A cellular mobile communication system using multiple antennas reselects a plurality of transmission antennas of base stations connected to a mobile station. The system includes measuring a channel quality parameter used for estimation of channel performance, determining whether to reselect the transmission antennas using the measured channel quality parameter, reselecting transmission antennas of the base stations connected to the mobile station, and connecting the reselected transmission antennas to the base station.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a technology for reselecting an antenna in a cellular mobile communication system, and in particular, to a technology for reselecting a plurality of antennas of base stations connected to a mobile station as the mobile station shifts from one place to another.
2. Description of the Related Art
The conventional mobile communication system provides a voice-oriented service, and chiefly depends on channel coding in order to overcome deterioration in channel quality. However, due to an increase in demand for high-quality multimedia service that enables users to communicate with anyone, anytime, anywhere, the conventional voice service is evolving into a data service and there is a demand for a next generation radio transmission technology for transmitting the increased amount of data at a higher data rate and at a lower error rate. In particular, importance of high-speed data transmission in a forward link having the greater amount of required data is ever increasing.
A mobile communication environment deteriorates the reliability of the signals due to fading, shading effect, propagation attenuation, noise, and interference. A fading phenomenon due to multiple paths brings about significant signal distortion caused by the sum of signals having different phases and sizes, which are received through different paths. The fading effect is one of the difficulties that should be overcome in order to achieve a high-speed data communication, and extensive researches is being conducted to overcome the wireless channel characteristics and utilize the features. As a result, a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology using a plurality of transmission and reception antennas has been proposed.
In a cellular mobile communication system using the multiple antennas, unlike in the conventional cellular mobile communication system, a mobile station and a base station, both of which use a plurality of antennas, can exchange data with each other at a higher speed without increasing a bandwidth of the system.
Even in the cellular mobile communication system using multiple antennas, like in the conventional cellular mobile communication system in which a mobile station uses a single antenna, performance of a channel formed between a mobile station and a base station varies due to the movement of the mobile station, and a need for forming a new channel to another antenna occurs as the mobile station moves from one cell to another, or if channel quality is to be adjusted. The cellular mobile communication system using multiple antennas, as a base station has a plurality of antennas even in a single cell, should occasionally reselect antennas according to time-varying channel performance. For example, even when a mobile station moves between sectors in a cell divided by the plurality of antennas of the base station, an antenna should be reselected for the same base station.
In addition, when a mobile station moves from a current cell (serving cell) to another cell (target cell), the mobile station in an overlapping region between the cells may connect with both an antenna of a serving base station and an antenna of a target base station. In this case, it is difficult to reconfigure a channel with the conventional handoff scheme.

System and method for reselecting antennas in a cellular mobile communication system using multiple antennas

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


A method for the switchover of a mobile terminal device from a first radio network of a mobile radio system to a second radio network is described. The switchover is carried out on the basis of a CS fallback mechanism, and whereby, on the basis of the switchover, the mobile terminal device logs on to a base station of the second radio network in order to establish a connection. In conjunction with the log-on, the mobile terminal device transmits a notification pertaining to the CS fallback mechanism to the base station, and the base station registers the log-on of the terminal device as a function of the notification. Moreover, a base station and to a mobile terminal device for carrying out the method are also described herein.

The claimed subject matter relates to the switchover of mobile terminal devices from a first radio network of a mobile radio system to a second radio network within the scope of a CS (circuit-switched) fallback mechanism. The claimed subject matter relates to a method for carrying out such a mobile terminal device switchover, to a base station of a radio network that can be used to carry out the switchover as well as to a mobile terminal device that can be used to carry out the switchover.
The term, 4G (or Long-Term Evolution (LTE) refers to mobile radio networks that have been standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). In the development of these networks, the transmission of data is in the foreground, ahead of establishing voice calls. In contrast to the mobile radio networks of the previous generation, 4G networks make use of packet-switched (PS) connections between the networks and the associated mobile terminal devices. There are no provisions for circuit-switched connections of the type provided in 2G networks according to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard, and in 3G networks according to the Universal Telecommunications (UMTS) standard, for voice communication. The 4G networks establish voice calls by using a packet-switched connection as a service that is made available to the 4G networks by the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS).
In the initial phase of operation of 4G networks, the services of the IMS may merely be available to a limited extent or not at all. However, in order to give mobile terminal device users the ability to make voice calls, a circuit-switched (CS) fallback mechanism is provided, which is described in the 3GPP specification TS 23.272. Here, in order for a mobile terminal device to establish a voice call that is made via a circuit-switched connection, it switches over from the 4G network in a defined sequence to a 2G or 3G network (or to the CS domain of such a network) that is spatially superimposed over the 4G network. The network is switched over from the 4G radio network to the 2G or 3G radio network and, after the radio network switchover, the core network components of the 2G or 3G network that function on the basis of a circuit-switched mechanism.
In the case of an outgoing (mobile originated—(MO)) call, the mobile terminal device first informs the 4G network that it would like to make a voice call by the CS fallback. After a prompt by the 4G network to this effect, the terminal device switches over to a cell of a 2G or 3G network that it has selected itself or that is prescribed by the 4G network, and the terminal device then logs on to this network. The voice call is then established. In the case of an incoming (mobile terminated—(MT)) call, the terminal device is first informed by the 4G network about the call. After an acknowledgement and after a prompt by the 4G network to this effect, the terminal device then switches over to a cell of a 2G or 3G network that it has selected itself or that is prescribed by the 4G network. After the log-on to this network, the terminal device signals its availability to accept the call. Then the call is established in the 2G or 3G network on the basis of circuit-switched mechanism. The network is switched over from the 4G network to the 2G or 3G network and, after the radio network has switched over, the circuit-switched core network components of the 2G or 3G network are used.
Currently, the implementation of the CS fallback mechanism entails the problem that the base station of the radio network via which the circuit-switched connection is established, for example, the base station of the 2G or 3G network, does not receive any information about the fact that the access by a terminal device is being carried out on the basis of a radio network switchover within the scope of the CS fallback mechanism. As a result, for instance, it is not possible to determine a failure rate of radio network switchovers carried out within the scope of a CS fallback mechanism and, if a high failure rate is found, to take appropriate measures to prevent such failures.

Registration of radio network change based on a CS fallback mechanism


One aspect of the present disclosure can include an electronic signal processing system and method used in a control system (e.g., for hour meter functionality, intelligent start/stop functionality, etc.). The system can include a rectifier component to receive a voltage input from an operation source during use. The voltage input can indicate that an engine is running. The rectifier component to convert the voltage input to a positive voltage input. The system can also include a constant current component to receive the positive voltage input from the rectifier circuit and to control a current based on the positive voltage input. The system can also include an optical component to provide an output based on the current and to communicate the output to a microcontroller during use of the operation source. For example, electronic signal processing methods and apparatuses are also described.

Engine operating time hourmeters frequently are used in outdoor power equipment to monitor engine run time to let the owner and/or manufacturer of the outdoor power equipment monitor how long the engine has run, when the equipment is due for repair/maintenance service, and whether the equipment is still under warranty. Examples of outdoor power equipment can include, but are not limited to, tractors, lawn and garden tractors, all terrain vehicles (ATVs), mowers, push mowers, marine vehicles, boats, jet skis, and the like.
Different engines can generate different signals that the hour meter can use to monitor the engine run time. Older carbureted engines can generate high voltage, positive or negative magneto pulses, which can indicate the engine is running. Newer electronic fuel injection (EFI) engines can generate a low voltage signal to indicate that the engine is running. Other types of engines can emit other types of signals to indicate that the engine is running, such as a signal related a fuel pump or other component being activated, or a signal related to a key being turned on. However, hour meters generally cannot detect more than one type of signal. Accordingly, to detect the different types of signals, manufacturers generally have employed different hour meters with special circuitry to detect each of the different types of signals.
Further discussion relating to the developments in the hour meter are found, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,812,473, 7,154,814, 7,034,674, 6,609,357, and 6,377,168, all assigned to the Delta Systems, Inc. of Streetsboro, Ohio (hereinafter collectively "Patents"). The Patents are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

