board comprises a body made of one or more layers of electrically insulating material and electrical conductors on one or both of the surfaces of the circuit board and/or between the layers of the electrically insulating material. Each of the electrical components can be, for example, an integrated circuit such as a processor or a memory, or a discrete component such as a resistor, a capacitor, an inductor, a transistor, or a diode. Furthermore, the electrical device may comprise also other elements than electrical components. Examples of the other elements are elements related to cooling arrangements and optical elements.
The optical elements may comprise, for example, one or more indicator light sources that are controlled according to the operational status of the electrical device. The operational status indicated by the one or more indicator light sources can be for example: "running", "stand-by", "energized", "activated", "armed", "de-activated", "fault", etc. In many cases, the indicator light sources are not in the place where the indicator lights are displayed to a user of the electrical device. For example, the indicator light sources are not necessarily in a control panel of the electrical device but the electrical device comprises one more light guides made of light conducting material and configured to conduct the indicator lights to the control panel where the indicator lights are displayed to the user. In conjunction with some applications, the light guides are called light pipes.
There has been, and there still is, a trend to decrease the physical dimensions of electrical devices as well as to increase the number of connectors and/or other equipment or instruments located on control panels of the electrical devices. Therefore, the room available for light guides of the kind mentioned above has decreased and is still decreasing. Hence, there is a need for technical solutions that are suitable for reducing the room needed for light guides.


An optical apparatus in which multiplexed holograms are used to achieve wavelength selectivity and polarization manipulation is used to facilitate near-normal incidence of light on the holograms. The polarization manipulation allows light reflected from the holograms to be separated from the light incident on the holograms. In one application, the apparatus can be used to extract spectral lines of an analyte from radiation scattered from a sample.

1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to measuring analytes in samples based on an electromagnetic spectrum that is characteristic of the analyte and, more specifically, doing so by use of multiplexed holograms and polarization manipulation.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Many attempts have been made to create appropriate apparatus for the non-invasive measurement of significant substances within biological organisms. The importance of such measurement capability arises not only from the need to observe biochemical reactions in such organisms without disturbance to the system but also in order to help control chronic diseases such as diabetes, where it is highly desirable to measure the patients blood glucose levels much more frequently than is practical, when puncturing the skin is required.
Spectroscopy has been proposed to make such measurements. An important consideration in the design of spectrometers is the field of view of the apparatus for a given resolution. In particular, it is often advantageous to use a large detector so as to image a larger volume of the sample. However, it is generally undesirable to increase the diameter of the collecting optics in proportion. Therefore, it is usually desirable to have as large a field of view as possible as a fraction of the diameter of the collection optics.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,768,040 presents a spectrometer arrangement which as a composite has a wide field of view. The apparatus is composed of multiple spectrometers, each of which is based on spherical convex holographic diffraction gratings and associated reflection optics. The cost of the whole apparatus is comprised of a multiplicity of these spectrometers and is prohibitive for many applications. In addition, the size of such an apparatus would preclude its use where the available space is limited. A solution where effectively multiple spectrometers can be multiplexed in the same available space and the cost does not scale strongly with the field of view would be preferable.
Multiple reflection holograms, multiplexed in a single recording medium, can advantageously be used to reflect each useful spectral line of the analyte to either a single detector or to multiple detectors. However, as the limiting aperture of the optical system becomes an appreciable fraction of the diameter of the collecting lenses or mirrors, it is unavoidable that the holograms will be illuminated with light distributed over a range of angles rather than by perfectly collimated light. The holograms, however, have limited acceptance angle over which they have adequate diffraction efficiency. Hence, the amount of light to be collected will typically scale positively with the acceptance angle of the holograms. The range of angles can be reduced at the expense of using larger diameter optics, but with detrimental effects on cost and size. A large field of view for the holograms can obviate the need for larger optics or, for a given optics size, can increase the amount of light which is collected. It can be readily shown that for plane holograms, the field of view is maximized for near normal incidence illumination with respect to the fringes that comprise the hologram. However, it can be exceptionally awkward to illuminate reflection holograms at near 90° with respect to the surface, for the reflected light will then return substantially along the same path as the illuminating light and the two beams may be difficult to separate.
In addition, it is has been found experimentally that certain scattering processes may produce scattered light which is predominantly polarized. The polarization may be well-preserved, even after passing through a turbid medium (such as human tissue) if the scattered light has not been deflected substantially from its original direction. Inelastic processes such as Raman scattering can provide scattered spectra which contain characteristic spectral signatures of various analytes of interest. If the Raman scattered radiation is collected from a depth within the turbid sample, which is not excessive, it has been found that the scattered radiation is highly polarized.
Fluorescence arising from the excitation of substances which absorb at the exciting laser wavelength is often the dominant source of noise. The fluorescence is generally found to be only weakly polarized, but may be orders of magnitude greater in amplitude than the Raman signals. If a quantitative estimate of the concentration of an analyte is desired, it is desirable to devise an accurate method of subtracting the fluorescence signal from the Raman signal. In addition, it is desirable to preferentially attenuate the fluorescence with respect to the Raman signal in order to improve the signal to noise ratio. It is therefore desirable to find a method whereby the preferential polarization of scattered signals which occurs in some favorable circumstances can be fully exploited to improve signal to noise ratio, and accurately extract the interfering unpolarized radiation.
Approaches to spectroscopy that use dispersive elements such as diffraction gratings suffer from drawbacks. For example, many of these approaches cannot multiplex two or more spectral lines of an analyte onto a single detector for purposes of increasing the signal. Techniques which use cascaded dichroic transmission filters have the same deficiency. Also, neither technique segregates the two polarizations for purposes of subsequent subtraction. The light which is polarized orthogonal to that of the desired signal should be spectrally filtered using filters with substantially the same spectral characteristics that are applied to the first polarization, for otherwise the subtraction of the two signals cannot accurately extract the noise.
Finally, it is frequently desirable to observe the spectral lines of one or more additional analytes in order to accurately establish the absolute concentration of the first analyte. This is particularly true when there are substances present with confounding optical spectra that can overlap the spectrum of the analyte at one or more wavelengths. Each confounding substance, however, may have one or more unique lines different from that of the analyte. Hence, observation of these other lines can be used to extract the contribution of the confounding substances. In a more general approach, a regression algorithm can be constructed to extract the contribution of multiple confounding substances.
Therefore it is desirable to alternatively view additional spectral lines distinct from that of the first analyte. Alternatively, it is often very useful to observe spectral lines of the solvent in which the analyte is dissolved to determine the quantity of the solvent in the scattering volume. Using the volume of solvent, the absolute concentration of the analyte can be determined. Generally observation of many spectral lines has required the implementation of a spectrograph with a linear array of detectors to observe the whole spectrum. This can be expensive when a large detector array is required. Furthermore, the dark current noise of multiple detectors is additive. Hence, the large array may have inferior signal to noise as compared with a smaller array or a single detector.
Thus, there is a need for improved spectroscopic approaches, for example as may be used to detect analytes based on their spectral lines.

