A device for stimulating neurons that includes a non-invasive stimulation unit for generating stimuli in stimulation channels. A control unit controls the stimulation unit during first and second time intervals in different stimulation modes. The control unit controls the stimulation unit during 75% or more of the first time interval in the first stimulation mode to repeatedly generate sequences of stimuli and the order in which the stimulation channels generate stimuli is constant for not more than 5 successively generated sequences and then varied. The control unit controls the stimulation unit during 75% or more of the second time interval in a second stimulation mode such that the stimulation channels repeatedly generate sequences of stimuli and the order in which the stimulation channels generate stimuli is constant for at least 25 successively generated sequences and then varied.

In patients with neurological or psychiatric disorders, e.g. Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, dystonia, functional disorders after stroke, migraine, obsessive-compulsive disorders, epilepsy, tinnitus, schizophrenia, depression, borderline personality disorder and irritable bowel syndrome, nerve cell clusters in distinct regions of the brain are active in a pathologically synchronous manner. In this case, a large number of neurons synchronously form action potentials, i.e. the involved neurons fire in an excessively synchronous manner. In healthy persons, however, the neurons in these brain regions fire qualitatively differently, e.g. in an uncorrelated manner.
In Parkinson's disease, the pathologically synchronous activity in the thalamus and in the basal ganglia changes the neuronal activity in other brain regions, e.g. in areas of the cerebral cortex, such as the primary motor cortex. Here, the pathologically synchronous activity in the region of the thalamus and of the basal ganglia enforces its rhythm e.g. on the cerebral cortex areas, so that finally the muscles controlled by these areas display a pathological activity, e.g. a rhythmic trembling (tremor). In the case of a chronic subjective tinnitus, pathologically synchronous activity is found in a network of auditory and non-auditory brain areas.
In patients with brain diseases and spinal cord diseases, which are characterized by excessively synchronized neuronal activity, non-invasively determined spatiotemporal stimulus patterns, in particular the "coordinated reset" stimulation (CR stimulation), are applied in order to achieve permanent alleviation. The non-invasive CR stimulation can be realized by means of different stimulation modes:
(i) by sensory stimulation, i.e. by physiological stimulation of receptors, such as e.g. acoustic stimulation of the inner ear, visual stimulation of the retina or mechanical (e.g. vibrotactile) or thermal stimulation of skin, subcutaneous, muscle and tendon receptors;(ii) by stimulation of peripheral nerves (and associated receptors), e.g. by means of electric current (e.g. transcutaneous electrical stimulation), by means of magnetic fields (transdermal magnetic stimulation) or by means of ultrasound; and(iii) by stimulation of the brain or spinal cord, e.g. by means of electric current (e.g. external cranial or transcranial neurostimulation), by means of magnetic fields (e.g. transcranial magnetic stimulation) or by means of ultrasound.
Acoustic CR stimulation is used to treat the chronic subjective tonal or narrow-band tinnitus. To this end, therapy tones are adapted to the dominant tinnitus tone and are applied for the purpose of CR stimulation in order to achieve a long-lasting desynchronization of the pathologically synchronous activity, which significantly exceeds the switch-off of the stimulation, or even a continuous desynchronization thereof. Acoustic CR stimulation for treating tinnitus brings about a significant and clearly marked reduction of symptoms (cf. P. A. Tass, I. Adamchic, H.-J. Freund, T. von Stackelberg, C. Hauptmann: Counteracting tinnitus by acoustic coordinated reset neuromodulation. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience 30, 137-159 (2012)), a significant reduction in the pathological neuronal synchronization in a network of auditory and non-auditory brain areas (cf. P. A. Tass, I. Adamchic, H.-J. Freund, T. von Stackelberg, C. Hauptmann: Counteracting tinnitus by acoustic coordinated reset neuromodulation. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience 30, 137-159 (2012); I. Adamchic, T. Toth, C. Hauptmann, P. A. Tass: Reversing pathologically increased EEG power by acoustic CR neuromodulation. Human Brain Mapping 35, 2099-2118 (2014)), a significant reduction in the pathological interactions between different brain areas in the same (cf. A. N. Silchenko, I. Adamchic, C. Hauptmann, P. A. Tass: Impact of acoustic coordinated reset neuromodulation on effective connectivity in a neural network of phantom sound. Neuroimage 77, 133-147 (203)) as well as in different (cf. Adamchic, B. Langguth, C. Hauptmann, P. A. Tass: Abnormal brain activity and cross-frequency coupling in the tinnitus network. Frontiers in Neuroscience 8, 284 (2014)) frequency ranges.
In an analogous manner, Parkinson's disease can be treated by means of vibrotactile CR stimulation. Further indications are, for example, epilepsy, functional disorders after stroke, chronic pain syndromes (by means of vibrotactile and/or thermal CR stimulation), migraine (e.g. by means of visual CR stimulation). Furthermore, these diseases can be treated with transcranial magnetic stimulation or direct electrical stimulation of the brain or direct brain stimulation by means of ultrasound.
In all three above-mentioned stimulation modalities (i) to (iii), low stimulus intensities should be used for stimulation in order to avoid disadvantages (for different reasons described in the following). However, this should not lead to a reduction in the effectiveness of the stimulation nor to an extension of the stimulation duration.
(i) Sensory stimulation: In sensory stimulation, it is important that the desired stimulation effects, e.g. a phase resetting of the pathologically synchronized oscillatory activity in the brain or spinal cord, can be achieved at all with the lowest possible stimulus intensity. For example, in acoustic CR stimulation for the treatment of tinnitus, typically hearing-impaired patients have to be treated. Stimulation with loud tones can damage the inner ear, can make a communication with others more difficult, and can cover warning sounds such as a vehicle horn or bicycle bell, or can be perceived as clearly unpleasant by the patient as a result of the intolerability threshold being comparatively close to the hearing threshold. The acoustic stimulation of tinnitus patients with hyperacusis can be particularly problematic, since such patients perceive acoustic stimulation partly as unpleasant or even unbearable. In addition, in the case of hearing-impaired tinnitus patients, the loud stimulation can also be heard and be perceived as disturbing by the patient's environment. In the visual CR stimulation, unpleasant glare effects can occur in particular in the case of migraine patients. In the case of a mechanical, e.g. vibrotactile or thermal CR stimulation of patients with chronic pain syndromes, e.g. with Sudeck's disease or neuralgias, even slight touching or thermal stimuli can be perceived as unpleasant or even painful. If, in such cases, treatment has to occur via the contralateral extremity or face or body half, the stimulatory effect is not strongly pronounced as a result of the application in the healthy body half. All in all, it is very advantageous in sensory CR stimulation if very low stimulus intensities can be used for stimulation, since sensory stimuli, such as tones, brightness fluctuations of transmission glasses, etc. can interfere with the physiological stimulus processing.
(ii) Electrical or magnetic stimulation of peripheral nerves: In order to be able to stimulate as focally as possible and to prevent side effects that are caused by the simultaneous stimulation of adjacent structures, e.g. muscle contractions, pain sensations, etc., it is important that the smallest possible stimulus intensities be used.
(iii) Electrical or magnetic stimulation of the brain or spinal cord: Both stimulation forms are not very focal. For example, even in the most favorable case of stimulation via a plurality of small electrodes and when using complex head models, in addition to a strong focal stimulation, direct electrical stimulation of the brain leads to an accompanying stimulation of far-stretched brain regions, which should be avoided or reduced particularly in the case of chronic irritation. In the same way, ultrasonic stimulation should be limited to the actual target regions in the brain.
In all of these cases, it is therefore necessary to be able to perform the treatment with the smallest possible stimulus intensities in order to reduce the undesired simultaneous stimulation of non-target areas. However, this often leads to the fact that the treatment is not sufficiently effective.