Universal signal processing system and method


The invention provides a method and system for performing a dump operation that preserves partial results of an aborted or interrupted dump, and allows restarting the dump from near where it was stopped. Thus, tapes from the original dump, plus tapes from the restarted dump, can be combined to provide a consistent subset of a filesystem. In a preferred embodiment, the dump operation is performed on a consistent recorded snapshot of the filesystem, so that the subset of the filesystem recorded on the tapes is itself consistent. As an emergent consequence, the dump operation is freely interruptable, restartable, and provides a set of tapes that maintain a consistent subset of the filesystem that is transparent to tape-restore operations and other operations to be performed on the filesystem as it was recorded on tape.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to backup and recovery of data.
2. Related Art
Computer systems typically rely on mass storage systems to store and retrieve data generated or used by the computer system. File servers (xe2x80x9cfilersxe2x80x9d) are one such set of computer systems that offer the ability to store and retrieve relatively large amounts of data, and to make the data highly available to clients and client devices that wish to access that data. Generally, filers can use magnetic, magneto-optical, or optical mass storage, so as to provide relatively rapid access to data. These types of storage are relatively fast and reliable, particularly when used with fault-tolerant techniques, such as a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) configuration.
Filers, while relatively reliable, are occasionally subject to corruption or loss of data. Known techniques for addressing this problem include maintaining copies of the data in a separate filesystem, one that hopefully will not lose data simultaneously with the original filesystem. These copies can be maintained either (a) in a second filesystem recorded similar to the first, that is, on magnetic mass storage; or (b) on a different type of mass storage medium, such as magnetic tape. The first of these known techniques is sometimes called xe2x80x9cmirroringxe2x80x9d; the second these known techniques is sometimes called xe2x80x9cdumpxe2x80x9d (or xe2x80x9cdump to tapexe2x80x9d). The invention described in this application primarily relates to dump operations, but those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize, after perusal of this application, that the principles of the invention can be applied to other techniques for data backup, including mirroring and related techniques.
One problem in the known art is that the amount of storage recorded at filers has increased dramatically over time. It is presently not uncommon for storage in these devices to be measured in trillions of bytes (Terabytes), and for a dump operation to take many hours, and to use dozens of tapes for storage of an entire filesystem. If there is an error (either due to a problem at the filer, or due to a problem at the tape drive) in the middle of the dump operation, the entire dump operation is aborted and restarted at the beginning. For example, the dump operation sometimes fails before completion due to errors or interruptions, such as errors in writing to tape, power failures, filesystem errors at the filer, user interruption (accidental or otherwise), and the like. If the dump operation is aborted and restarted at the beginning, it is wasteful of the effort already expended during the dump operation that was aborted (and consequently more wasteful the more of the dump operation had been completed by then). Moreover, an error during the dump operation is more and more likely when the amount of information being dumped to tape is larger and larger and the dump operation is longer and longer. Thus, the average time it takes to complete a successful dump (after restarting due to errors, and finally running to completion) increases more than linearly with the size of the filesystem.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a method for the backup of data that is not subject to the limitations of the known art. This advantage is achieved in an embodiment of the invention that allows partial results of the dump to be preserved, and the dump to be restarted at a point relatively close to where the failure occurred.
The invention provides a method and system for performing a dump operation that preserves partial results of an aborted or interrupted dump, and allows restarting the dump from near where it was stopped. Thus, tapes from the original dump, plus tapes from the restarted dump, can be combined to provide a consistent subset of a filesystem. In a preferred embodiment, the dump operation is performed on a consistent recorded snapshot of the filesystem, so that the subset of the filesystem recorded on the tapes is itself consistent. As an emergent consequence, the dump operation is freely interruptable, restartable, and provides a set of tapes that maintain a consistent subset of the filesystem that is transparent to tape-restore operations and other operations to be performed on the filesystem as it was recorded on tape.
Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize, after perusal of this application, the many advantages provided by restartable dump. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
The invention increases the likelihood that a dump is completed in a scheduled time window. For example, if the dump operation is scheduled to begin and end within a selected time window, the ability to continue from relatively near where a failure occurred increases the likelihood that the entire dump will be completed before the time window is over.
The invention increases the effective throughput of the dump operation. If a dump stops in the middle, less time is wasted when the dump is restarted; the dump is able to restart from relatively near where it was aborted or suspended.
The invention reduces the penalty of a failed dump. As noted herein, the penalty for a dump that is aborted or suspended is limited, with restartable dump, to only a small portion of the dump that was not xe2x80x9ccommittedxe2x80x9d for restartability.
The invention provides a consistent file system recorded on tape. As noted herein, the set of tapes used prior to the dump being aborted or suspended, plus the set of tapes used when the dump is completed, can be combined to form a consistent filesystem. As an emergent consequence, knowledge of whether the dump was ever suspended and resumed, or simply ran to completion the first time, need not be considered by other elements of the filer.
In a preferred embodiment, a restartable dump allows users to manage backup operations; users can freely suspend and resume dump operations when they deem appropriate. The following are some examples of additional capabilities available to users with restartable dump:
Users can suspend and resume dump operations to avoid time windows of relatively heavy traffic for filer requests.
Users can suspend and resume dump operations to avoid contention for other relatively limited filer resources (such as tape drives).
Users can suspend and resume dump operations to avoid contention with other, higher priority, dump operations.
Designers can build other capabilities into the filer that make use of restartable dump, such making those operations that depend on dump operations also be restartable. Examples include dump copy operations and logical replication operations.
The invention has general applicability to recording of structured information (such as a filesystem) on an alternative medium (such as a tape drive) or in an alternative form (such as BSD dump format), not limited specifically to dump operations in a filer. Moreover, techniques used by a preferred embodiment of the invention for recording of structured information (such as a filesystem) can be used in contexts other than the specific applications disclosed herein.

Restartable dump that produces a consistent filesystem on tapes


A pull tab (1, 3) is adapted to extract an L-shaped electrical connector (2) from a mating electrical device. The electrical connector includes a mating portion (20) and a cable-retaining portion (21) for retaining a cable (4). The pull tab has a strip-like configuration and includes an engaging portion (11, 31) and a handling portion (12, 32) extending from the engaging portion. The engaging portion exerts an extraction force on the connector. The handling portion is provided for facilitating manual extraction operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pull tab, and more particularly, to a pull tab for extracting an electrical connector from an electrical device which mates with the electrical connector.
2. Description of Prior Art
To comply with the current trend of light weight and compactness, many electrical devices tend to employ small connectors such as cable connectors for transmitting signals. These connectors need to mate tightly with corresponding devices for transmitting signals reliably, which usually requires a great amount of applied force to extract these connectors from these devices when there is necessary to replace these connectors with other connectors for different applications. Their separation is normally accomplished by manually shaking the connectors (or perhaps with prying tools) when the connectors are pulled away from the devices. However, the shaking action to the connectors inevitably bends the contacts of the small connectors and damages the connectors and/or the devices. It is also difficult to manually pull a connector having a very small size.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, U.S. Pat. No. 4,961,256 discloses a conventional extraction tool. To separate an electrical connector from an electrical device, the extraction tool is inserted between the electrical connector and the electrical device. The tool is relatively thick so that it cannot be used for the present miniature electrical connector since there is no space large enough between the connector and the electrical device to accommodate the tool.
Japanese Publication for Laid-Open Patent Application No. 11-208461 discloses an extraction tab for extracting an L-type connector. The extraction tab defines an aperture surrounded by a peripheral portion for engaging with a tubular portion of the connector. The peripheral portion exerts an extracting force on the mating portion when extracting the connector. The peripheral portion has a relatively large width to ensure that the peripheral portion is strong enough in exerting the extracting force. However, such a peripheral portion occupies a relatively large space, which is adverse to the trend of compact size. Furthermore, since a large amount of extracting force is exerted on the mating portion of the connector, the mating portion tends to yield or becomes damaged after a long term of use, resulting in an unreliable connection of the connector with the electrical device.
Hence, an improved extraction tool is desired to overcome the above-mentioned shortcomings.
The main object of the present invention is to provide a pull tab for extracting an electrical connector from a mating electrical device without affecting the electrical connection therebetween.
A pull tab in accordance with the present invention is adapted to extract an electrical connector from a mating electrical device.
The electrical connector comprises a mating portion and a cable-retaining portion perpendicularly extending from the mating portion for retaining a cable. The mating portion and the cable-retaining portion are both shielded by shells. A shell surrounding the mating portion forms a pair of wings to stand aside the mating portion for fitting with the outer periphery of the mating portion.
The pull tab has a strip-like configuration and comprises an engaging portion in a front thereof and a handling portion extending from the engaging portion. The engaging portion defines an opening surrounded by a peripheral portion. The profile of the opening is properly configured corresponding to an outer profile of the cable-retaining portion, thereby securely engaging with the cable-retaining portion. The handling portion is provided for facilitating manual extraction operation.
In use, by pulling the handling portion of the pull tab upwardly, the connector can be easily extracted from the device.

Pull tab for extracting electrical connector


An electrochromic element composed of an electrochromic layer comprising a specified electrically conductive polymer and an ionically conductive substance layer containing a viologen compound, both sandwiched between two electrically conductive substrates at least one of which is transparent.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electrochromic elements and more particularly electrochromic elements which are useful as light controllable windows for buildings, automobiles and passenger vehicles and various types of light controllable glasses to be used for indoor decoration or partitions; display devices; and anti-dazzle mirrors for automobiles and other vehicles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional electrochromic device such as a light controllable glass of conventional type as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 63-18336 is known which glass comprises a chromogenic material in the form of a film obtained by sputtering or vacuum-depositing an inorganic oxide such as tungsten oxide (WO.sub.3) over a transparent electrically conductive film.
3 . Problems to be solved
However, the conventional film formation techniques must be carried out under vacuum, resulting in increased production costs and a requirement of a large size vacuum apparatus if an electrochromic element of a large area is intended to be produced. Furthermore, since a substrate is heated at an elevated temperature during sputtering, it is necessary to select certain conditions if a substrate other than a glass, such as synthetic resin-made substrate is used, resulting in difficulties in lightening an electrochromic element.
There is also a problem that tungsten oxide can only make an electrochromic element exhibit blue color.