Measuring spectral lines from an analyte using multiplexed holograms and polarization manipulation


A terminal communicating with a base station includes: a switching partswitching between a first feedback mode in which one precoder information specifying a preferred precoder and a reception quality indicator specifying a preferred transmission rate are reported periodically and a second feedback mode in which first partial precoder information among first and second partial precoder information specifying the preferred precoder and a set of the second partial precoder information and the reception quality indicator are reported periodically. A report part uses, in the second feedback mode, a periodic resource for reporting the precoder information and reception quality indicator in the first feedback mode, reporting one of the first partial precoder information and the set of the second partial precoder information and the reception quality indicator alternately and in a period two times a report period of the precoder information and reception quality indicator in the first feedback mode.

In a mobile radio communication system such as WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), LTE (Long Term Evolution), LTE-A (LTE-Advanced) and WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) by 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project), the communication area can be increased by establishing a cellular configuration in which the area covered by a base station device (base station, transmission station, downlink transmission device, uplink reception device, eNodeB) or a transmission station conforming to the base station device is arranged as a plurality of cells. Furthermore, by using a frequency differing between adjacent cells or sectors, even a terminal device (mobile station, receiving station, uplink transmission device, downlink reception device, mobile terminal, UE: User Equipment) located in a cell edge region or a sector edge region can communicate without suffering interference by a transmitted signal from a plurality of base stations. However, such a scheme had the problem that the frequency usage efficiency is low. Although the frequency usage efficiency can be improved by using the same frequency between adjacent cells or sectors, measures against interference for the terminal device located in the cell edge region will be required.
By adaptively controlling a modulation and coding scheme (MCS), the number of spatial multiplex (layers, rank), precoder and the like according to the state of the transmission path between a base station and a terminal device, a more efficient data transmission can be realized. Non-Patent Literature 1 discloses a method of performing such control.
FIG. 43 represents a base station 4301 and a terminal device 4302 adaptively controlling a precoder in LTE. When a precoder is adaptively controlled with respect to a downlink transmission signal 4303 that is transmitted in LTE, terminal device 4302 refers to a downlink reference signal (RS) included in downlink transmission signal 4303 that is transmitted from base station 4301 to calculate a precoding matrix information PMI (Precoding Matrix Indicator) specifying a preferred precoder, and reports to base station 4301 via an uplink channel 4304. Non-Patent Literature 1 teaches a feedback mode in which the precoder information is reported periodically. A terminal device that is set with a feedback mode in which the precoder information is reported periodically uses a code book that is a table including a plurality of predetermined precoding matrixes to calculate periodically and report to the base station a PMI that is an index corresponding to a preferred precoding matrix in the relevant code book.