Device and method for effective non-invasive two-stage neurostimulation


A machining apparatus for conducting at least one of a cutting process and a grinding process, comprises a stationary base; and a working device mounted on the stationary base and having a degree of freedom of more than two axes to conduct at least one of a cutting process and a grinding process, the working device comprising a first working bench which is formed of a ceramic material and is movable linearly with a degree of freedom of not less than one axes or more while holding a work piece or a tool.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a machining apparatus having a degree of freedom of machining of three axes or greater.
Herein, the term "axes" or "an axis" is defined as a portion of a machining apparatus that functions as the reference line or plane of a movement for machining, for example, the rotary shaft of a swivel table, the slideway of a slide table, etc. The degree of freedom of movement for machining is one for each of the "axes".
2. Description of the Related Art
A machining apparatus for applying cutting machining, grinding machining, or the like to an optical element and a die for the formation thereof is known (refer to JP 2003-39294, for example).
In this connection, in order to generate a complex curved surface corresponding to an aspherical surface of an optical element with a high accuracy, a degree of freedom of machining of two or less is insufficient, and a degree of freedom of machining of three or greater is required. However, in a machining apparatus having a degree of freedom of machining of three axes or greater for the generating of an optical surface which is a free surface, whichever of cutting or grinding the machining may be, it becomes necessary, a shaping process in which a machined surface is generated while a number of through machining steps are being connected one after another; therefore, it has a feature such that it requires a very long time, which is not found in the machining by means of any other kind of machining apparatus. For that reason, in order to carry out a machining for generating a free surface with a high accuracy and a high efficiency, it is necessary to actualize the following necessary conditions more sufficiently than a conventional machining apparatus.
Necessary Conditions for Actualizing High Accuracy
(1) There is a requirement for making higher the control accuracy of the machine, and for that purpose, it is necessary to control a workbench (a slide table or a swivel table) driven by a high-speed servomechanism with a high accuracy achieved by the improvement of the resolving power of the position measurement of each of the axes, or to lighten the driven workbench by the use of a material having a small specific weight so that it may comply with the drive instruction of the servomotor at a high speed.
(2) Because the machine has a block structure with each of the axis portions placed over one another in two or three stages, which makes the overall stiffness tend to become lowered for the structural reason, it is necessary to make higher the stiffness of each of the axis portions as much as possible, and for that purpose, it becomes important to lower the viscosity of the pressure transmission medium of the static-pressure slide, or to use a material having a high Young's modulus.
(3) It is also very important to make the machine not subject to the temperature variation of the environment, and in a case where a static-pressure slide is used, it is important to lower the viscosity of the pressure transmission medium in order to suppress a useless heat generation at the static-pressure surface, and also it is important to select a material having a small coefficient of linear expansion for each of the members.
(4) It is necessary to shorten the machining time for the purpose of making it possible to finish the machining before the environment variation becomes large and carrying out the machining with a high efficiency; therefore, the following things are necessary: to comply with the high resolution of the position measurement by making higher the speed of the servomechanism in order to drive the axis at a high speed, and to lower the viscosity of the pressure transmission medium so that the lowering of stiffness of the static-pressure surface and a vibration may not be generated.
(5) In order to prevent the influence of the vibration due to the vibration of the floor and the oscillation of the machine body itself, it is necessary, an active vibration-reducing table or the like which practices a control in such a way that it detects and suppresses a vibration in an active manner.
However, heretofore, it has never existed a machining apparatus having a degree of freedom of machining of three axes or greater that can achieve the compatibility of a high accuracy of an order of sub-micron with a high efficiency of machining.


A component carrier management method which relates to the communication technical field includes determining one or more component carriers that are required to be added into a physical downlink control channel monitoring set; sending a component carrier activation or configuration message to a user equipment to indicate one or more component carriers that are required to be added into the physical downlink control channel monitoring set. Through the technical solutions, the PDCCH monitoring set of the UE may be managed when CCs are activated or configured, so that the UE may maintain the PDCCH monitoring set in real time, implement monitoring on the CCs in the monitoring set, and ensure a service requirement of the UE.

To fulfill the requirement of the IMT-Advanced (International Mobile Telecommunications-Advanced), a peak data rate up to 1 Gbits/s is supported, and it is already agreed currently that the carrier aggregation (CA, Carrier Aggregation, also referred to as carrier aggregation) technology is used as a system bandwidth extension method for a 3GPP LTE-ADVANCED (LTE-A, LTE-Advanced) system. The carrier aggregation technology aggregates multiple component carriers (CCs, Component Carriers) into a larger bandwidth (for example, higher than 20 MHz) to support a high data transmission rate. For example, five 20-MHz component carriers may be aggregated into a downlink transmission bandwidth with 100 MHz.
To reduce blind detection complexity of a UE (User Equipment, user equipment) and reduce interferences among cells, a PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel, physical downlink control channel) monitoring set and a PDSCH (Physical Downlink Shared Channel, physical downlink shared channel) set may be divided from multiple CCs. The CCs in the PDSCH set are component carriers used by the UE for receiving and sending data within a certain period of time. The component carrier is a downlink component carrier, an uplink component carrier or an uplink/downlink component carrier pair. The CCs in the PDCCH monitoring set are component carriers for sending scheduling information to the UE. Specifically, the scheduling information is transmitted through PDCCH signaling. The PDCCH monitoring set may be a subset of the PDSCH set. For a UE, the PDCCH monitoring set of the UE is a component carrier set on which the UE performs PDCCH monitoring to obtain scheduling information. For example, it is assumed that 5 component carriers exist currently, the component carriers are CC1 to CC5, the PDSCH set may be formed of 4 component carriers CC2 to CC5, and the PDCCH monitoring set may be formed of two component carriers CC2 and CC3. That is, when the UE uses four component carriers CC2 to CC5 for receiving and sending data, the UE may only monitor PDCCH channels of CC2 and CC3 to acquire scheduling information on CC2 to CC5.
During activation or configuration of the CC, how to manage the PDCCH monitoring set and implement monitoring on a corresponding CC becomes a problem.

Component carrier management method and equipment


An electrical connector assembly for providing interconnections between a plurality of contact pads (22) on a daughter board (20) and contact areas (24) on a mother board (26). The assembly includes an elongated housing (28) with a daughter board receiving cavity (38) along its longitudinal axis (30) and a plurality of contact receiving cavities (36) which are substantially planar and parallel to each other arranged at a slight angle with respect to a normal to the axis (30). The contact receiving cavities (36) intersect the board receiving cavity (38) and within each of them there is disposed a contact member (40) having a contact portion (42) and a contact leg (44) on opposite sides of the board receiving cavity (38). The contact leg (44) extends through the bottom surface (34) of the housing (28) into contact with a contact area (24) on the mother board (26). The contact members (40) alternate within the contact receiving cavities ( 36) so that insertion of a daughter board (20) causes compressive stress to be applied to the housing (28) through the contact legs (44).

This invention relates to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to an assembly for providing interconnections between an integrated circuit module and a printed circuit board.
In recent years, a so-called single in line memory module (SIMM) has become increasingly popular. Such a module, or board, is used primarily to carry interconnection support for a series of memory chips and its dimensions are typically about 1/16" thick, 4" in length, and 1/2" or more in width. Typically, a plurality of these modules are supported on, and electrically connected to, a single relatively large printed circuit board. In this configuration, the modules are known as "daughter boards" and the large printed circuit board is referred to as a "mother board". Contact pads are typically positioned on both surfaces of the daughter board, along one of the long edges, with each contact pad being shorted to the pad just opposite it on the other surface, permitting typical SIMM mating connectors mounted on the mother board to use a contact member which simultaneously applies normal forces to both sides of the daughter board, thereby making electrical contact to both of the shorted contact pads. Such a connector is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,737,120.
A number of problems have been encountered with presently available SIMM connectors, including warping of the daughter board, difficulty of insertion and removal of the daughter board, and difficulty of withstanding vibration without producing fretting corrosion. Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a connector assembly which is not susceptible to these problems.
Recently, new modules have been introduced having increased memory capacity and which in fact may contain thereon a complete computer of the IBM XT class. Such a module may require electrically unique (separate) contact pads on both surfaces. It is therefore another object of this invention to provide a connector assembly capable of establishing separate connections to contact pads on both sides of a module.
A module, or daughter board, as described above may contain as many as 100 contact pads per side, for a total of up to 200 contact pads. The insertion of such boards into mating connectors requires a substantial insertion force. It is therefore a further object of this invention to provide a connector assembly of the so-called zero insertion force type. The term "zero insertion force" is in actuality a misnomer, since force must be applied at some time. However, the force is not applied directly to the module but rather through an intermediate member.
From past experience, it has been found that the industry does not maintain specified board thickness limits. It is therefore yet another object of this invention to provide a connector assembly capable of accepting boards over a relatively large range of thicknesses.
When installed, the boards described above will be only one of many circuit components. Densely packed electronic components generate substantial amounts of heat which must be removed by an induced air flow. Therefore, the structure comprising the connector assembly must be small, must not obstruct the air flow, and because utilization is in large volumes, must be inexpensive. However, the connector assembly must be capable of withstanding the stresses generated by 200 contacts, each of which applies a 150 gram nominal mating force, while operating in typical environments of 60.degree. C. for a minimum life of 15 years. Accordingly, it is still a further object of this invention to satisfy these requirements by providing a connector assembly of minimal size without requiring the use of expensive materials.