A method of forming an orientation film of a liquid-crystal display device having two electrode plates and a liquid-crystal cell between the two electrode plates includes the steps of forming an organic film on a partial or overall surface of at least one plate of the two electrode plates and radiating accelerated ions containing neutral atoms to the partial or overall surface of the organic film coated on the plate. The organic film consists of liquid-crystal molecules. The radiation is done for etching the organic film and orienting the liquid-crystal molecules in a unidirectional manner. The angle of incidence of the accelerated ions is defined as 40.degree. to 80.degree. with respect to a normal line of the plate. It results in offering even orientation of liquid-crystal molecules included in the liquid-crystal display device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of forming an orientation film of a liquid-crystal display device and more particularly to a method for forming a film consisting of liquid-crystal molecules oriented in a horizontal and unidirectional manner.
2. Description of the Related Art
A normal liquid-crystal display device is designed to provide liquid crystal between transparent electrodes consisting of glass plates opposite to each other. By applying an electric signal between these electrodes, the display device is capable of modulating an incident ray from the outside and displaying information. For obtaining a feasible contrast, it is necessary to uniformly control the orientation of liquid-crystal molecules. In particular, for a liquid-crystal display device employing a field-effect system such as a nematic system, which is designed to twist the liquid-crystal molecules by about 90.degree. to 360.degree. between the upper and the lower cells, it is preferable to orient the liquidcrystal molecules in a horizontal and unidirectional manner in light of the principle of operation.
As a method for forming a film consisting of liquidcrystal molecules oriented in a horizontal and unidirectional manner, in general, there has been employed a rubbing method or an oblique evaporation method. The former method includes the steps of forming on an electrode plate an orientation film consisting of silicon oxide or polyimide, for example, applying sintering treatment on the electrode plate having the film formed thereon if necessary, and abrading the electrode plate in a unidirectional manner with a gigged or flocked cloth. The latter method includes the steps of vacuumvaporizing silicon oxide on the electrode plate in an oblique manner and growing the vaporized silicon oxide to be a vaporized film in a specific direction. These methods can offer great restriction for orientation to the liquid-crystal molecules so that they allow the liquid-crystal molecules to be stably oriented for a long period. Hence, they are widely employed as a method for treating orientation of the liquidcrystal molecules. In addition to the foregoing methods, there has been employed another method including the steps of forming a film consisting of silicon oxide on an electrode plate and radiating grains like ions in an electrically accelerating manner for making the silicon-oxide film served as the orientation film.
The foregoing rubbing method and oblique vaporization method, however, have the following shortcomings.
According to the rubbing method, the rubbing pressure is unevenly applied to a large electrode plate because the plate has an uneven surface and a heterogeneous thickness. The unevenly applied pressure results in unevenly orienting the liquid-crystal molecules, that is, being unable to realize high-precision display. And, as the electrode plate is abraded with the rubbing cloth, fibers and impurities contained in the cloth are attached on the orientation film, thereby degrading the characteristic of the display. It is thus indispensable to clean the liquid-crystal display, resulting in necessitating a large quantity of cleaning solvent. Moreover, in the liquid-crystal display containing a nonlinear element array such as a TFT (thin film transistor) or a MIM (metal-insulating layer-metal) element, the static electricity caused when abrading the treated electrode plate may break down a semiconductor switching element.
According to the oblique evaporation method, the crystals of silicon oxide attached on the electrode plate are expanded in a fanlike manner. It results in disadvantageously being unable to restrict the orientation direction of the liquid-crystal molecules to be unidirectional as well as unevenly orienting the molecules because of the flakes caused by the fanlike expansion of the crystals.
Lastly, consider the foregoing third method, that is, an orientation film forming method designed to radiate grains such as ions on the electrode plate having a silicon oxide film formed thereon in an electrically accelerating manner. FIG. 1 shows the characteristics of an orientation film formed to have a thickness of 1000.ANG. with a normal sputtering method. As shown in FIG. 1, this method offers incomplete orientation of a film, so that it cannot realize characteristics sufficiently meeting the operation of the liquid-crystal display device.

Method of forming orientation film of liquid-crystal display device


The invention provides a positive working photosensitive element with improved odor and increased photospeed which comprises coating a formulation containing at least one novolak or polyvinyl phenol resin, at least one o-quinone diazide and a solvent mixture comprising propylene glycol alkyl ether and propylene glycol alkyl ether acetate, onto a substrate, drying, exposing to imaging energy and developing.

The present invention relates generally to radiation sensitive positive photoresist compositions and particularly to compositions containing novolak resins together with naphthoquinone diazide sensitizing agents. It is well known in the art to produce positive photoresist formulations such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,666,473, 4,115,128 and 4,173,470. These include alkali-soluble phenol-formaldehyde novolak resins together with light-sensitive materials, usually a substituted naphthoquinone diazide compound. The resins and sensitizers are dissolved in an organic solvent or mixture of solvents and are applied as a thin film or coating to a substrate suitable for the particular application desired.
The novolak resin component of these photoresist formulations is soluble in alkaline aqueous solution, but the naphthoquinone sensitizer acts as a dissolution rate inhibitor with respect to the resin. Upon exposure of selected areas of the coated substrate to actinic radiation, however, the sensitizer undergoes a radiation induced structural transformation and the exposed areas of the coating are rendered more soluble than the unexposed areas. This difference in solubility rates causes the exposed areas of the photoresist coating to be dissolved when the substrate is immersed in alkaline developing solution while the unexposed areas are largely unaffected, thus producing a positive relief pattern on the substrate.
In most instances, the exposed and developed substrate will be subject to treatment by a substrate-etchant solution or gas plasma. The photoresist coating protects the coated areas of the substrate from the etchant and thus the etchant is only able to etch the uncoated areas of the substrate, which, in the case of a positive photoresist, correspond to the areas that were exposed to actinic radiation. Thus, an etched pattern can be created on the substrate which corresponds to the pattern of the mask, stencil, template, etc., that was used to create selective exposure patterns on the coated substrate prior to development.
The relief pattern of photoresist on substrate produced by the method described above is useful for various applications including, for example, as an exposure mask or a pattern such as is employed in the manufacture of miniaturized integrated electronic components.
The properties of a photoresist composition which are important in commercial practice include the photospeed of the resist, development contrast, resist resolution, and resist adhesion.
Increased photospeed is important for a photoresist, particularly in applications where a number of exposures are needed, for example, in generating multiple patterns by a repeated process, or where light of reduced intensity is employed such as, in projection exposure techniques where the light is passed through a series of lenses and mono-chromatic filters. Thus, increased photospeed is particularly important for a resist composition employed in processes where a number of multiple exposures must be made to produce a mask or series of circuit patterns on a substrate. These optimum conditions include a constant development temperature and time in a particular development mode, and a developer system selected to provide complete development of exposed resist areas while maintaining a maximum unexposed resist film thickness loss not exceeding about 10 percent of initial thickness.
Development contrast refers to a comparison between the percentage of film loss in the exposed area of development with the percentage of film loss on the unexposed area. Ordinarily, development of an exposed resist coated substrate is continued until the coatingon the exposed area is substantially completely dissolved away and thus, development contrast can be determined simply by measuring the percentage of the film coating loss in the unexposed areas when the exposed coating areas are removed entirely.
Resist resolution refers to the capability of a resist system to reproduce the smallest equally spaced line pairs and intervening spaces of a mask which is utilized during exposure with a high degree of image edge acuity in the developed exposed spaces.
In many industrial applications, particularly in the manufacture of miniaturized electronic components, a photoresist is required to provide a high degree of resolution for very small line and space widths (on the order of one micron or less).
The ability of a resist to reproduce very small dimensions, on the order of a micron or less, is extremely important in the production of large scale integrated circuits on silicon chips and similar components. Circuit density on such a chip can only be increased, assuming photolithography techniques are utilized, by increasing the resolution capabilities of the resist. Although negative photoresists, wherein the exposed areas of resist coating become insoluble and the unexposed areas are dissolved away by the developer, have been extensively used for this purpose by the semiconductor industry, positive photoresists have inherently higher resolution and are utilized as replacements for the negative resists.
A problem with the use of conventional positive photoresists in the production of miniaturized integrated circuit components is that the positive resists generally have slower photospeed than the negative resists.
Various attempts have been made in the prior art to improve the photospeed of positive photoresist compositions. For example, in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,666,473, a mixture of two phenolformaldehyde novolak resins was utilized together with a typical sensitizer, said novolak resins being defined by their solubility rates in alkaline solutions of a particular pH and by their cloud points. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,128, a third component consisting of an organic acid cyclic anhydride was added to the phenolic resin and naphthoquinone diazide sensitizer to provide increased photospeed.
The present invention provides a process for producing an improved positive working photoresist which demonstrates improved odor while retaining or improving the resist photospeed, erosion rate, plasma etch rate, and contrast. It has been unexpectedly found that such an improved resist can be formulated when the novolak or polyvinyl phenol resin and quinone diazide photosensitizer are blended with a solvent component comprising a mixture of propylene glycol alkyl ether acetate and propylene glycol alkyl ether. This component also acts as a solvent for the resin and photosensitizer to facilitate the application of the resist to a substrate. This component demonstrates lower toxicity over other solvents useful for forming photoresists. A positive working photoresist comprising propylene glycol alkyl ether acetate is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 619,468 filed June 11, 1984, as well as U.S. patent application Ser. No. 791,252, filed on Oct. 25, 1985 abandoned, and which are incorporated herein by reference.
A positive working photosensitive composition comprising a mono C.sub.1 to C.sub.4 alkyl glycol ether of 1,2 propanediol is described in U.S. Pat. No. 742,063 filed June 6, 1985 abandoned and is incorporated herein by reference.
Photosensitive compositions containing only one of propylene glycol alkyl ether and propylene glycol alkyl ether acetate have a disadvantage. Propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate (PGMEA) has an offensive odor to approximately one-half the people who came in contact with it. These are usually women. Propylene glycol monomethyl ether (PGME) is also offensive to approximately one-half the people who are exposed to it. These are usually men. However, those who find PGMEA offensive find PGME to have little or no odor. The reverse is also true, those who object to PGME find PGMEA to be pleasant or not objectionable. Mixtures of these solvents i.e. PGME/PGMEA (1:1) are not objectionable, or at least less objectionable to both groups of individuals. Based on these observations resists using PGME/PGMEA mixtures form a class of reduced odor photoresists.