Terminal device, base station device, communication system, and communication method


A cleaning robot and a control method thereof include a main body traveling on a floor, and a first sub-cleaning tool and a second sub-cleaning tool mounted at left and right sides of the main body so as to be protruded from the inside to the outside of the main body and selectively performing cleaning Insertion of at least one of the first sub-cleaning tool and the second sub-cleaning tool is controlled when the main body is rotated under the condition that an obstacle is detected. Side brushes of the sub-cleaning tools are inserted into the main body according to the rotation direction of the main body when the main body is rotated during traveling, thus preventing collision with the obstacle.

1. Field
One or more embodiments relate to a cleaning robot and a control method thereof to improve cleaning efficiency.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a cleaning robot sucks foreign substances, such as dust, from a floor while autonomously traveling about a region to be cleaned without user operation, thus automatically cleaning the region to be cleaned.
The cleaning robot may include a main cleaning tool to remove dust accumulated under the main body of the cleaning robot and sub-cleaning tools that may be formed at both sides of the main body and may protrude outward to clean a region in which an obstacle is present or a region which is not easily cleaned using the main cleaning tool, such as a region adjacent to a wall surface.
The cleaning robot may repeat a cleaning operation using the main cleaning tool and the sub-cleaning tools while traveling according to a predetermined traveling pattern. At this time, the cleaning robot may perform cleaning by sensing an obstacle or a wall located within a cleaning region through various sensors and controlling path movement and cleaning operation based on sensed results.

Cleaning robot and control method thereof


A method and system for managing role-based access control of token data using token profiles having predefined roles is described. In one method, a token processing system (TPS) assigns a TPS client a token profile for a group of multiple tokens, the token profile being stored in a profile data structure. The token profile specifies at least one of multiple predefined roles for the TPS client, each role associated with predefined access to entries of a token database. The TPS receives a request from the TPS client over a network to perform an operation on the entries of the token database that correspond to the group, and allows the TPS client access to the token database to perform the operation when permitted by the predefined roles specified in the token profile on the entries of the token database that correspond to the group identified by the token profile.

Network users frequently have to submit multiple passwords for the various services they use, such as email, web browsing and intranets, and servers on the network. Maintaining multiple passwords, and constantly being prompted to enter these passwords, is a hassle for users and administrators. Single sign-on is a configuration which allows administrators to create a single password store so that users can log in once, using a single password, and be authenticated against all network resources. For example, a system supporting single sign-on may be used for several resources, including logging into workstations and unlocking screen savers, accessing encrypted web pages using Mozilla Firefox, and sending encrypted email using Mozilla Thunderbird. Single sign-on is both a convenience to users and another layer of security for the server and the network. Single sign-on hinges on secure and effective authentication. The authentication may be managed by a public key infrastructure (PKI), such as implemented by a certificate system.
One of the cornerstones of establishing a secure network environment is making sure that access is restricted to people who have the right to access the network. This access is allowed when the user can authenticate to the system, meaning the user can verify his identity. One method of verifying an identity is presenting a digital signature or a digital certificate. A digital signature is a mathematical representation of a message, using public key cryptography, which identifies the originator of the message, in a non-forgeable manner. Public key cryptography requires the use of two mathematically related keys—a public key and a private key (collectively referred to as a key pair). The private key is kept private by a single owner, and is not distributed to anyone else. The owner uses his or her private key, in conjunction with cryptographic algorithms, to digitally sign a message. The public key is made public, and can be used by anyone to verify the digital signature on a message. The fact that these two keys are mathematically related ensures that only a single private key can generate a digital signature that is verifiable by the corresponding public key, making the digital signature unforgeable. A digital certificate, commonly referred to as a certificate, is an electronic document used to identify an individual, a server, a company, or another type of entity and to associate that identity with a public key. The digital certificate binds a public/private key pair to an owner, in a reliable fashion. The digital certificate binds a person's identity to his or her public key, and consequently to his or her private key, and is used to verify digital signatures. Digital certificates and digital signatures then provide the foundation for secure transactions over a network, such as the Internet.
These certificates can be stored on tokens, also referred to as smart card tokens, smart cards, security tokens, hardware tokens, USB tokens, cryptographic tokens, key fobs, or the like. The token may be a physical device that an authorized user of computer services is given to ease authentication. Tokens can store a certificate that is used for authenticating the identity of the owner. For example, when a user inserts a smart card into a system, the smart card presents the certificates to the system and identifies the user so the user can be authenticated over the network.
Typically, data associated with these tokens are managed in a database. There are circumstances where an organization may have multiple groups and desire to manage access to the token data for the respective groups. However, conventional systems that store all token data for the multiple groups within a single database fail to provide any mechanism to control access to the token data according to groups. For example, the organization may assign one user to be an administrator of the first token group and another user to be an administrator of the second token group, the first and second groups being stored in the same database. Since the token data associated with these tokens are stored in the same database, both administrators incidentally will be given access to view and modify token data corresponding to the other group, and there is no mechanism to prevent the administrator of one group from accessing the token data of the other group. Thus, existing certificate systems fail to provide an adequate mechanism to control access to the token data within the respective groups.