Integrated circuit module connector assembly


A relay lens system forms an image displayed on an image display unit as an intermediate image. A luminous flux of the image emitted from the relay lens system reflected by a half mirror is incident to a curved combiner, and the combiner reflects the incident luminous flux to the half mirror to enable an observer to observe a virtual image through the half mirror. The relay lens system forms the intermediate image at an intermediate image forming position on an optical axis before a light reflected by the half mirror is incident to the curved combiner. The distance from the optical axis of the curved combiner to a light emission surface of the relay lens system is shorter than or equal to the distance from the optical axis of the curved combiner to a maximum reflection position.

The present disclosure relates to an image display device.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-227574 discloses an image display device of a type which displays an image of a small display device as a virtual image to a user. The image display device of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-227574 includes a relay optical system for forming the displayed image as an intermediate image and an eyepiece optical system for forming an exit pupil to guide the intermediate image to the user. The eyepiece optical system is composed of a half mirror and a concave mirror. In the image display device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-227574, a display luminous flux emitted from the relay optical system is reflected by the half mirror, is then reflected in the opposite direction by the concave mirror, and then passes through the half mirror and reaches the eyeball of the user.


An apparatus and method are provided for easily indicating to a user that a communication has been received for him or her. A portable message waiting indication device (MWID) includes a power source (e.g., battery), signal receiver and a visual and/or audible indicator. The indicator is activated in response to receipt of a first wireless signal at the receiver. In response to a second signal the indicator is deactivated. A MWID may also include a user-actuable switch or sensor to deactivate the indicator. In one method of using a MWID to inform a user that a communication has been received, the user registers the MWID and may identify when the MWID indicator should be activated (e.g., for certain types of messages (e.g., voice-mail, electronic mail), certain senders, a category of senders, time of day, message priority). Multiple MWIDs may be configured and employed by a user, and each may be configured similarly or differently.

This invention relates to the field of communications. More particularly, an apparatus and methods are provided for indicating the receipt of a communication.
Various devices and methods have been introduced for the purpose of notifying a person that a telephonic message has been received for him or her. Answering machines, for example, typically indicate the receipt of a message by flashing a light and/or displaying the number of messages.
The advent of network-based voice-mail service has made it somewhat more difficult to provide an easy, simple and fast way to notify a person that he or she has received a message. With network-based voice-mail service, the person's messages are stored in a remote location operated by the provider of the voice-mail service (e.g., the person's local telephone company). Unlike with an answering machine, with network-based voice-mail service there are no means of quickly (e.g., visually) alerting a person to the receipt of a message. Typically the person must take his or her telephone off-hook to test for a stutter-tone that indicates receipt of a message.
This requires proactive effort by a person, in contrast to simply looking at a visual indicator, is not as easy, and may not be possible at all times. In particular, because the person must physically access a telephone he or she cannot test for stutter-tone when traveling or otherwise away from the telephone.
Another problem with many existing systems for indicating message-waiting status is that they do not function if a person's telephone line is in use. A person cannot test his telephone line for stutter-tone while using it to talk to someone, access the Internet, etc.
Further, stutter-tone is line-specific in that from one telephone a person can only check for messages waiting in a voice-mail system for that telephone line. While at work, a person cannot check for messages received by her residential telephone service, and vice versa.
Many message waiting indication systems are thus dependent upon or tied to calls to or from a particular telephone line, place (e.g., residence, office) and/or device (e.g., a specific telephone). As a result, indicating receipt of a message for a user of a central (e.g., network-based) voice-mail service generally requires the user to adopt new behavior and/or pay extra money for specialized notification services or systems.
Even the user of pager notifications to alert someone that he or she has received a voice-mail message has disadvantages. For example, a paging system may require manual deactivation, in that the person may be required to take some action (e.g., save or delete the message) in order to avoid being paged multiple times for a single message. Further, in order for a pager to inform a person of messages on more than one telephone line or at multiple locations, the pager or pager service must be configured separately for each line or location.
Therefore, what is needed is an apparatus and method of notifying someone of the receipt of a voice-mail message for him or her. The apparatus should be portable, easy to use and should not be limited to use at just one location or with just one telephone or telephone line. The apparatus should be configurable in as few steps (e.g., one) as possible, and it may be desirable for the apparatus to be automatically deactivated when a message is retrieved.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Solutions to the problem of reversing seismic fault movements are formulated using a model based on elasticity theory, and using finite element and boundary element methods for generating a solution. The solution involves defining slip vectors from known formations in the fault and applying a space constraint restriction to traction values on the fault surface. The method may be applied in either 2D or 3D applications. The method is computationally fast enough to allow interactive fault reversal, and permits experimentation with various unfaulting scenarios so that a geologically acceptable solution is provided.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of seismic interpretation, and more particularly, to modeling the restoration of a seismic fault.
2. Description of the Related Art
Faults in the crust of the earth cut through the sedimentary strata and offset them. Consequently, the seismic features in a 3D seismic dataset are often broken at faults. Seismic interpreters often struggle to correctly correlate features in a formation resulting from seismic events across a fault. A seismic fault can distort the depositional characteristics of a formation and even obscure hydrocarbon reservoirs that may be present and recoverable. Therefore, a way to image seismic formations that effectively compensates in reverse for fault movement is highly desirable. An advantageous result of such a method would provide a representation of the seismic formation that is restored to the pre-faulting state. Such a virtual reversal, or restoration, of a fault line may also reveal characteristics of the geological deposition and aid in identifying and locating hydrocarbon reservoirs. Thus 3D fault restoration involves removing the offset of seismic features in a 3D volume in order to facilitate the study of faulting sequences and in result, analyzing pre-faulting depositional environments.
The throw of a fault at the crossing of an event (e.g., an interpreted horizon) may be defined as the offset introduced into that event (in cross section) by the fault. Such an offset defines a slip vector at that point on the fault face. Event offsets may differ along the fault face; i.e., the slip vectors are not constant. Reversing a fault in general requires, therefore, the calculation of slip vectors at several events in the cross section.
Fault faces and the borders of a cross-section define the boundary of a mechanical continuum. When a load, in terms of traction or displacement (slip) vector, is applied to the boundary such as a fault surface, each point in the continuum will be displaced. The continuum will be deformed. Elasticity theory states that at equilibrium under loading, the total strain energy of the deformed region is—among all possible deformation for the given load—at a minimum. Or, equivalently, the theory states that the virtual work done by any admissible deformation is zero.
Rutten (Rutten, Kees, The Slokkert Validator Documentation, Landmark Graphics Internal Technical Communication, 2002) presented an algorithm to solve the same problem of fault restoration. When a number of slip vectors on a fault trace were given to reverse faulting, Rutten used a piecewise linear function to define the slip function on the fault surface. The approach is known as the "slip-parallel deformation model" in structural geology. In that method, the vertical displacement is attenuated, moving away from the fault, by applying a simple decay function along a set of scan lines intersecting with the fault. The results of that approach, although they may appear visually reasonable in 2-D views, lack a mechanics-based foundation. Additionally, the dispersion formulation may be complicated in practice for 3-D cases.
Elasticity theory combined with finite element methods or boundary element methods have been used to study the mechanics of faulting process (see Wei, K. and De Bremaecker, J.-Cl., A Replacement for the Coulomb-Mohr Criterion, Geophysical Research Letters, 19, 1033-1036, 1992; Wei, K. and De Bremaecker, J.-Cl., Fracture Under Compression: The Direction of Fracture Initiation, International Journal of Fracture, 61, 267-294, 1993; Wei, K. and De Bremaecker, J.-Cl., Fracture Growth Under Compression, Journal of Geophysical Research, 99, 13871-13790, 1994; Wei, K. and De Bremaecker, J.-Cl., Fracture Growth-I. Formulations and Implementations, Geophysical Journal International, 122, 735-745, 1995; Wei, K. and De Bremaecker, J.-Cl., Fracture Growth-II. Case Studies, Geophysical Journal International, 122, 746-754, 1995). The focus of these studies was to understand the orientation of fault growth for a given loading. However, solving the problem of 3D fault restoration is not the same problem as understanding how a fault grows. Therefore, fault growth models are of limited significance in 3D fault restoration—even when the goal of the restoration is to provide a mechanically sound method.
The problem of restoring a fault line is not trivial to solve because a restoration must be obtained in a mechanically and geologically plausible manner. In other words, the restoration model for displacement on the fault surface (i.e., for reversing a faulting event) must provide for dispersing mechanical energy to other parts of the region in consistency with a coherent mechanical model. The model should generally be based on assumptions that are available for validation, although it must be remembered that the goal of the restoration is not a reverse modeling of the actual faulting event.
Additionally, it would be useful if such a restoration of a seismic fault could be performed in an interactive manner, such that numerous iterations of various parameters and assumptions could be tested in an economically feasible timeframe.
Furthermore, the desirable method should provide the ability to perform a transformation on fault data in 3D, at least because 3D solutions for fault restoration are closer to geological reality and provide more accurately restored structures than 2D restorations. For 3D fault reversal problems, existing methods (such as the displacement extrapolation with scan lines) are overly simplified and cannot handle the infinite combinations of the azimuth and dip of the fault surface. The applications of 3D fault restoration are basically the same as for 2D fault restorations (see Wei, K. and Maset, R., Fast Fault Reversal, Expanded Abstract of 75th Annual International Meeting, Society of Exploratory Geophysics, Expanded Abstracts, 24, 767-770, 2005), namely for validating the correlations of interpreted horizons, for studying the structural geology, and for interpreting pre-faulting stratigraphy. However, the advantage of a 3D restoration is that out-of-plane slip vectors can be appropriately taken into account. (Note that horizon is a term that refers to a sub-surface, usually is the top or bottom of a deposition layer, which was continuous before faulting. When a faulting occurred, a horizon was broken into two pieces on each side of the fault.)
An example of a prior art method illustrating a 2D restoration is shown in FIG. 1. The fault is represented by the slip between sections 101 and 103. A horizon is shown as layer 104. 2D plane 102 intersects the formation parallel to line A′A 108. The slip surfaces of the fault are given by 105 and 106. FIG. 1 illustrates, that even in this simple case, the out-of-plane slip vector of the faulting cannot be accurately accounted for by applying a 2D restoration, such as given by plane 102. Typical faults are vastly more complex than as shown in FIG. 1; thus a 2D restoration method is very limited in scope, and ergo usefulness.
Thus, for accurately restoring the state near a fault to conditions before the fault occurred, a 3D numerical method is required for performing the necessary calculations that is computationally efficient, and whose assumptions and models are mathematically and mechanically valid.