Positive photoresist containing a mixture of propylene glycol alkyl ethers and propylene glycol alkyl ether acetate


An aid for use by women in discharge of bodily wastes while standing erect. The aid includes tongs having legs engageable with seams at the open end of a flexible waste receiving bag. The legs are pivoted together at their inner ends and each leg has fixed thereto a handle with the leg and handle of each tong part being on the same side of the pivot whereby movement of the handles towards each other moves the legs apart and vice versa, the handles being urged apart by a spring. The size of the bag opening can be adjusted by the tongs to minimize accidents. One of the legs carries an outwardly open channel for engaging a leg opening of panties to move the panties clear of the relevant region as the bag is opened for use. The invention includes structure for the mounting of either a urine bag or a defecation bag.

Because women universally discharge bodily wastes in a seated position but many women are reluctant to sit on the toilet seats in public lavatories for fear of disease, there has been a recognized need for supplying women with alternatives to sitting on toilet seats. Thus the prior art has devised funnel-like devices which women can manually hold in place while standing erect and which have outlets for directing urine into a toilet bowl or elsewhere. Many of these prior devices are made of flimsy sheet material, usually paper treated so as to be temporarily waterproof, while still being disposable by flushing down a toilet. Not only are these devices difficult to hold in place but they usually require that the user clamp the device in place with her fingers and if the unit is not properly positioned, the results can be decidedly unpleasant.
The patent to Diaz No. 4,305,161 attempts to address this problem by the provision of a substantially rigid wish-bone shaped support frame having legs joined together at one end by a handle and which may be inserted into the open ended seams at the open upper end of a bag. With this arrangement, the user's finger's are separated to a certain extent from the danger zone but, because the legs of the frame are fixed with respect to each other, the user still has the problem of locating the frame in the proper position, with the same bad results if it should be mis-located.
The principal object of the present invention is to reduce the likelihood of mis-location of a urinary aid while providing means for positioning the user's fingers even further away from the danger zone than prior art devices.
A subsidiary object of the invention is to provide a urinary aid for women which enables the unit to be used without the necessity for a woman to remove her panties.
Another object of the invention is to provide a urinating aid for women which can be converted to a defecating aid.

Aid for use by women in discharge of bodily wastes


Systems, methods and apparatus which provides for modified roulette games, and various wagering options, in which one or more roulette balls are propelled onto a spinning roulette wheel, among other things, including a roulette wheel overlay apparatus and system and associated table layouts.

The invention is directed to wagering games, and more particularly, roulette games typically found in gaming establishments, such as those involving a roulette wheel, playing surface, playing positions for multiple players, playing cards, and a dealer, or virtual representations thereof.
Roulette is a well-known casino game which has been played for many years. A typical roulette game consists of a table with betting layout adjacent to a roulette wheel rotor or ring mounted for rotational motion within a support structure. The ring includes a circular array of numbered segments bearing numbers 1 through 36 defined on its upper surface. American Roulette wheels typically have rings which also include the numbers 0 and 00 disposed at diametrically opposite locations on the upper surface, whereas European Roulette wheels include only the number 0. The numbers 1 through 36 are not disposed in numerical order, but rather are typically disposed in a predetermined arrangement, such that roulette wheels located in different casinos will have the same standard predetermined number ring arrangement. The numbers disposed in a circular array in the number ring region of the wheel bear the alternating colors of red and black, with the exception of the 0 and/or 00 numbers, which are typically colored green. A ring of pockets corresponding in number to the plurality of numbers of the ring lies adjacent, but radially inward of the ring, on the typical roulette wheel. A typical roulette wheel further includes a circular, inclined ball track radially outwardly of the ring.
In operation of a typical roulette game, players place chips or tokens on a betting layout located on a roulette table, and then the croupier or dealer spins the roulette wheel and the roulette ball is placed in motion along the circular ball track in the opposite direction of the rotation of the wheel. As the wheel slows, the ball moves radially inwardly and comes to rest in one of the pockets associated with a particular one of the numbers of the number ring. After the ball comes to rest in one of the pockets, the croupier or dealer settles the various wagers placed on the table layout in accordance with predetermined rules and wager odds and the process is repeated.
Gaming establishments or casinos continually require new games to offer their players. Players are typically attracted to games that provide relatively decent odds of winning, as compared with other casino games, and can be played rapidly. It has been found that many of the games which have been successful also offer lively game play features that further serve to heighten player interest in such games. Naturally, casino operators seek to provide the most popular games for their gaming patrons.

Roulette modification system and wagering methods


An integrated control circuit for a resonant power converter includes a minimum-frequency programming circuit connected a first resistor to program a minimum switching frequency of the power converter. A feedback circuit is coupled to a feedback terminal to receive a feedback signal for generating an adjustment signal. A maximum-frequency programming circuit connects a second resistor to determine a maximum switching frequency in response to the adjustment signal. An oscillator is coupled to the minimum-frequency programming circuit and the maximum-frequency programming circuit to generate an oscillation signal for determining the switching frequency of the power converter. A feed-forward circuit is connected to a feed-forward terminal to receive a feed-forward signal represents the input voltage of the power converter. The switching frequency is increased in response to decrease of the feedback signal, and the switching frequency is increased in response to the increase of the feed-forward signal.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to resonant power converters, and more particularly to the control circuit of the resonant power converter.
2. Description of Related Art
Power converters are used to convert an unregulated power source to a constant power source. A power converter normally includes a transformer having primary and secondary winding to provide the isolation. Switching devices connected in the primary winding control energy transferring from the primary winding to the secondary winding. The power converters operate at high frequencies allows a size and weight reduction. However, the switching losses, component stresses, and electric-magnetic-interference (EMI) are inherent problems. In the last decades, many resonant power converters have been proposed for high frequency power conversion to reduce the switching losses. Among them, the resonant switching techniques are described in following prior arts: "Regulated switched power circuit with resonant load" by Tamas S. Szepesi, U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,399; "Frequency controlled resonant regulator" by Frank S. Wendt, U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,652.
For the power saving at no load, a burst switching schemes is developed for resonant power control, "Full load to no-load control for a voltage fed resonant inverter" by John N. Park and Robert L. Steigerwald, U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,041. In various resonant power converters, the leakage inductance of the transformer or additional magnetic components is employed as a resonant inductor to generate the circulating current for achieving the soft switching.
However, there still exist several drawbacks in conventional technologies. The resonant inductor associated with a resonant capacitor forms a resonant circuit for the power converter to deliver the maximum power to the load. Although the switching frequency of the power converter is controlled to higher or lower than the resonant frequency in response to the change of the load, the change of the switching frequency must be restricted to ensure the linear operation and achieve the soft switching of the resonant power converter. Furthermore, the poor audio-susceptibility of the power converter and the acoustic noise of the burst switching are disadvantages. These shortcomings are the main object of the present invention to overcome.