Role-based access control utilizing token profiles having predefined roles


A linear power amplifier is included in a RF transmitter. A mechanism is provided for generating a predistorted input signal to the PA so that nonlinear phase and amplitude characteristics of the PA will be compensated. Another means is provided for generating a feedback signal to the predistortion generating mechanism so that the feedback signal is based on the output of the PA when the predistortion circuit is locked and is based upon the input signal to the PA when the predistortion generating circuit is unlocked. Undesired emissions from the power amplifier are inhibited when the predistortion mechanism is unlocked.

This invention is generally directed to transmitters having a linear final power amplifier (PA) and more specifically directed to such amplifiers which are corrected for amplitude or phase distortion by predistorting the input signal to the PA.
Linear amplifiers are needed when nonconstant envelope amplitude modulated signals are to be amplified such as in a single sideband transmitter. Even "linear" amplifiers do not provide an output signal which is an amplified exact duplicate of the input signal with regard to magnitude and phase.
In an effort to correct for such nonlinearities, circuits have been devised which "predistort" the input signal to a PA to take into account the nonlinearities of the PA so that its output has increased linearity. Typically the PA output signal is sampled and utilized as a feedback signal by such circuitry to generate the predistorted signal.
Since the PA must be operating in order to generate the feedback signal, problems can occur with regard to off-frequency or other unauthorized transmissions should a phase locked loop (PLL) in the predistortion circuit become unlocked. A temporary unlocked condition could be caused by a change in operating frequency or a transient condition that affects the predistortion circuit or the PA.

Transmitter with improved linear amplifier control


A method for encoding a video sequence in a scalable video encoder is provided that includes selecting a first search window configuration for coding a current picture of the video sequence in an enhancement layer encoder of the scalable video encoder based on motion vectors generated by a reference layer encoder when encoding the current picture, and coding the current picture in the enhancement layer encoder using the first search window configuration.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a method and apparatus for motion estimation in enhancement layers in video encoding.
2. Description of the Related Art
The demand for digital video products continues to increase. Some examples of applications for digital video include video communication (e.g., video conferencing and multimedia messaging), security and surveillance, industrial automation, and entertainment (e.g., DV, HDTV, satellite TV, set-top boxes, Internet video streaming, video gaming devices, digital cameras, cellular telephones, video jukeboxes, high-end displays and personal video recorders). Further, video applications are becoming increasingly mobile as a result of higher computation power in handsets, advances in battery technology, and high-speed wireless connectivity.
Video transmission systems using the internet and mobile networks have a wide range of receiving devices, i.e., video endpoints, ranging, for example, from cellular telephones with small screens to tablet computers to personal computers with high definition displays to video conferencing systems with large screens. That is, the devices receiving a video transmission may have different resolution, frame rate, and bandwidth capabilities. Scalable video coding (SVC) is one technique that may be used to allow a video to be received by a range of receiving devices according to the capabilities of each device. In general, SVC refers to encoding a video as a single scalable video bit stream with one or more subset bit streams that are adapted to varying video endpoint capabilities, network conditions, and/or user preferences.
A video bit stream is scalable when parts of the stream can be removed such that the resulting subset bit stream is a valid bit stream for some target decoder, and the subset bit stream represents the original video content with a reconstruction quality that is less than that of the complete original bit stream but is high in view of the lower quantity of data in the subset bit stream. Typically, three scalability modes are considered: temporal, spatial, and quality. A spatially scaled subset bit stream represents the original video content at a reduced picture size. A temporally scaled subset bit stream represents the original video content at a reduced frame rate. A quality scaled subset bit stream represents the original video content at the same spatial and temporal resolution as the complete bit stream but at a lower quality, i.e., signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
H.264/SVC is an example of a video coding standard that provides scalable video coding. More specifically, H.264/SVC is a scalable video coding (SVC) extension of H.264/AVC that supports temporal, spatial and quality scalability functions. A summary of H.264/SVC is presented in H. Schwarz, et al., "Overview of The Scalable Video Coding Extension of the H.264/SVC Standard," IEEE Trans. Circuits and Systems, vol. 17, No. 9, September 2007, "Schwartz" herein, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. The full description of the SVC extension can be found in Annex G of "Advanced Video Coding for Generic Audio Visual Services," ITU-T Rec. H.264|ISO/IEC 14496-10, March 2010, "H.264 standard" herein, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. The temporal scalability of H.264/SVC allows decoding of a bit stream at different frame rates by partitioning a set of pictures into a temporal base layer bit stream and temporal enhancement layer bit streams. The spatial scalability and quality scalability of H.264/SVC allow encoding of video at different resolutions and qualities as a base layer bit stream and one or more enhancement layer bit streams.