A system for mapping a condition of a structure that includes a plurality of support members covered by a wall is disclosed and includes a computer processor having a memory, a two-dimensional model of the structure stored in the memory and a three-dimensional model generator operatively associated with the computer. A density sensor that includes an ultrasonic transducer is operatively connected to the computer processor and provided with an ultra wideband transmitter. A position locating system is provided for determining the position of the ultra wideband transmitter, and hence the density sensor, in a frame of reference and communicating the position to the computer processor which displays indications of density on a three-dimensional model of the structure. A method for mapping a condition of a structure is also disclosed.

Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method and system for inspecting structures for hidden defects and damage, and more particularly, to a method and system for displaying detected defects on a three-dimensional representation of a structure or a portion or element thereof.
The condition of structures such as single family homes, apartments, and commercial buildings is evaluated, or estimate when, for example, the building is sold, and/or used as collateral for a loan. The evaluation or estimation typically includes an inspection of the building. A major reason for the inspection, particularly for wood-framed homes and commercial buildings, is that the building may have been damaged by wood-eating insects, such as, for example, termites, or by wood damaging fungus, commonly called "wood rot." The damage is often hidden because wood frames are almost always concealed by, for example, drywall, paneling, clapboard, brick and other wall surface materials. Therefore, neither the existence of the damage, nor its extent, is generally visible without removing the covering material. In other words, an accurate determination of the existence of, and full extent of termite or wood rot damage to a typical wood-framed house or other wood-framed structure would require removing all of the wall covering, thereby rendering the entire frame visible. However it is generally not feasible, either practically or economically, to remove all the wall covering of a house or commercial building each and every time damage, such as termite or wood rot, requires assessment. This would essentially require destruction and rebuilding of a house each time its value needed accurate assessment.
Prior art methods exist for detecting damage caused by termite actively. One such method is acoustic emission detection, which senses the vibrations produced by termites when they break the cellulose and lignin fibers, i.e., eat the wood they are consuming, as described by, for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,025 issued Jun. 26, 1990. U.S. Pat. No.5,285,668 in the name of Robbins and Mueller describes another system for detecting wood-destroying insects by sensing acoustic emissions.
There are multiple shortcomings with the known acoustic emission methods. One is that acoustic emission techniques are prone to error due to ambient noise. Another is that termites are not always feeding. Still another is that termites may use extensive galleries to move between a feeding region and a nest, and acoustic emission methods may not detect termites within such galleries. A still further, and more significant shortcoming is that acoustic emission methods detect only the presence of feeding termites; they do not detect, much less give an accurate assessment of, the damage that the termites have caused in the past or damage produced by wood rot or resulting from other non-insect causes.
For the reasons above, building inspectors typically compromise by removing only a portion of the wall covering when performing an inspection or damage assessment. This practice of partial removal has two untoward effects. One is that even though the removal is limited there is still some damage to the building. A second, and perhaps more important negative effect is that significant damage may be overlooked. Therefore, the result of the partial removal is that either a buyer is faced with major repairs, or a lender is faced with a building having less collateral value than originally estimated.
Another shortcoming of existing methods is that the building inspector typically describes location and extent of the termite or wood rot damage verbally or using sketches. Rarely does an inspector have access to the complete architectural drawings of the house on which he could mark damaged areas to enable others to visualize the extent of the damage.
Still another shortcoming of existing inspection methods is that once a wood framed structure is completed it is virtually impossible to verify the integrity of the original construction methods through nondestructive means, e.g., it may be difficult or impossible to determine the fastener pattern used for securing the wall material to the underlying supports or studs and whether an adequate number of fasteners was used.

System and method for generating three-dimensional density-based defect map


An electrical connector assembly includes a coupler housing and a coupler member secured to the coupler housing that receives a connector. The coupler housing has a first end and a second end. The coupler member is secured to the first end of the coupler housing. A cord connector is secured to the second end of the coupler housing. An electrical cord is electrically and mechanically coupled to the connector through the second end of the coupler housing. The electrical connector assembly provides a compact and portable electrical connector assembly that protects the housed connector from harsh conditions found in industrial and mechanical environments.

Telecommunication systems continue to be used in new environments because of the increasing necessity for fast and efficient data access and transfer. Many of those environments subject the telecommunication systems to harsh conditions, such as exposure to water, dust, temperature changes and other foreign materials. Electrical connectors used in these telecommunication systems need to be able to protect the electrical connections from these harsh conditions. Invasion of an electrical connector by foreign matter can destroy the integrity of the electrical connection, thereby rendering the electrical connector and the telecommunication system inoperable. Such an event causes time delays and increased costs in the application in which the electrical connector is being used. Thus, a need exists for an electrical connector that prevents foreign materials from invading the electrical connector and associated components.
Industrial and manufacturing environments commonly use telecommunication systems to increase efficiency. Electrical connectors in such environments are frequently exposed to large amounts of foreign materials that are prevalent in those environments. Dust, water, chemicals and other foreign materials are much more difficult to contain and exist in larger quantities in those environments than in office environments. Therefore, industrial and manufacturing environments require electrical connectors to withstand frequent and large quantities of foreign materials. Furthermore, in industrial and manufacturing applications failure of the telecommunication system due to a damaged electrical connector may result in temporary downtimes, thereby resulting in inefficient industrial and manufacturing applications. Therefore, a need exists for an electrical connector that is protected from the large quantities of potentially damaging foreign materials that are prevalent in certain environments.
Electrical connectors used in industrial and manufacturing environments often need to be compact and portable for the wide variety of applications in which they are used. Additionally, such electrical connectors need to be able to withstand the harsh conditions found in the industrial and manufacturing environments in which the electrical connectors are used. Therefore, a need exists for an electrical connector that is compact and portable, and able to protect the components of the electrical connector from the harsh conditions present in such environments.