Switching controller for resonant power converter


A sensor system is described, using self-mixing laser sensors (10) and an analyzer circuit (30) in order to determine the velocity of a vehicle, such as a car, and the rotational velocity of a wheel (20) of the car. Deviations between the velocity of the vehicle and the rotational velocity of the wheel (20) can be used to determine sliding of the wheel (20) and, finally, the traction or, more specifically, the coefficient of driving friction between the wheel (20) and the surface the car is driving on. Furthermore, a vehicle control system is described, initiating test accelerations of a wheel (20) by means of a control circuit (50) and control means (300, 400) in order to determine the coefficient of driving friction during driving. The test accelerations initiate short periods of sliding of the wheel (20) and the sliding is detected by means of the sensor system.

WO 2007/149934 A2 describes an optical method and apparatus for measuring properties of a travel vehicle or a travel surface upon which the vehicle travels, which method includes providing an incident light from a light source to the travel surface, collecting light reflected from the travel surface, determining a surface-induced Doppler shift from the incident and collected light and determining at least one of a motion property of the travel vehicle and a surface property of the travel surface based on the determined surface-induced Doppler shift. The apparatus is bulky and is impractical for many travel vehicles.

Sensor system, vehicle control system and driver information system for vehicle safety


Provided is a three-dimensional modeling apparatus including a supply mechanism, a deposition area, a variable mechanism, a discharge mechanism, and a control means. The supply mechanism supplies a powder material. In the deposition area, the supplied powder material is deposited. The variable mechanism varies a volume of the deposition area per a predetermined layer thickness, and thus the powder material is deposited per the predetermined layer thickness in the deposition area. The discharge mechanism discharges liquid for forming a three-dimensional object to the deposited powder material, the liquid being capable of hardening the powder material. The control means causes the discharge mechanism to discharge the liquid to the powder material, to thereby form a main body being an object being as a target to be modeled and a frame body being an object to be formed in a periphery of the main body, of the three-dimensional object.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a three-dimensional modeling apparatus that forms a three-dimensional shape by laminating pieces of cross-sectional image data, and to a three-dimensional object manufactured by the three-dimensional modeling apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, a three-dimensional modeling apparatus of this type has been known as an apparatus of rapid prototyping, which is widespread for commercial use. As main methods for the three-dimensional modeling apparatus, stereo lithography, laminated object manufacturing, and modeling with powders, for example.
In the stereo lithography, light-curing resin is irradiated with high-power laser light to form a cross-sectional shape, and cross-sectional shapes are laminated, to thereby form a three-dimensional shape. In the laminated object manufacturing, thin sheets are cut out in a layer form, and the cutout sheets are bonded and laminated, to thereby form the three-dimensional shape. In the modeling with powders, powder materials are bedded in a layer form to form a cross-sectional shape, and cross-sectional shapes are laminated, to thereby form a three-dimensional shape.
In addition, the modeling with powders is roughly classified into a method in which powders are molten or sintered and a method in which powders are solidified by an adhesive. In the former method, nylon material is irradiated with laser light to form a cross-section, to thereby form a three-dimensional shape. In the latter method, powders, the main component of which is plaster, are solidified by discharging an adhesive thereto through an inkjet head used for a printing apparatus or the like, and cross-sectional layers are formed and laminated, to thereby form a three-dimensional shape.
In the modeling with powders by using the inkjet head, from the head of an inkjet printer, a binding solution for binding the powders is discharged, with the head being moved above a sheet on which the powdered plaster are bedded when printing is performed.
An apparatus using the above-mentioned modeling with powders is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei 7-507508 (hereinafter, referred to as Patent Literature 1). As shown in FIG. 2 of Patent Literature 1, a head (41) (powder-dispersing head (13)) for discharging powders supplies the powders while moving above an area (form) (14 and 42) in which the powders are accommodated. Then, a head (43) (inkjet printing head (15)) for discharging binder materials for binding the powder particles to each other selectively discharges the binder materials to the powders while moving above the area (42). In this manner, a binder layer is formed (which is described at page 7 in specification of Patent Literature 1). Further, the above-mentioned apparatus has a structure in which, as shown in FIG. 7 of Patent Literature 1, a horizontal roller (101) for leveling a surface of the supplied powders also runs.

Three-dimensional modeling apparatus, method of manufacturing a three-dimensional object and three-dimensional object


A method for effecting anisotropic etching of a layer of a material without producing dimensional loss even if the photoresist is of a reverse tapered cross-sectional profile is proposed. A photoresist produced from a chemical amplification negative type photoresist tends to be of a reversely tapered cross-sectional profile after development due to its sensitization properties. According to the present invention, discharge reaction products yielded in a plasma are deposited on an inclined sidewall surface of a photoresist pattern for trimming or shaping the sidewall surface so that the sidewall surface will be substantially vertical. For example, Si.sub.x N.sub.y, Si.sub.x N.sub.y Cl.sub.z, etc. may be deposited from a SiCl.sub.4 /N.sub.2 mixed gas, sulfur may be deposited from a mixed gas of S.sub.2 F.sub.2 /H.sub.2 S and a carbonaceous polymer may be deposited from a C.sub.2 Cl.sub.3 F.sub.3 gas. Such profile correction may be effected before etching the layer, or simultaneously with the etching under conditions in which the deposition process occurs competitively with the etching process. According to the present invention, dimensional loss may be prevented effectively from occurring during the etching of a layer of an Si-based material or an Al-based material in which the radical mode is a prevailing etching mode.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a dry etching method and, more particularly, to a dry etching method in which a dimensional loss may be prevented from being produced even if etching is carried out using a reverse tapered resist pattern as a mask.
2. Description of Related Art
In keeping pace with increased refinement of the design rule of semiconductor devices, such as VLSIs and ULSIs, researches in the field of photolithography are currently conducted with a view to improving the photoresist material as well as increasing the numerical aperture of exposure units or shortening the exposure wavelengths. Above all, excimer laser lithography employing an excimer laser light source, such as KrF excimer laser light (248 nm) in place of a conventional g-line (436 nm) or i-line (365 nm) of high pressure mercury lamps, has attracted attention as a technique of achieving high resolution with comparative ease.
Meanwhile, it is difficult in excimer laser lithography to directly use a novolac positive type photoresist, which has hitherto been customarily used in g-line exposure or i-line exposure. The reason is that, since the aromatic ring of the novolac base resin and the naphthoquinone diazide compounds used as a photosensitive material exhibits marked absorption in a wavelength range of the KrF excimer laser light, the photoresist is poor in sensitivity and in exposure light transmission properties so that the photoresist pattern becomes tapered in cross-section.
Thus a photoresist material capable of achieving high sensitivity and high resolution has been desired. Recently, a so-called chemical amplification resist has attracted attention as such photoresist. The chemical amplification resist is a photoresist of the type in which an acid catalyst is generated by photoreaction from a photoreactive acid catalyst generator, such as an onium salt or a polyhalide, referred to hereinafter as photo-acid generator, and in which heat treatment (post-baking) is carried out in the presence of the acid catalyst to proceed with a resist reaction, such as cross-linking or functional group conversion, thereby producing changes in the rate of dissolution.
The chemical amplification resist is classified into a positive type and a negative type, depending on the type of the resist reaction, and into a two-component system and a three-component system, depending on the number of basic components. Currently, a negative three-component type resist, employing novolac resin, DDT (p,p'-dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane) and hexamethyrol melamine, as a basic resin, photo-acid generator and an acid crosslinking agent, respectively, is nearing the stage of practical utilization. Resolution achieved by this resist is based on a mechanism that the acid catalyst is generated from DDT by exposure by a KrF excimer laser, which acid catalyst promotes crosslinking of the base resin by the cross-linking agent during post-baking to render the light exposed portion alkali-insoluble.
However, the above mentioned negative type chemical amplification resist tends to be affected by exposure light volume distribution in a direction along the film thickness and becomes more difficult to dissolve on the surface and the near-by region of the exposed portion, so that the as-developed resist exhibits a characteristic reversed tapered cross-sectional profile. Such deterioration in the cross-sectional shape of the resist pattern may translate itself into dimensional loss, when etching is made with the resist pattern as a mask, depending on the particular etching mechanism employed.
It is now assumed that, as shown in FIG. 1a, a layer of a material 2, formed on a substrate 1, is etched, using a photoresist pattern 3 as a mask. The photoresist pattern 3 is not a rectangular pattern having an upright wall but is a pattern of a reversed taper having a pattern width d.sub.2 on the bottom surface of the pattern adjacent the layer 2, which width d.sub.2 is less than a pattern width d.sub.1 on the top surface of the pattern (d.sub.1 >d.sub.2). The width d.sub.1 is the desired or targeted pattern width.
If the layer 2 is etched using such 8 photoresist pattern 3 as a mask, and the layer 2 is of a material that is etched mainly by an ion mode, such as silicon oxide, the pattern width of the as-etched layer 2 becomes equal to the pattern width d.sub.1, as shown in FIG. 1b. The reason is that, when etching a fine pattern mainly by the ion mode, the operating conditions of low gas pressure and high bias voltage are adopted, so that the mean free path of the ions i.sup.+ is extended and the incident direction is set so as to be substantially normal to the layer 2 being etched, with the result that the range of incidence of the ions i.sup.+ is regulated by the width d.sub.1 on the top surface of the photoresist pattern 3.
However, if the layer 2 is of a material that is etched mainly by the radical mode, such as, for example, polysilicon or aluminum-based material, the pattern width of the as-etched layer 2 becomes substantially equal to the pattern width d.sub.2. The reason is that, in distinction from ions, radicals r* cannot be aligned in their proceeding direction, so that etching proceeds from the bottom surface of the resist pattern 3 under the influences of the predominant obliquely incident components. The result is that a difference that represents a dimensional loss is produced between the targeted pattern width d.sub.1 and the produced pattern width d.sub.2.
In this manner, if the resist pattern has a reverse tapered cross-sectional profile, a dimensional loss is produced, depending on the type of the layer to be etched. However, such dimensional loss is not tolerated under the increasingly refined current design rule.