Motion estimation in enhancement layers in video encoding


A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a device having a controller programmed to receive a media program having a repetitive portion that plays every time the media program is played. A first portion of the repetitive portion of the media program is modified while leaving another portion unmodified to produce a first modified portion. The first modified portion is presented after an initial presentation of the repetitive portion. The repetitive portion is further modified to produce multiple different modified repetitive portions used for successive presentations of the repetitive portion. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Interactive TV networks and other video networks provide a multitude of services including broadcast programming and video-on-demand. These networks reach out to users in various environments including single family residences, multi-dwelling apartments and commercial facilities. The content within a given channel or among a number of channels may lose the interest of viewers when the content is played multiple times. As the number of channels increases on a particular system and as the number of access venues proliferate, it may also be more difficult to retain the interest of a viewer to a particular channel or to a particular source of access to such content.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System and method for metamorphic content generation


In a system, particularly a telecommunication system (TK) that is programmed object-oriented, static and dynamic objects (O1 . . . 3) are instanced by a higher-ranking process or by instanced dynamic objects (O1 . . . 3) and the dynamic objects (O1 . . . 3) are erasable. A statically instanced object manager (MA,MB) is allocated to every class or, respectively, type of dynamic objects (O1 . . . 3) covering like objects (O1 . . . 3). Using the object manager (MA,MB), dynamic objects (O1 . . . 3) are instanced, chained, erased, and the information exchange between the dynamic objects (O1 . . . 3) is controlled, whereby a respective logical object reference (LOR1 . . . 3) is stored in the allocated object manager (MA,MB) when a dynamic object (O1 . . . 3) is instanced. This logical object reference (LOR1 . . . 3) is in turn erased when a dynamic object (O1 . . . 3) is erased. During the course of a call setup and cleardown in telecommunication systems (TK), dynamic objects (O1 . . . 3) are instanced and erased collision-free and the information exchange is initiated collision-free.

The present invention is directed to a method for the administration of dynamic objects in a programmed object-oriented means wherein static and dynamic objects can be instanced and the dynamic objects can be erased, whereby like objects can be allocated to a class. Instancing of an object refers to forming a logical object reference that includes an object manager, the dynamic object and process identification parameters.
Important properties of object-oriented programming are described in H. Becker, Siemens A G, "Objektorientierte Softwareentwicklung", Informationstechnik IT34 (1992) 2. An object thereby represents a limited program with clearly defined functions or, respectively, methods and properties. Like objects, that is, objects having the same functions or, respectively methods and properties, are described in the form of a class description, that is, are assigned to a class. Static or dynamic objects can be instanced within such classes, whereby static objects are permanently present in the system and dynamic objects can be instanced during a program run and can in turn be erased. The instancing and erasing of dynamic objects is initiated by an event from a process ranking higher than the objects or by another dynamic or static object (especially when building and dismantling object chains). Given an employment of object-oriented programs in communication equipment, particularly in switching systems, dynamic objects or, respectively, chained dynamic objects are constantly instanced and subsequently erased during the course of a call setup and cleardown between communication equipment connected to the switching system. Given a connection set up by a plurality of dynamic objects, instances occur wherein dynamic objects are erased almost simultaneously from both sides of a connection (for example, given an approximately simultaneous cleardown of the connection by both communication terminal equipment). Given a chain of dynamic objects in a connection set up between two communication terminal equipment, this means, for example, that objects of this chain are erased without the other objects receiving knowledge of this. When a dynamic object then attempts to address another, erased dynamic object, this leads to collisions that ultimately result in the crash of the system or, respectively, of the communication equipment.