Coupler housing assembly for an electrical connector


A computer includes modules that provide a shared library of functions callable by processes or other modules. A malicious module in the computer may be identified by enumerating modules needed by a process to operate. Modules currently loaded in the memory of the computer are also enumerated. A suspect or suspicious module may be identified as currently being loaded in the memory of the computer but not needed by a process to operate. The suspicious module may be deemed malicious (i.e., having malicious code, such as a computer virus) if the suspicious module does not export or provide a function for sharing to be called by other modules or process.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer security, and more particularly but not exclusively to methods and apparatus for detecting malicious modules.
2. Description of the Background Art
A module is an executable file that serves as a shared library of functions. The codes of the functions are grouped together in the module file. A module advantageously allows a process to call a function that is not part of the process' program code. A dynamic-link library (DLL) is a commonly known module employed in operating systems, such as the Microsoft Windows™ operating system. Dynamic linking allows a process to call a function whose program code is in a separate DLL file. The DLL contains one or more functions that are compiled, linked, and stored separately from the processes that use them. Multiple applications can simultaneously access the contents of a single copy of a DLL in memory.
While DLLs facilitate the sharing of data and resources, they pose a computer security issue in that malicious code writers may use DLLs to hide malicious codes (e.g., computer viruses) in legitimate processes. One method used by malicious code writers is to inject or load a malicious DLL on a legitimate process. This method is referred to as DLL injection, which can be though of as malicious code piggy-backing on a legitimate process.
DLL injection provides several advantages to malicious code writers. First, DLL injection is a good way to hide a running malicious code. Malicious code running separately as a stand-alone process generally stands out and is thus readily detectable. An experienced system administrator using commonly available process enumeration tools (e.g., Windows™ operating system's TaskManager, ProcessExplorer, etc.) could readily identify and terminate suspicious malicious processes.
Second, DLL injection offers superior protection from clean-up. Once injected on a running process, malicious DLL is very difficult to unload or remove from its host process. Forced unloading of injected DLL could cause instability on the host process. A relatively easy and safe way to remove an injected DLL is to terminate the host process. However, there are critical processes (e.g. Winlogon.exe, Smss.EXE, Svchost.exe, etc. in Windows™ operating system) that cannot be terminated without incurring instability on the entire operating system.
Third, DLL injection on a process of a trusted application (e.g., web browser programs, utility programs, etc) allows the malicious code to inherit the trust normally given the trusted application. For example, malicious DLL may be injected inside a web browser process (e.g. Internet Explorer™ or Fire Fox™ web browser). The injected malicious code could then easily connect to a remote and malicious web server without incurring suspicion or alarm from a firewall or intrusion detection system (IDS). This is made possible by the DLL injection being done under the context of the usually trusted web browser process.

Detection of malicious modules injected on legitimate processes


The present invention provides a composition comprising HMB. Methods of administering HMB to an animal are also described. HMB is administered to enhance recovery from soft tissue trauma, including both acute and non-acute soft tissue trauma. Enhanced recovery includes reduced recovery time and enhanced soft tissue healing.

1. Field
The present invention relates to a composition comprising β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate (HMB) and methods of using HMB to enhance soft tissue healing and/or reduce recovery time from soft tissue trauma.
2. Background
Recovery of an animal from soft tissue trauma, including injuries to muscles, tendons and ligaments, typically requires significant time and cost. Acute soft tissue injury can occur during sports or physical activity or during simple everyday activities. Acute soft tissue trauma also includes the trauma that occurs during a surgical procedure, either related to repair of a soft tissue injury or unrelated to any injury and instead a result of cutting and/or manipulating soft tissue as part of any surgical procedure. Non-acute tissue injuries, such as sprains, also often require lengthy periods of rehabilitation and recovery. Even with appropriate supervision by a medical professional, healing of soft tissues can take a prolonged amount of time. These injuries can lead to delays in returning to regular activity and long-term weakness.
Soft tissue damage sustained from trauma, surgical procedures and falls are associated with increased morbidity and mortality in older adults. Recovery from soft tissue injuries often includes exercise and physical therapy and recovery may take six months or even more. Prolonged treatment is expensive and time-consuming. There is a need for a nutritional supplement to reduce recovery times, enhance soft tissue healing and enhance recovery after soft tissue trauma.
Animals such as horses, dogs and cats frequently sustain soft tissue trauma. By way of non-limiting example, it is very common for dogs to have soft tissue injuries that require surgical repair. Cruciate ligament surgeries such as TPLO (tibial-plateau-leveling osteotomy) or TTA (Tibial Tuberosity Advancement) surgery, hip replacements, and ruptured disc surgeries are commonly performed on animals. Recovery from these injuries and/or surgeries are difficult for both the pet and the owner. Owners typically have to assist the pet during walking and climbing stairs for weeks or months after surgery. Thus, the need exists for nutritional supplement that reduces the amount of time that the owner must assist the pet by days or weeks.
Alpha-ketoisocaproate (KIC) is the first major and active metabolite of leucine. A minor product of KIC metabolism is β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate (HMB). HMB has been found to be useful within the context of a variety of applications. Specifically, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,360,613 (Nissen), HMB is described as useful for reducing blood levels of total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,979 (Nissen et al.), HMB is described as useful for promoting nitrogen retention in humans. U.S. Pat. No. 5,028,440 (Nissen) discusses the usefulness of HMB to increase lean tissue development in animals. Also, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,992,470 (Nissen), HMB is described as effective in enhancing the immune response of mammals. U.S. Pat. No. 6,031,000 (Nissen et al.) describes use of HMB and at least one amino acid to treat disease-associated wasting. HMB, combined with glutamine and arginine, has been found to increase wound collagen accumulation and improve skin wound repair.
The use of HMB to suppress proteolysis originates from the observations that leucine has protein-sparing characteristics. The essential amino acid leucine can either be used for protein synthesis or transaminated to the α-ketoacid (α-ketoisocaproate, KIC). In one pathway, KIC can be oxidized to HMB and this account for approximately 5% of leucine oxidation. HMB is superior to leucine in enhancing muscle mass and strength. The optimal effects of HMB can be achieved at 3.0 grams per day when given as calcium salt of HMB, or 0.038 g/kg of body weight per day, while those of leucine require over 30.0 grams per day.
Once produced or ingested, HMB appears to have two fates. The first fate is simple excretion in urine. After HMB is fed, urine concentrations increase, resulting in an approximate 20-50% loss of HMB to urine. Another fate relates to the activation of HMB to HMB-CoA. Once converted to HMB-CoA, further metabolism may occur, either dehydration of HMB-CoA to MC-CoA, or a direct conversion of HMB-CoA to HMG-CoA, which provides substrates for intracellular cholesterol synthesis. Several studies have shown that HMB is incorporated into the cholesterol synthetic pathway and could be a source for new cell membranes that are used for the regeneration of damaged cell membranes. Human studies have shown that muscle damage following intense exercise, measured by elevated plasma CPK (creatine phosphokinase), is reduced with HMB supplementation within the first 48 hrs. The protective effect of HMB lasts up to three weeks with continued daily use. Numerous studies have shown an effective dose of HMB to be 3.0 grams per day as CaHMB (calcium HMB) (˜38 mg/kg body weight-day−1). This dosage increases muscle mass and strength gains associated with resistance training, while minimizing muscle damage associated with strenuous exercise. HMB has been tested for safety, showing no side effects in healthy young or old adults. HMB in combination with L-arginine and L-glutamine has also been shown to be safe when supplemented to AIDS and cancer patients.
Recently, HMB free acid, a new delivery form of HMB, has been developed. This new delivery form has been shown to be absorbed quicker and have greater tissue clearance than CaHMB. The new delivery form is described in U.S. Patent Publication Serial No. 20120053240 which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
While it is known that HMB supplementation can also prevent or lessen muscle loss during long periods of inactivity, such as hospitalization, prior to the present invention it was unknown that administration of HMB to a mammal with soft tissue trauma, whether from acute injury such as a soft tissue tear or rupture or surgery or non-acute soft tissue damage, results in faster repair and/or recovery of the soft tissue trauma and enhanced recovery from the injury or surgery.
The present invention comprises a composition of HMB and methods of use of HMB to result in enhanced recovery from soft tissue trauma. The enhanced recovery can include enhanced soft tissue healing subsequent to trauma or injury, including the soft tissue trauma that results from surgical procedures. The enhanced recovery also includes a more rapid recovery than expected. The present invention comprises a composition of HMB and methods of use of HMB to result in soft tissue repair and regeneration subsequent to soft tissue trauma or injury, including the soft tissue trauma that results from surgical procedures.