A network resource manager is configured to read in from a deferrable instance a request to transfer program data and/or execution instructions to a computer-based resource of a cloud service provider for execution. If the load on the cloud service provider is high, the manager will transmit a query to the deferrable instance offering to assign an additional deferrable instance to the original deferrable instance if both the original deferrable instance and the additional deferrable instance accept a deferral period during which neither can make requests for resources.

FIG. 1 is a schematic of a prior art system 100 for current instance resource management. The system comprises:                one or more computer implemented current instances 112, 114, 116;        a computer implemented resource manager 130; and        one or more computer implemented current resources 142, 144, 146.
The system may be owned or controlled by a cloud computing service provider 148, such as Amazon EC2, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure.

System and method for controlling access to resources in a multicomputer network


A composite roof structure, and a corresponding method of fabricating the structure, are disclosed which includes use of a layer of non-cellular adhesive material (preferably a two-component non-cellular polyurea polyurethane adhesive material), roof insulation panels, along with a flexible roof membrane, preferably made of thermoplastic olefin rubber, including a rubber-like sheet having a fleece-like matting secured to the underside thereof. The non-cellular adhesive is preferably sprayed onto a roof substrate and prior to complete solidification thereof the roof membrane or roof insulation is pressed into the adhesive so that the matting becomes embedded therein.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to roof constructions, and more particularly to a composite roof structure and a corresponding method for fabricating the composite roof structure, using a non-cellular adhesive material for securing the roof insulation to the roof substrate and an upper, flexible roof membrane comprising a sheet of flexible rubber-like material preferably with fleece-like matting secured to the underside thereof or membrane with an underside prepared for adhesive attachment, to a roof substrate or roof insulation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many different roofing systems have been proposed in the past, ranging from simple asphalt/gravel roofs to more sophisticated structures making use of synthetic resin materials. It has also been known in the past to construct roofs using foamed, cellular adhesive materials, such as foamed, cellular polyurethane adhesives. However, they present a number of problems. First, the foamed, cellular synthetic resin adhesive materials tend to rise and forms bulges under the roof insulation or at roof membrane seam areas, thus making difficult and laborious to control evenness of the finished roof. They provide little resistance to low temperatures and become friable when are applied at temperature below 40xc2x0 F. Furthermore, the foamed, cellular synthetic resin adhesive materials have relatively low tensile strength, thus provide very low puncture resistance to the finished Roof. The foamed, cellular adhesives have limited shelf life.
It has also been known in the past to construct roofs using synthetic rubber membranes formed from EPDM rubber. In such constructions, an adhesive substance is first applied to a substrate and allowed to partially dry. This drying causes volatile gases which are mostly pollutants, to escape into the atmosphere. Even at best, These roof membranes tend to be poorly attached and many times suffer from damage in usually encountered moderate winds.
The present invention overcomes the problems outlined above and provides a greatly improved composite roof structure broadly including a layer of non-cellular adhesive material adapted to be secured to a substrate, and various insulation layers adhered with the same non-cellular adhesive along with a flexible roof membrane attached to the adhesive. The roof membrane includes a sheet of flexible material (e.g. TPO rubber) having a fleece-like matting secured to the underside thereof or other prepared underside thereof. It has been found that the use of such matting permits the roof membrane to be strongly adhered to the adhesive, with the matting being at least partially embedded within the adhesive itself.
In particularly preferred forms, the non-cellular adhesive material is in the form of a non-cellular polyurea polyurethane adhesive material. The non-cellular adhesive layer has a thickness after solidification of at least about {fraction (1/16)} inch, and more preferably from about {fraction (1/16)} to xc2xc inches. Furthermore, in order to facilitate installation, the non-cellular adhesive material is initially in the form of a liquid and has a fast initial set and relatively slow subsequent final cure. Advantageously, the non-cellular polyurea polyurethane adhesive is a two-component system having polyol/diisocyanate components.
The flexible roof membrane preferably comprises a synthetic rubber (such as TPO, EPDM or the like) sheet having a thickness of from about 40-70 mils, with fleece-like non-woven polyester matting having a thickness from about 40-80 mils secured thereto or membrane with an underside prepared for adhesive attachment. While the TPO/polyester membrane is preferred, the invention is not so limited. Rather, use can be made of a wide variety of thermoplastic or thermosetting elastomeric flexible materials having a selected textile matting (e.g. polyolefinic) secured to the underside thereof or membrane with an underside prepared for adhesive attachment.

Non-cellular adhesive for composite roof structure


A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device in a MLM process to reduce compression stress of a metal line or a HDP oxide film, and to reduce compression stress in a subsequent metal line thermal treatment process. It is thus possible to reduce generation of a crack caused by compression stress. Further, by obviating a heterogeneous interface becoming a cause of a crack and stabilizing the interface of an unstable TEOS oxide film, generation of a crack in a semiconductor device can be reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing semiconductor devices. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method of manufacturing semiconductor devices, wherein cracking can be prevented from occurring in an insulating film in a metal layer metal (hereinafter, referred to as "MLM") process.
2. Discussion of Related Art
A MLM formation method of semiconductor devices includes forming metal lines, such as aluminum (Al) and tungsten (W), and providing insulation among the metal lines using a silicon oxide film such as high density plasma (hereinafter, referred to as "HDP").
After such a metal process is completed, annealing for improved refresh characteristics and metal resistance stabilization has to be performed.
Generally, metal is several tens of times higher in the degree of thermal expansion than the insulating film. It is thus inevitable that thermal stress occurs due to a difference in the degree of thermal expansion between the metal and the oxide film upon annealing. Such thermal stress causes cracks to occur at weak points of the insulating film.
FIG. 1 is a scanning electron microscope (SEM) photograph showing cracking created in an insulating film due to thermal stress. In FIG. 1, a first insulating film crack is generated due to thermal stress and a second crack is formed due to depression by the first crack.
Furthermore, an annealing process is usually performed at a temperature of 400 to 450° C. for about 20 to 30 minutes. If an aluminum line is used, a melting temperature of aluminum is 600° C., which is high temperature of about ⅔ Tm, and thus causes liquid behavior. Accordingly, aluminum for lines shows liquid behavior during annealing process.
At this time, if cracks due to thermal stress exist, Al is infiltrated into the cracks due to a capillary phenomenon and Al volume expansion. This results in metal line bridge failure.
FIG. 2 is a SEM photograph showing metal line bridge failure. FIG. 2 shows that metal (Al) is infiltrated into a crack, and is thus connected to an underlying conduction layer, as indicated by "A".
If metal and an insulating film exist, it is inevitable that thermal stress is generated due to a difference in the degree of thermal expansion between the metal and the insulating film upon annealing. In this case, the degree of stress applied to the insulating film is compression stress of approximately −3.5E11 dyn/cm2. More particularly, stress is concentrated on a metal line corner area. Often, stress which is several hundreds of times higher than ˜1E9 dyn/cm2 being a general thin film stress level, is generated.
Stress (σox) applied to an insulating film due to MLM can be expressed into the following equation.
      σ    ox    =                    [                              E            Al                                (                          1              -                              v                Al                                      )                          ]            ⋆                        (                                    α              ox                        -                          α              Al                                )                        dT              =                  -        3.5                  E                                      11                                      dyn                    /                          cm        2            where, σox is stress applied to an insulating film by metal,                EAl is the modulus of elasticity of Al (=6E11 dyn/cm2),        νAl is the Poisson's ratio(=0.3) of Al,        αAl is the degree of thermal expansion (=10 ppm/k) of Al,        αax is the degree of thermal expansion (=0.55 ppm/k) of insulating film, and        dT is a difference between normal temperature and temperature upon annealing (=425K)
FIGS. 3A and 3B are graphs showing a stress hysteresis curve of Al and a HDP (High Density Plasma) oxide film depending upon temperature.
As can be seen from FIG. 3A, although aluminum has tensile stress at an initial stage, it is changed to compression stress since the degree of thermal expansion is high as the temperature rises. However, the compression stress is changed to tensile stress again upon cooling.
However, a seen in FIG. 3B, a HDP oxide film has compression stress at an initial stage. As temperature rises, the compression stress is changed to tensile stress, but the HDP oxide film still shows compression stress. The compression stress then increases again upon cooling.
FIGS. 4A to 4C are schematic diagrams illustrating the state of stress generated in Al and the HDP oxide film upon annealing based on the stress hysteresis curves of FIGS. 3A and 3B.
In the drawings, an arrow direction indicates a direction along which a file tries to be oriented, and the length of the arrow indicates the amount of stress.
Before heating (FIG. 4A) and in a cooling (FIG. 4C) state, Al shows tensile stress and a HDP oxide film shows compression stress. As the directions of their stress exert in an opposite direction, stress can be mitigated.
In a heating (FIG. 4B) state, however, since the stress of Al is changed to compression stress, both Al and the HDP oxide film show the compression stress. Thus, very high stress is generated.
Accordingly, as indicated by "B" in FIG. 4B, stress is concentrated on metal line bottom corner areas.
Al bottom corner areas undergo over etch of about 50% in order to remove metal line bridges upon formation of metal lines. In this case, the Al bottom corner areas are areas where an underlying TEOS oxide film is lost due to over etch.
FIG. 5 is a view illustrating an Al etch profile. From FIG. 5, it can be seen that a TEOS oxide film is lost due to over etch at the bottom corner areas.
This Al bottom area is formed as a heterogeneous film interface (TEOS/HDP) along with concentration of stress, and is very weak and susceptible to cracking.
FIG. 6 is a SEM photograph showing crack of an over-etch area and an Al infiltration phenomenon through crack. From FIG. 6, it can be seen that the Al bottom area is weak and cracked, and accordingly, there are problems of Al infiltration.
Furthermore, the TEOS oxide film contains a large amount of moisture, hydro-carbon impurity, etc. on its surface. The interface of the TEOS oxide film is very unstable and always has problems.
FIG. 7 is a graph showing the results of measuring impurities on the surface of a TEOS oxide film using SIMS.
From FIG. 7, it can be seen that a large amount of impurities, such as H2, CxHy, H2O, CO, O2 and CO2, is contained on the surface of the TEOS oxide film. It is thus possible to predict instability of the interface.
FIG. 8 shows the degree of TEOS/TEOS interface attack. Although only vacuum break is performed after a TEOS oxide film is deposited, the TEOS oxide film is deposited again, and only wet cleaning is performed, attack is generated in the TEOS/TEOS interface due to a high etch rate. From this, it is possible to estimate that TEOS/HDP interface adhesion is very poor.
Therefore, crack in the TEOS/HDP interface of the metal line over-etch area begins due to the aforementioned reason, and Al bridge failure occurs through the crack.