Method for the administration of dynamic objects in a means programmed object-oriented


Methods of electrically contacting to conductive plugs, methods of forming contact openings, and methods of forming dynamic random access memory circuitry are described. In one embodiment, a pair of conductive contact plugs are formed to project outwardly relative to a semiconductor wafer. The plugs have respective tops, one of which being covered with different first and second insulating materials. An opening is etched through one of the first and second insulating materials to expose only one of the tops of the pair of plugs. Electrically conductive material is formed within the opening and in electrical connection with the one plug. In a preferred embodiment, two-spaced apart conductive lines are formed over a substrate and conductive plugs are formed between, and on each side of the conductive lines. The conductive plug formed between the conductive lines provides a bit line contact plug having an at least partially exposed top portion. The exposed top portion is encapsulated with a first insulating material. A layer of second different insulating material is formed over the substrate. Portions of the second insulating material are removed selectively relative to the first insulating material over the conductive plugs on each side of the conductive lines to provide a pair of capacitor containers. Capacitors are subsequently formed in the containers.

This invention relates to methods of electrically contacting to conductive plugs, to methods of forming contact openings, and to methods of forming dynamic random access memory circuitry.
As circuit densities increase in semiconductor devices, the probabilities of individual device components becoming grounded to other device components increases as well. In the context of memory circuitry, and in particular dynamic random access memory circuitry, a continuing emphasis is placed upon maximizing the number of memory cells which are formed over a wafer. Balanced against the concerns for maximizing efficient use of wafer real estate, are concerns associated with providing storage capacitors with desirably high storage capabilities.
This invention arose out of concerns associated with improving the usage of wafer real estate during formation of integrated circuitry. In particular, this invention arose out of concerns associated with providing improved methods of forming dynamic random access memory circuitry.
Methods of electrically contacting to conductive plugs, methods of forming contact openings, and methods of forming dynamic random access memory circuitry are described. In one embodiment, a pair of conductive contact plugs are formed to project outwardly relative to a semiconductor wafer. The plugs have respective tops, one of which is covered with different first and second insulating materials. An opening is etched through one of the first and second insulating materials to expose only one of the tops of the pair of plugs. Electrically conductive material is formed within the opening and in electrical connection with the one plug. In a preferred embodiment, two spaced apart conductive lines are formed over a substrate and conductive plugs are formed between, and on each side of the conductive lines. The conductive plug formed between the conductive lines provides a bit line contact plug having an at least partially exposed top portion. The exposed top portion is encapsulated with a first insulating material. A layer of second different insulating material is formed over the substrate. Portions of the second insulating material are removed selectively relative to the first insulating material over the conductive plugs on each side of the conductive lines to provide a pair of capacitor containers. Capacitors are subsequently formed in the containers.