Compositions and methods of use of β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate (HMB) for enhancing recovery from soft tissue trauma


A fuel control valve (100) includes a rotary throttling valve assembly (4,7) providing one or more of the benefits of being lightweight, having a relatively low power consumption, having a fail-closed structure and/or zero leakage. The fuel control valve (100) is a rotary, throttling valve that is actuated via a rotary torque motor (70). The valve (7) can be spring loaded for providing positive shutoff. Position indication of the valve (7) is obtained via a position sensor (31) and cam (13) mounted to the throttling valve shaft at a driven end (98). In a de-energized state, a torsion spring (45) is provided that is loaded to rotate the valve (7) to the closed position. The fuel control valve (100) may be advantageously utilized in extreme operating environments, e.g., such as extreme temperature and vibration environments found in missile control fuel systems.

The inventors of the present invention have determined that there are numerous shortcomings with the methods and apparatus of the background art relating to aircraft fuel systems, specifically relating to the method and apparatus relating to the metering of fuel in a high altitude and extreme shock and temperature operating environment.

Electric driven, integrated metering and shutoff valve for fluid flow control


The present invention provides a method and precursor for forming a metal and/or metal nitride layer on the substrate by chemical vapor deposition. The organometallic precursor has the formula of (Cp(R)n)xMHyxe2x88x92x, where Cp is a cyclopentadienyl functional group, R is a substituent on the cyclopentadienyl functional group comprising an organic group having at least one carbon-silicon bond, n is an integer from 0 to 5, x is an integer from 1 to 4, M is a metal, and y is the valence of the metal M. A metal, metal nitride, metal carbon nitride, or metal silicon nitride film is deposited on a heated substrate by thermal or plasma enhanced decomposition of the organometallic precursor in the presence of a processing gas, such as hydrogen, nitrogen, ammonia, silane, and combinations thereof, at a pressure of less than about 20 Torr. By controlling the reactive gas composition either metal or metal nitride films may be deposited. The deposited metal or metal nitride film may then be exposed to a plasma to remove contaminants, densify the film, and reduce film resistivity.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a metallization process for manufacturing semiconductor devices. More particularly, the invention relates to a method for depositing metal and metal nitride layers by chemical vapor deposition of a precursor.
2. Background of the Related Art
Reliably producing sub-half micron and smaller features is one of the key technologies for the next generation of very large scale integration (VLSI) and ultra large scale integration (ULSI) integrated circuits. However, as the fringes of circuit technology are pressed, the shrinking dimensions of interconnects in VLSI and ULSI technology has placed additional demands on processing capabilities. The multilevel interconnect features that lie at the heart of this technology require careful processing of high aspect ratio features, such as vias, lines, contacts, and other features. Reliable formation of these features is very important to the VLSI and ULSI success and to the continued effort to increase circuit density and quality of individual substrates and die.
As circuit densities increase, the widths of vias, contacts and other features, as well as the dielectric materials between them, decrease to less than one micron dimensions, i.e., 0.25 xcexcm or less, whereas the thickness of the dielectric layers remains substantially constant, with the result that the aspect ratios for the features, i.e., their height divided by width, increases. Many traditional deposition processes have difficulty filling sub-micron structures where the aspect ratio exceed 4:1, and particularly where it exceeds 10:1. Therefore, there is a great amount of ongoing effort being directed at the formation of void-free films for sub-micron features having high aspect ratios.
Conducting metals such as aluminum, copper, and tungsten, are used to fill sub-micron features on substrates during the manufacture of integrated circuits. However, aluminum and copper can diffuse into the structure of adjacent dielectric layers which may form a conductive path and cause device failure. Although, tungsten suffers from less than desirable adhesion to adjacent metal and dielectric layers which may cause the formation of interlayer defects, such as delamination of the tungsten from the patterned substrate, diffusion and less than desirable adhesion may be prevented by depositing a liner layer and/or a barrier layer in a feature before depositing the conducting metal. For conducting metals, the liner layer is preferably composed of a metal that provides good adhesion to the underlying material; and the barrier layer deposited on the liner layer is often a nitride or silicon nitride of that metal which helps protect the underlying material from interlayer diffusion and chemical reactions with subsequently deposited materials.
With the recent progress in sub-quarter-micron copper interconnect technology, tantalum, niobium and the respective nitrides have become popular barrier materials in addition to titanium and titanium nitride. Depending on the application, a diffusion barrier layer may comprise a tantalum or niobium layer, a tantalum nitride or niobium nitride layer, a tantalum/tantalum nitride or niobium/niobium nitride stack or other combinations of diffusion barrier materials. Tantalum, niobium and the respective nitride films have typically been deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) and by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques at near atmospheric pressures. However, traditional PVD techniques are not well suited for providing conformal coverage on the wall and bottom surfaces of high aspect ratio vias and other features.
The ability to deposit conformal tantalum and niobium films in high aspect ratio features by the decomposition of organometallic precursors has gained interest in recent years for developing metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) techniques. In such techniques, an organometallic precursor gas is introduced into the chamber and caused to decompose, allowing the metal portion thereof to deposit a film layer of the metal on the substrate, and the organic portion of the precursor being exhausted from the chamber. Currently, MOVD techniques deposit films at near atmospheric conditions. However, films deposited at near atmospheric conditions generally have less than desirable coverage of sub-micron features formed on a substrate which can lead to void formation in the substrate features and possible device failure. Further, atmospheric film deposition tends to deposit material on the surfaces of the chamber, which may subsequently flake or delaminate and become a particle problem within the chamber. Particle deposition in the chamber can produce layering defects in the deposited films and provide less than desirable interlayer adhesion.
Additionally, at the present time, there exists only a few commercially available tantalum and niobium precursors, and the precursors that are available produce films that have unacceptable levels of contaminants such as carbon and oxygen, thereby increasing the film""s resistivity and producing films having low diffusion resistance, low thermal stability, and other undesirable film characteristics. Additionally, many precursors, such as for tantalum films, produce nitride films of less than desirable quality and a more effective metal nitride precursor is needed.
The available nitride precursors often produce films that are highly resistive and, in some cases, may be insulative, typically as a result of the inability to control crystalline structure or the chemical structure of the film deposited from the precursor. As the nitrogen content increases in metal films, such as tantalum, the film becomes increasingly resistive, and in the case of a tantalum nitride film, a high nitrogen content will eventually transition a good conducting phase with superior barrier properties, such as Ta2N, to a Ta3N5 insulating phase. In particular, many of the available tantalum nitride precursors readily deposit an insulating Ta3N5 phase. Furthermore, there are no current satisfactory MOCVD techniques and precursors for depositing materials, such as silicon, which can be added to the liner/barrier materials to improve diffusion resistance, chemical resistance, thermal stability or enhance interlayer adhesion.
One problem with depositing liner/barrier schemes using current CVD liner/barrier deposition techniques is that often during substrate processing, it is required to transfer the substrate between processing chambers and/or systems in order to deposit both the metal and metal nitride films. The transfer of substrates between processing chambers and systems increases processing time and decreasing substrate throughput while exposing the films to contamination.
Therefore, there remains a need for forming liner/barrier layers of materials from organometallic precursors with the liner/barrier layers having good interlayer adhesion, higher resistance to diffusion, and greater thermal stability than those produced with prior processes. It would be desirable for the precursors to be deposited in a process by either thermal decomposition or by plasma enhanced decomposition to selectively produce metal and/or metal nitride films that are substantially free of contaminants and have low film resistivities. It would be further desirable if both metal and metal nitride films could be deposited in situ using the same precursor sequentially in the same processing chamber.
The invention generally provides for an organometallic precursor and a method of forming a metal and/or metal nitride on a substrate using the chemical vapor deposition of the organometallic precursor at sub-atmospheric pressures below about 20 Torr. One aspect of the invention provides a thermally decomposable organometallic precursor having the formula:
(Cp(R)n)xMHyxe2x88x92xxe2x80x83xe2x80x83(I)
wherein:
Cp is a cyclopentadienyl functional group,
M is a metal selected from the group consisting of tantalum, vanadium, niobium, and hafnium,
R is an organic group, preferably having at least one carbon-silicon bond,
n is an integer from 0 to 5,
x is a integer from 1 to 4, and
y is the valence of M.
The organic group preferably comprises an alkylsilyl functional group, and most preferably comprises at least three carbon-silicon bonds. The alkyl silyl group may further include at least one silicon-oxygen bond.
In another aspect of the invention, an organometallic precursor of the formula (Cp(R)n)xMHyxe2x88x92x is used process a substrate by depositing a metal or metal nitride film at sub-atmospheric pressures. The method comprises introducing the organometallic precursor into a processing chamber maintained at a pressure of less than about 20 Torr, exposing the organometallic precursor to a processing gas, and decomposing the organometallic precursor to deposit a film. The organometallic precursor may be deposited by a thermal or plasma-enhanced process. The method further comprises exposing the film to a plasma to remove contaminants, densify the film, and reduce the film""s resistivity. In an preferred embodiment, a metal film comprising tantalum is deposited in a processing gas comprising argon, hydrogen, and combinations thereof, and is treated with a the plasma comprising argon, hydrogen, and combinations thereof.
Another aspect of the invention provides a method of depositing a metal/metal nitride liner/barrier layer. The method comprises depositing a metal layer by either a thermal or plasma-enhanced decomposition of an organometallic precursor of the formula (Cp(R)n)xMHyxe2x88x92x in the presence of a processing gas, such as argon or hydrogen, and the metal nitride layer is deposited on the metal layer by the decomposition of an organometallic precursor of the formula (Cp(R)n)xMHyxe2x88x92x in a nitrating reactant gas, such as nitrogen or ammonia (NH3). The same organometallic precursors may be used for the deposition of both the metal and metal nitride layers which may further occur sequentially in the same processing chamber. Alternatively, the organometallic precursor may deposit a metal silicide or metal silicon nitride film by the addition of a silicon containing reactant gas, such as silane, to the processing or reactant gases when decomposing the precursor. To remove contaminants, densify the film, and reduce the film""s resistivity the metal layer (and metal silicide layer) of the liner/barrier layer scheme is preferably exposed to a non-nitrating plasma and the metal nitride layer (and metal silicon nitride layer) may be exposed to either a nitrating or non-nitrating plasma following deposition. For depositing films containing carbon, metal carbon nitride films, may be deposited by foregoing the post deposition plasma treatment.
In another aspect of the invention, a feature is formed on a substrate by depositing a dielectric layer on the substrate, etching a pattern into the substrate, depositing a metal layer on the substrate by the decomposition of an organometallic precursor of the formula (Cp(R)n)xMHyxe2x88x92x in the presence of a processing gas, depositing a metal nitride layer on the substrate by the decomposition of an organometallic precursor of the formula (Cp(R)n)xMHyxe2x88x92x in the presence of a nitrating reactant gas, and depositing a conductive metal layer on the metal nitride layer. Once deposited, the metal layer is preferably exposed to a non-nitrating plasma and metal nitride layer may be exposed to either a nitrating or non-nitrating plasma following the formation of the metal nitride layer on the metal layer. The conductive metal is preferably copper and may be deposited by physical vapor deposition, chemical vapor deposition, or electrochemical deposition, preferably electroplating or electroless deposition.