Method of manufacturing semiconductor device


This invention discloses new methods and security devices for authenticating documents and valuable products which may be applied to any support, including transparent synthetic materials and traditional opaque materials such as paper. The invention relates to parallax moire shapes which occur in a compound layer consisting of the superposition of specially designed and possibly geometrically transformed s-random base layer and s-random revealing layer with a small gap between them. The base and revealing layers are formed respectively by base layer element shapes and revealing layer sampling elements positioned at s-random locations, where the base layer locations and the revealing layer locations are strongly correlated. When tilting the compound layer or changing the viewing angle, a parallax moire intensity profile of a chosen shape is seen moving in the superposition, thereby allowing the authentication of the document. A major advantage of the present invention is in its intrinsically incorporated encryption system due to the arbitrary choice of the s-random number sequences used for defining the positions of the specially designed base layer element shapes and revealing layer sampling elements that are used in this invention.

The present invention relates generally to the field of anti-counterfeiting and authentication methods and devices and, more particularly, to methods and security devices for authentication of documents and valuable products using the moire parallax effect.
Counterfeiting of documents such as banknotes, checks, identity cards, travel documents, etc. is becoming now more than ever a serious problem, due to the availability of high-quality and low-priced color photocopiers and desk-top publishing systems. The same is also true for other valuable products such as watches, CDs, DVDs, software products, industrial products, medical drugs, etc., that are often marketed in easy to counterfeit packages.
The present invention is therefore concerned with providing a novel security element and authentication means offering enhanced security for documents or articles needing to be protected against counterfeits.
Various sophisticated means have been introduced in prior art for counterfeit prevention and for authentication of documents or valuable products. Some of these means are clearly visible to the naked eye and are intended for the general public, while other means are hidden and only detectable by the competent authorities, or by automatic devices. Some of the already used anti-counterfeit and authentication means include the use of special paper, special inks, watermarks, micro-letters, security threads, holograms, etc. Nevertheless, there is still an urgent need to introduce further security elements, which do not considerably increase the cost of the produced documents or goods.
Moire effects have already been used in prior art for the authentication of documents. For example, United Kingdom Pat. No. 1,138,011 (Canadian Bank Note Company) discloses a method which relates to printing on the original document special elements which, when counterfeited by means of halftone reproduction, show a moire pattern of high contrast. Similar methods are also applied to the prevention of digital photocopying or digital scanning of documents (for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,767 (Wicker), or U.K. Pat. Application No. 2,224,240 A (Kenrick & Jefferson)). In all these cases, the presence of moire patterns indicates that the document in question is counterfeit.
Other prior art methods, on the contrary, take advantage of the intentional generation of a moire pattern whose existence, and whose precise shape, are used as a means of authenticating the document. One known method in which a moire effect is used to make visible an image encoded on the document (as described, for example, in the section "Background" of U.S. Pat. No. 5,396,559 (McGrew), U.S. Pat. No. 5,708,717 (Alasia) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,280 (Huang)) is based on the physical presence of that image on the document as a latent image, using the technique known as "phase modulation". In this technique, a uniform line grating or a uniform screen of dots is printed on the document, but within the pre-defined borders of the latent image on the document the same line grating (or respectively, the same dot-screen) is printed in a different phase, or possibly in a different orientation. For a layman, the latent image thus printed on the document is hard to distinguish from its background; but when a revealing layer comprising an identical, but unmodulated, line grating (respectively, dot-screen) is superposed on the document, thereby generating a moire effect, the latent image pre-designed on the document becomes clearly visible, since within its pre-defined borders the moire effect appears in a different phase than in the background. However, this previously known method has the major flaw of being simple to simulate, since the form of the latent image is physically present on the document and only filled by a different texture. The existence of such a latent image on the document will not escape the eye of a skilled person, and moreover, its imitation by filling the form by a texture of lines (or dots) in an inversed (or different) phase can easily be carried out by anyone skilled in the graphics arts. A second limitation of phase modulation methods resides in the fact that they do not provide a dynamic visual effect such as scrolling, magnification, rotation, etc.: the image revealed by the superposition of the base layer and the revealing layer is always fixed, and it has precisely the same shape, location, size and orientation as the latent image that is embedded in the document.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,305,105 (Chosson and Hersch) teaches an authenticating method relying on a superposition image obtained when superposing a base layer embedding a shape elevation profile and a revealing layer formed by transparent lines. The superposition image then yields the shape elevation profiles level lines. But here, too, the image obtained by the superposition cannot be shifted by moving the revealing layer.
Other moire based methods, in which the presence of moire intensity profiles indicates the authenticity of the document, have been disclosed by Amidror and Hersch (the present inventors) in U.S. Pat. No. 6,249,588 and its continuation-in-part U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,638, both of which are herein fully incorporated by reference. These methods completely differ from the above mentioned techniques, since no phase modulation is used, and furthermore, no latent image is present on the document. On the contrary, all the spatial information which is made visible by the moire intensity profiles according to the inventions of Amidror and Hersch is encoded in the specially designed forms of the individual dots which constitute the dot-screens. These inventions are based on specially designed two-dimensional periodic structures, such as dot-screens (including variable intensity dot-screens such as those used in real, full gray level or color halftoned images), pinhole-screens, or microlens arrays, which generate in their superposition two-dimensional periodic moire intensity profiles of any chosen colors and shapes (letters, digits, the country emblem, etc.) whose size, location and orientation gradually vary as the superposed layers are rotated or shifted on top of each other.
In a third invention, U.S. Pat. No. 6,819,775, which is herein fully incorporated by reference, the present inventors disclosed new methods improving their previously disclosed methods mentioned above, and which make them even more difficult to counterfeit. These new improvements make use of the theory developed in the paper "Fourier-based analysis and synthesis of moires in the superposition of geometrically transformed periodic structures" by I. Amidror and R. D. Hersch, Journal of the Optical Society of America A, Vol. 15, 1998, pp. 1110-1113, and in the book "The Theory of the Moire Phenomenon" by I. Amidror, Kluwer, 2000. Based on this theory, said third invention discloses how to use geometric transformations of originally periodic structures which in spite of being aperiodic in themselves, still generate, when they are superposed on top of one another, periodic moire intensity profiles with clearly visible and undistorted elements, just like in the periodic cases disclosed by Amidror and Hersch in their previous U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,249,588 and 5,995,638. Furthermore, it was disclosed there how even cases which do not yield periodic moires can still be advantageously used for anticounterfeiting and authentication of documents and valuable products.
Yet a different category of moire based methods in which the presence of moire intensity profiles indicates the authenticity of the document has been disclosed by Hersch et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 7,194,105, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/879,218 filed Jun. 30 2004 and Ser. No. 11/349,992 filed Feb. 9 2006, and in U.S. Pat. No. 7,295,717, all of which are herein fully incorporated by reference. These methods are based on the fact that an originally periodic rectilinear (but possibly geometrically transformed) base band grating incorporating any chosen original shapes superposed with an appropriately designed originally periodic rectilinear (but possibly geometrically transformed) revealing layer yield in their superposition rectilinear moire bands comprising moire shapes which are a magnified transformation of the original shapes incorporated within the base band grating. Here, too, the resulting moire effects dynamically move across the superposition as the revealing layer is shifted on top of the base layer, in contrast to the above mentioned phase modulation methods. Patent application Ser. No. 11/349,992 mentions explicitly the possibility of having a fixed setup of base and revealing layers separated by a gap, which upon tilting, generates dynamically moving repetitive moire bands.