A driving frequency selection method is used in a capacitive multi-touch system. When the system operates in an idle mode, an active driving frequency is selected randomly from N candidates, and a self-capacitance driving and sensing is used to detect touch points. When there are touch points, the capacitive multi-touch system is switched to an active mode to acquire an image raw data for finding the positions of touch points. In the active mode, noise is calculated from the image raw data. When the noise exceeds a predetermined value, the system is switched back to the idle mode, and the self-capacitance driving and sensing is applied to N−1 active driving frequencies other than the previously selected active driving frequency to acquire N−1 self-capacitance image raw data. The method determines one with a minimum noise and selects the corresponding frequency as a currently active driving frequency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the technical field of touch panels and, more particularly, to a driving frequency selection method for capacitive multi-touch system.
2. Description of Related Art
The principle of touch panels is based on different sensing manners to detect a voltage, current, acoustic wave, or infrared to thereby detect the coordinate of a touch point on a screen as touched by a finger or other medium. For example, a resistive touch panel uses a potential difference between the upper and lower electrodes to compute the position of a pressed point for detecting the location of the touch point, and a capacitive touch panel uses a capacitance change generated in an electrostatic combination of the arranged transparent electrodes with the touching part of a human body to generate a current or voltage for detecting the coordinate of the touching part.
Upon the principle, the capacitive touch technologies can be divided into a surface capacitive and a projected capacitive sensing. The surface capacitive sensing has a simple configuration, so that the multi-touch implementation is not easy, and the problems of electromagnetic disturbance (EMI) and noises are difficult to be overcome. Therefore, the popular trend of capacitive touch development is toward the projected capacitive sensing.
The projected capacitive sensing can be divided into a self capacitance and a mutual capacitance sensing. The self capacitance sensing indicates that a capacitance coupling is generated between a touch object and a conductor line, and a touch occurrence is decided by measuring a capacitance change of the conductor line. The mutual capacitance sensing indicates that a capacitance coupling is generated between two adjacent conductor lines when a touch occurs.
A typical self capacitance sensing senses the grounded capacitance on every conductor line. Thus, a change of the grounded capacitance is used to determine whether an object is toward the capacitive touch panel. The self capacitance or the grounded capacitance is not a physical capacitor, but parasitic and stray capacitance on every conductor line. FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a typical self capacitance sensing. As shown in FIG. 1, at the first time interval, the driving and sensing devices 110 in a first direction drive the conductor lines in the first direction in order to further charge the self capacitance of the conductor lines in the first direction. At the second period, the driving and sensing devices 110 sense the voltages on the conductor lines in the first direction. At the third period, the driving and sensing devices 120 in a second direction drive the conductor lines in the second direction in order to further charge the self capacitance of the conductor lines in the second direction. At the fourth period, the driving and sensing devices 120 sense the voltages on the conductor lines in the second direction.
The typical self capacitance sensing of FIG. 1 connects both a driver circuit and a sensor circuit on the same conductor line in order to drive the conductor line and sense a signal change on the same conductor line to thereby decide a magnitude of the self capacitance. In this case, the advantages include:
(1) a reduced amount of data since the typical touch panel has m+n data in a single image only, so as to save the hardware cost;
(2) a reduced time required for sensing a touch point since an image raw data can be quickly fetched due to only two sensing operations, i.e., concurrently (or one-by-one) sensing all the conductor lines in the first direction first and then in the second direction, for completing a frame, as well as a relatively reduced time required for converting a sensed signal from analog into digital; and
(3) a lower power consumption due to the reduced amount of data to be processed.
However, such a self capacitance sensing also has the disadvantages as follows:
(1) When there is a floating conductor, such as a water drop, an oil stain, and the like, on the touch panel, it causes an error decision on a touch point.
(2) When there are multiple touch points concurrently on the touch panel, it causes a ghost point effect, so that such a self capacitance sensing cannot be used in multi-touch applications.
Another way of driving the typical capacitive touch panel is to sense a magnitude change of mutual capacitance Cm to thereby determine whether an object is toward the touch panel. Likewise, the mutual capacitance Cm is not a physical capacitor but a mutual capacitance between the conductor lines in the first direction and in the second direction. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a typical mutual capacitance sensing. As shown in FIG. 2, the drivers 210 are located on the first direction (Y), and the sensors 220 are located on the second direction (X). At the upper half of the first time interval T1, the drivers 210 drive the conductor lines 230 in the first direction and use the voltage Vy_1 to charge the mutual capacitance (Cm) 250, and at the lower half, all sensors 220 sense voltages (Vo_1, Vo_2, . . . , Vo_n) on the conductor lines 240 in the second direction to thereby obtain n data. Accordingly, the m×n data can be obtained after m driving periods.
Such a mutual capacitance sensing has the advantages as follows:
(1) It is easily determined whether a touch is generated from a human body since a signal generated from a floating conductor is in a different direction than a grounded conductor.
(2) Every touch point is indicated by a real coordinate, and the real position of each point can be found when multiple points are concurrently touched, so that such a mutual capacitance sensing can easily support the multi-touch applications.
Also, there are some disadvantages as follows:
(1) A single image raw data has an amount of n×m, which is relatively higher than the amount under the self capacitance sensing.
(2) A one-by-one scanning is operated in a selected direction. For example, when there are 20 conductor lines in the first direction (Y), the sensing operation is performed 20 times for obtaining a complete image raw data. Also, due to the large amount of data, the time required for converting a sensed signal from analog into digit is relatively increased.
(3) Due to the large amount of data, the power consumption is thus increased on data processing.
Whether the self or the mutual capacitance operation is used, the driving and sensing devices 110 and drivers 210 all require producing separate stimulus waves to drive the conductor lines. The stimulus waves have a specific frequency. However, noises can easily interfere with the stimulus waves, so that the errors appear on sensing a signal and on determining the position when the capacitive touch panel is touched. Thus, the sensing resolution of the capacitive touch panel is affected.
To overcome this, in the U.S. Pat. No. 7,643,011, three stimulus waves, each having a different driving frequency, are output by a manner of mutual capacitance, so as to responsively obtain three touch images, and one with the minimum noise is selected from the three touch images. Thus, the driving frequency corresponding to the touch image with the minimum noise is selected as the active frequency for extracting the touch image and calculating the coordinate or position. However, the prior art obviously requires three touch images, which triples the power, the time, and the data amount processing.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an improved driving frequency selection method for capacitive multi-touch system to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.