Chemical vapor deposition of barriers from novel precursors


A dispersion of silver particles and a method of making the dispersion and ink are described. The dispersion or ink may be an aqueous dispersion or ink and may produce silver images having improved properties such as an improvement in gloss.

Metal dispersions can be used in inkjet inks to print metallic images onto paper or other substrates. These metallic images can exhibit high reflectivity and gloss that may make these inks useful in applications that benefit from these properties. These inks can be silver based inks that are produced by suspending colloidal silver particles in a liquid vehicle suitable for ink jet printing.

Metallic dispersions for inkjet printing


A stable pharmaceutical pellet formulation that employs a core containing omeprazole or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt of omeprazole and lysine or arginine. The pellet core is directly enteric coated without a separating layer being applied between the core and the enteric coating.

The present invention relates to a stable formulation of omeprazole. It is well known that omeprazole is sensitive to acidic conditions and after contact with an acid, omeprazole will degrade and will not function in its intended manner. Initially, alkaline materials were added to a core of omeprazole and later an enteric coating was applied over the core to prevent the omeprazole from contacting the acidic pH conditions of the stomach. This approach is satisfactory if the product is administered within a short time after it is manufactured but if the product is stored under ambient conditions, the acidic residue of the enteric coating appears to degrade the omeprazole before it is administered to a patient. To solve this problem, the prior art has used a separate layer of a coating agent to coat a pellet core which contains omeprazole and an alkaline material which is thereafter coated with the enteric coating. This technique is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,786,505. In addition WO 96/24338 discloses the use of an in situ formed interlayer that is based on the reaction of an aqueous enteric coating material with an alkaline material in the core.
This dual layer coating technique requires the application of two separate functional coating operations which increases the length of the manufacturing process and the cost of the product. The applicants have surprisingly discovered a coating system which avoids the need to use a coating layer to separate the omeprazole core from the enteric coating layer in an omeprazole dosage form. The separate coating system is based on the combined use of an enteric coating agent which is applied to a pelletized core or a granular core of omeprazole as a suspension in a suitable solvent.
The applicants have also surprisingly discovered that arginine or lysine can be used as a pH stabilizing agent
The present invention provides a novel stable pharmaceutical composition of omeprazole for oral administration which consists essentially of:
(a) a core of omeprazole or a pharmaceutically equivalent salt, a filler and an alkaline material selected from the group consisting of lysine and arginine; and
(b) a single layer of coating on said core which comprises a layer of an enteric coating agent applied from an organic based solvent coating system.
The core of the pharmaceutical composition can be in the form of a compressed tablet which is further comprised essentially of a surface active agent, and a binder. Alternatively, the pharmaceutical composition can have a pelleted core which is further comprised essentially of an inert core component, a surface active agent and a binder.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of this invention to provide a pharmaceutical dosage formulation of omeprazole which is stable upon prolonged storage, is stable when administered to a patient and is capable of providing the desired therapeutic effect.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a pharmaceutical dosage form of omeprazole which is bioequivalent to dosage forms of omeprazole which have an intermediate layer of an inert coating material.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a stable dosage form of omeprazole which may be produced without the need to provide an intermediate coating layer that separates the omeprazole containing core from the enteric coating layer.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from a review of the appended specification.
The omeprazole formulation of the invention is preferably based on a core of omeprazole or pharmaceutically equivalent salt, a filler and an alkaline material selected from the group consisting of arginine or lysine; and a single layer of coating on said core which comprises a layer of an enteric coating agent applied from an organic solvent based system. The Omeprazole core can either be pelleted or tabletted as described herein.
In the case of both the pelleted form and the tabletted form of the core a filler is used. A filler is used as a granulation substrate. Sugars such as lactose, dextrose, sucrose, maltose, or microcrystalline cellulose and the like may be used as fillers in either the pellet or the granulation composition. In the case of the pelleted form the filler may comprise from 20 to 90 wt % and preferably 65-85 wt % based on the total weight of the drug layer composition. In the case of the tabletted form the filler may comprise from 20 to 60 wt % and preferably 20 to 40 wt % based on the total weight of the granulation. In the case of the tabletted form of the invention a tablet disintegrant may be added which comprises corn starch, potato starch, croscarmelose sodium, crospovidone and sodium starch glycolate in an effective amount. An effective amount which may be from 3 to 10 wt % based on the total weight of the granulation.
In the case of both the tabletted form and the pelleted form of the core an alkaline agent that is either lysine or arginine is used as a stabilizer. In the case of the tabletted form a level of from 20 to 60 wt % and preferably 30 to 55 wt % based on the weight of the granulation may be employed. In the case of the pelleted form a level of from 0.5 to 10 wt % and preferably 1 to 3 wt % based on the weight of the pellet may be employed.
In the case of the pelleted form and the tabletted form of the invention an enteric coating agent is placed over the core. In both cases the enteric coating may comprise an acid resisting material which resists acid up to a pH of above about 5.0 or higher which is selected from the group consisting of cellulose acetate phthalate, hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose phthalate, polyvinyl acetate phthalate, carboxymethylethylcellulose, Eudragit L (poly(methacrylic acid, methylmethacrylate), 1:1 ratio; MW (No. Av. 135,000xe2x80x94USP Type A) or Eudragit S (poly(methacrylic acid, methylmethacrylate, 1:2 ratio MW (No. Av. 135,000xe2x80x94USP Type B) and mixtures thereof.
The enteric coating agent may also include an inert processing aid in an amount in the case of the tabletted form from 15 to 55 wt % and preferably 20 to 45 wt % based on the total weight of the acid resisting component and the inert processing aid. In the case of the pelleted form the inert processing aid is preferably in an amount from 5 to 50 wt % and most preferably 10-20 wt %. The inert processing aids include finely divided forms of talc, silicon dioxide, magnesium stearate etc. Typical solvents which may be used to apply the acid resisting component-inert processing aid mixture include isopropyl alcohol, acetone, methylene chloride and the like. Generally the acid resistant component-inert processing aid mixture will be applied from a 5 to 20 wt % of acid resisting component-inert processing aid mixture based on the total weight of the solvent and the acid resistant component-inert processing aid.
In the case of both the tabletted form and the pelleted form of the invention omeprazole or a pharmaceutically equivalent salt is used in the core. In the tabletted formulation the omeprazole may comprise from 5 to 70 wt % and preferably 10 to 30 wt % of the granulation. In the pelleted form the Omeprazole may comprise from 10 to 50 wt % and preferably 10 to 20 wt % of the drug layer composition.
A surface active agent is used in both the tabletted and the pelleted form of the invention. The surface active agent may be any pharmaceutically acceptable, non-toxic surfactant. Suitable surface active agents include sodium lauryl sulfate, polysorbate 20, polysorbate 40, polysorbate 60, polysorbate 80 and the like. The surface active agent may be present at a level of from 0.1 to 5 wt %. In the case of the tabletted form the surface active agent is preferably 0.20 to 2.0 wt % based on the total weight of the granulation. In the pelleted form the surface active agent is preferably 0.20 to 2.0 wt % of the total weight of the drug layer composition.
The binder is used in both the tabletted and the pelleted form of the invention. The binder may be any pharmaceutically acceptable, non-toxic pharmaceutically acceptable binder. The binder is preferably a water soluble polymer of the group consisting of polyvinyl alcohol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, methylcellulose, hydroxypropyl cellulose, hydroxymethyl cellulose and the like. A water soluble binder is preferred which is applied from an aqueous medium such as water at a level of from 0.1 to 10 wt % and preferably from 0.25 to 7.5 wt % of binder based on the total weight of the granulation.
In the case of the tabletted form of the invention a granulation is formed by contacting the alkaline agent, the omeprazole, the surface active agent and the binder with a medium which may comprise any low viscosity solvent such as water, isopropyl alcohol, acetone, ethanol or the like. When fluids such as water are employed, this will usually require a weight of fluid which is about three times the weight of the dry components of the coating composition.
After the granulation is formed and dried, the granulation is tabletted and the tablets are directly coated with the enteric coating agent. A color imparting agent may be added to the enteric coating agent mixture or a rapidly dissolving seal coat containing color may be coated over the enteric coating agent layer provided that the seal coat is compatible with and does not affect the dissolution of the enteric coating layer. The rapidly dissolving seal coat may comprise Opadry pink which comprises approximately 91 wt % hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (E-6), color and 9 wt % polyethylene glycol which is applied as a 8-15% w/w solution in purified water. In addition the color may be provided as Chromateric which is available from Crompton and Knowles. This product contains water, talc, TiO2, triethyl citrate, propylene glycol, synthetic red iron oxide, potassium sorbate, xanthan gum, sodium citrate and synthetic yellow iron oxide. If desired, conventional sugar based seal coats may be used which contain FDA certified dyes.
In the case of a pelleted form the invention is preferably based on pellets having a core forming inert component which may comprise a starch or sugar sphere such as non-pareil sugar seeds having an average size of 14 to 35 mesh, preferably about 18 to 20 mesh. The core forming inert component is coated with a formulation which comprises Omeprazole, a surface active agent, a filler, an alkaline material that is either lysine or arginine and a binder, which are collectively referred to as the drug layer composition. The core forming inert component is employed at 1:1 to 5:1 and preferably from 2:1 to 3:1 weight ratio to the drug layer composition.
The cores are formed by spraying the non-pareil seeds with an aqueous or non-aqueous suspension which contains the alkaline agent, the omeprazole, the surface active agent and the binder. The suspension medium may comprise any low viscosity solvent such as water, isopropyl alcohol, acetone, ethanol or the like. When fluids such as water are employed, this will usually require a weight of fluid which is about seven times the weight of the dry components of the coating composition.
After the cores are dried, the cores are coated with the enteric coating agent. A color imparting agent may be added to the enteric coating agent mixture or a rapidly dissolving seal coat over the enteric coating agent layer provided that the seal coat is compatible with and does no affect the dissolution of the enteric coating layer.