A further invention, U.S. Pat. No. 7,058,202 (Amidror), herein fully incorporated by reference, is based on the fact that if, instead of superposing two periodic or repetitive geometrically transformed dot screens, we superpose two specially designed random or pseudorandom dot-screens which are fully or partially correlated, a moire intensity profile will be generated in the superposition, which is not repeated throughout, as in the periodic or repetitive cases, but consists of one instance of the moire intensity profile whose size, location and orientation gradually vary as the superposed layers are rotated or shifted on top of each other, again, in contrast to the above mentioned phase modulation methods.
It should be stressed that the moire based methods developed by the present inventors completely differ from the above mentioned phase modulation techniques since in our methods no latent image is present, and the moire patterns resulting from the superposition of a base layer and a revealing layer are a transformation of the original pattern shapes embedded within the individual elements (dots or lines) of the base layer. This transformation comprises always an enlargement, and possibly a rotation, a shearing, a mirroring, and/or a bending transformation. In addition, in our methods, translating or rotating the revealing layer on top of the base layer yields a dynamic displacement, rotation or magnification of the moire intensity profiles. Phase modulation techniques are not capable of smoothly displacing, rotating or otherwise transforming the revealed latent image when the revealing layer is moved on top of the base layer.
Another moire based method, in which the presence of moire patterns indicates the authenticity of the document, has been disclosed by Drinkwater et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,712,731. In this patent a moire based method is disclosed which relies on periodic 2D microlens arrays. But this disclosure has the disadvantage of being limited to the case where the superposed revealing layer is a periodic microlens array and the base layer on the document is a periodic constant 2D array of identical dot-shapes that are replicated horizontally and vertically. Thus, in contrast to the inventions of Amidror and Hersch, this disclosure excludes the use of dot-screens or pinhole-screens as revealing structures, as well as the use on the document of full, real halftoned images with varying tone levels (such as portraits, landscapes, etc.), either in full gray levels or in color, that are made of halftone dots of varying sizes and shapes—which are the core of the methods disclosed by Amidror and Hersch, and which make them so difficult to counterfeit. Similar 2D microlense arrays are also disclosed by Steenblik et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 7,333,268, filed Nov. 22, 2004, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/438,081, priority May 18, 2005, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/770,592, filed 28 Jun. 2007. These inventions also consider a compound layer of a periodic microlens array and a periodic dot shape array separated by a gap, where, thanks to the well-known parallax effect, changing the observation orientation has the effect of moving or changing the size of the resulting 2D moire patterns. But neither of these inventions can be applied to the case where the two layers of the compound layer are not periodic but rather correlated random (or pseudo-random) layers, as disclosed for the first time in the present invention.
It should be mentioned that the well-known parallax effect has been also used in many other applications, for example for the generation of 3D displays or imaging systems (like in U.S. Pat. No. 7,265,775 (Hirayama) or U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,213 (Sandor et al.)); for various animation displays (like in U.S. Pat. No. 2,432,896 (Hotchner), U.S. Pat. No. 2,833,176 (Ossoinak) or U.S. Pat. No. 6,286,873 (Seder)); for postcards, keyholders or toys that show two or more distinct images when they are being tilted; etc. But these devices are not based on moire intensity profiles, but rather on a completely different technique, where the device contains interleaved stripes (or dots) from two or more predesigned latent images; when viewed through an appropriate line grating or lenticular revealing layer, these stripes (or dots) are integrated by the viewer's eyes thanks to the parallax effect into slightly different views, thus producing a typical 3D or kinematic effect. Yet another technique, also unrelated to moire intensity profiles, appears in U.S. Pat. No. 6,494,491 where Zeiter et al. disclose a further variant of the phase modulation technique mentioned above that is based on the parallax effect: it consists of having similar periodic line segments printed in registration on two sides of a thin transparent layer of a certain width; thanks to the parallax effect the superposition of both layers can be viewed either in phase or out of phase depending on the observation angle. But in all of these previous applications parallax effects were obtained with periodic revealing layers. And indeed, the surprising fact that parallax effects can generate moire intensity profiles between two correlated random or pseudo-random layers (such as random dot screens or random line gratings) was not known until now, and it is disclosed for the first time in the present Application, thus making it clearly distinct from all prior art applications that are based on the well-known parallax effect between periodic layers.
Finally, it should be noted that our present invention is completely different from the 3D nonwoven random structure mentioned in p. 211 of the book "Optical Document Security" edited by R. van Renesse, Artech House, 1998, second edition (hereinafter, [Renesse98]). In that invention, a machine-readable 3D random pattern is generated by mounting two layers containing a nonwoven structure of randomly placed fibers in both sides of a transparent window in the security document. An optical sensor captures two images of the random structure under different viewing angles. Because the document has a certain depth (approximately 0.3 mm) the two captured random images are distinctly different due to parallax effect; this parallax is an authentication measure of the document. As clearly understood, in that invention the images obtained by the optical sensor consist of a random pattern of fibers, which are only machine-detectable but not intelligible to the eye. In our present invention, on the contrary, the random layers consist of randomly located tiny elements (dots or lines) having specially designed shapes (for example, letters, digits, logos, etc.), and the parallax moire effect that is obtained consists of a magnified version of these shapes that are easily observed and recognized by the viewer, and which dynamically change (scroll, rotate, etc.) according to the viewing angle.

Authentication with built-in encryption by using moire parallax effects between fixed correlated s-random layers

Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)


The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for recovering abnormal data in an internal memory. The method includes: receiving, by a processor, a data abort signal and an address of an abnormal instruction where abnormal data is located; suspending a current instruction being executed, and recording an address pointed to by a computer pointer; obtaining a program unit currently being executed by the processor; if it is determined that the abnormal instruction belongs to the program unit and that instructions between the first instruction and the current instruction in the program unit are all reversible instructions, invoking a destruction program unit corresponding to the program unit, so as to release resources already applied for by the program unit; and causing the computer pointer to point back to an address of the first instruction in the program unit, and re-executing the program unit.

A RAM (random access memory, random access memory) has merits such as random storage and high-speed access. Therefore, the RAM is commonly used as an internal memory in a telecommunications device and an IT device. Based on features of the RAM, the RAM has three major failure modes:                hard failure: irrecoverable physical failure that occurs inside a device, where a fault is not removable until a failed hardware unit is replaced;        pseudo hard failure: logical deadlock that occurs in a hardware unit inside a device, where power-on and power-off operations and the like are required to remove a fault and restore normal running, and the pseudo hard failure is a non-physical hard failure and needs no replacement of the hardware unit; and        soft failure: when energetic subatomic particles pass through silicon in a storage unit of a very large-scaled integrated circuit, free charges are generated concomitantly, and the charges concentrate in a circuit node in a very short time interval (about 15 ps), and, when the concentration exceeds a specific extent, stored data will change, which leads to a system error, but a damage caused by the soft failure to a circuit is not permanent, and the circuit can be restored by writing correct data back into a failed region.
With increasing miniaturization and integration of the telecommunications device and the IT device, the probability of soft failure of a RAM is higher and higher. In the prior art, when data is read in a RAM, a check algorithm, such as a parity check algorithm, and an ECC (error correcting code, Error Correcting Code) correction algorithm, is used to check whether the read data has varied, so as to check whether soft failure occurs in a storage space that stores the data. If soft failure occurs in the space that stores the data, the data is abnormal and a CPU performs a system resetting operation to recover the abnormal data.
In long-term research, it is found that: using a system resetting mode to recover abnormal data caused by soft failure in a RAM is equivalent to restarting the system to resume an initial state of the system, application software started in a process of using the system is shut down, which brings huge impact onto operations and results in a long recovery time.

Method and apparatus for recovering abnormal data in internal memory