Driving frequency selection method for capacitive multi-touch system


The present invention relates to a broadband wireless access system, and more particularly, to a method in which a terminal determines a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) of uplink allocation information received from a base station under a condition such as that of a random access process in which both the terminal and the base station do not know each other's channel state. According to one exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method of transmitting data comprises: receiving, from the base station, uplink allocation information for indicating an uplink resource for transmitting the specific data: determining a lowest modulation and coding scheme (MCS) to be applied to the specific data using information on the size and allocation size of the specific data; and transmitting to the base station via the uplink source, the specific data to which the determined MCS is applied.

In a wireless communication system, a base station may allocate a radio resource of an uplink transmission to a terminal. In this case, the radio resource generally includes an uplink (UL) grant information form. And, this grant information may be transmitted to a terminal from a base station via a broadcast/unicast message or a control channel.
When a resource is allocated to a terminal, a base station is able to assign a modulation and coding scheme (hereinafter abbreviated MCS) and a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) scheme, which may differ in accordance with a current radio channel status of the terminal. This method may be called link adaptation. And, the link adaptation scheme may be able to raise spectral efficiency.
Yet, in order for a base station to guarantee a successful transmission despite having no information on a channel of a terminal, the base station may preferably assign a most reliable MCS to the terminal. As mentioned in the above description, a random access procedure can become one example that a base station allocates a resource to a terminal without having information on a channel of the terminal. If a resource is allocated to a terminal in an initial access procedure without information on a transmission power (Tx power) of the terminal, it may become another example of resource allocation.
In the following description, one example of an initial access procedure in IEEE 802.16m system is explained with reference to FIG. 1.
In FIG. 1, assume that a terminal (e.g., advanced mobile station: AMS) matches a downlink (DL) synchronization with a base station (ABS). And, assume that the terminal receives system information and then obtains random access region (or initial ranging region) information.
First of all, a terminal randomly selects one of initial ranging codes and may be then able to transmit the randomly selected initial ranging code to a random access region of a base station [S101].
The base station determines a received state of the corresponding code. If such a physical parameter as a timing and a transmission power needs to be modified, the base station sets a ranging status of a ranging acknowledgement (AAI_RNG-ACK) message to 'continue' and then sends the corresponding message to the terminal in a manner that a physical parameter compensation value is contained in the corresponding message [S102].
Subsequently, the terminal retransmits the initial ranging code to the base station by applying the physical parameter compensation value contained in the ranging acknowledgement (ACK) to the corresponding initial ranging code [S103].
If the retransmitted ranging code is normally received, the base station sets a ranging status of the ranging ACK message to 'success' and then transmits it to the terminal [S104].
Thereafter, in order for the terminal to send a ranging request (AAI_RNG-REQ) message, the base station is able to transmit allocation information on an uplink resource to the terminal [S105].
The terminal sends the ranging request message to the base station via the uplink resource indicated by the allocation information [S106]. In response to the ranging request message, the base station sends a ranging response (AAI_RNG-RSP) message [S107].
In this case, even if a channel status of a terminal is actually good, a base station allocates MCS (e.g., lowest MCS), which is as low as possible, to the terminal (S105 in case of FIG. 1), whereby resources may be wasted.
Yet, an allocation size of an uplink resource, which is allocated by a base station to enable a terminal to send a prescribed message to the base station, is variable. In accordance with this allocation size, MCS applied to a message to be sent via the corresponding resource is different. And, a lowest MCS may be different for each message. Since a lowest MCS may be set different for each base station, the base station should inform a terminal of a lowest MCS applied to each message. However, in the above-mentioned situation, if a terminal is informed of MCS each time, signaling overhead is increased. Hence, it is preferably necessary to define an efficient method for a terminal to determine a lowest MCS for transmitting a corresponding message.

Method for determining a modulation and coding scheme in a broadband wireless access system