A substrate including a base substrate, an interfacial bonding layer disposed on the base substrate, and a thin film adaptive crystalline layer disposed on the interfacial bonding layer. The interfacial bonding layer is solid at room temperature, and is in liquid-like form when heated to a temperature above room temperature. The interfacial bonding layer may be heated during epitaxial growth of a target material system grown on the thin film layer to provide the thin film layer with lattice flexibility to adapt to the different lattice constant of the target material system. Alternatively, the thin film layer is originally a strained layer having a strained lattice constant different from that of the target material system but with a relaxed lattice constant very close to that of the target material system, which lattice constant is relaxed to its relaxed value by heating the interfacial bonding layer after the thin film layer is removed from the first semiconductor substrate, so that the thin film layer has an adjusted lattice constant equal to its unstrained, relaxed value and very close to the lattice constant of the target material system.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to substrates for epilayer epitaxial growth in which the epilayers are lattice mismatched to the substrate and, in particular, to alternative substrates for fabrication of electronic and optoelectronic devices, such as semiconductor diode lasers, for example vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs).
2. Description of the Related Art
The following descriptions and examples are not admitted to be prior art by virtue of their inclusion within this section.
Lasers, such as semiconductor diode lasers, have a wide range of industrial and scientific uses. The use of semiconductor diode lasers as sources of optical energy is attractive for a number of reasons. For example, diode lasers have a relatively small volume and consume a small amount of power as compared to conventional laser devices. Further, as monolithic devices, they do not require a combination of a resonant cavity with external mirrors and other structures to generate a coherent output laser beam. One disadvantage of the semiconductor diode laser, however, is the relatively low power of the output beam, as compared to other types of laser devices.
Group III-V (xe2x80x9cIIIxe2x89xa7Vxe2x80x9d) semiconductor materials have been used to construct semiconductor lasers. Processing of III-V semiconductor devices includes vital steps for depositing III-V materials on a semiconductor substrate. For the deposition of a thick III-V layer, the lattice constant of the substrate material has to be very close to that of the deposited III-V layers (epi layers) with the same crystalline structure. Otherwise, crystalline defects, especially threading dislocations, will form during material deposition. When the defect density in the deposited material is high, it will significantly degrade device performance. These threading dislocation defects can create leakage paths for current, provide undesired carrier recombination centers and reduce device lifetime.
It is thus very difficult to grow high quality thin film materials on conventional prior art substrates with a large lattice mismatch. This lattice-matching requirement for compound semiconductor material deposition severely limits the possible choice of compound semiconductor material compositions and device material structure designs due to the limited choice of available substrates with the appropriate crystalline structures and lattice constants. Such substrates include Si, GaAs, InP, GaSb, InAs, and sapphire, inter alia.
For material systems for which there are no lattice-matched prior art substrates, however, some alternative approaches have been used. E.g., either a thick buffer layer is grown on the substrate, as proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,086, or a special technique, such as the lateral growth method proposed by Parillaud et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. vol. 68 (1996), p. 2654, is employed before the growth of the device structure layers. It is known that defects, in particular threading dislocations, induced by lattice mismatch can be reduced from 1011/cm2 to 105/cm2 by using the lateral growth method, for example. However, lattice-mismatched material growth techniques that result in defects, especially threading dislocation defects, often cause undesirable performance or characteristics of optoelectronic or electronic devices grown with such techniques.
It is desirable to epitaxially fabricate a variety of types of structures or devices, using a given epi material system, grown on a given substrate. Such epitaxially fabricated devices include electronic devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits, and optoelectronic devices, such as semiconductor lasers, light-emitting diodes, and photodetectors.
One such optoelectronic device in which there has recently been an increased interest is the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). The conventional VCSEL has several advantages, such as emitting light perpendicular to the surface of the die, and the possibility of fabrication of two dimensional arrays. VCSELs typically have a circular laser beam and a smaller divergence angle, and are therefore more attractive than edge-emitting lasers in some applications. Long infra-red spectrum wavelength (e.g., the range from approximately 1.2 xcexcm to approximately 1.8 xcexcm, including closely-spaced wavelengths around 1.3 xcexcm or closely-spaced ITU grid wavelengths around 1.55 xcexcm) VCSELs are also of great interest in the optical telecommunications industry because of the minimum fiber dispersion at 1.32 xcexcm and the minimum fiber loss at 1.55 xcexcm. The dispersion shifted fiber will have both minimum dispersion and minimum loss at 1.55 xcexcm. The long wavelength VCSEL is typically based on an InxGa1xe2x88x92xAsy P1xe2x88x92y active layer lattice matched to InP cladding layers.
The structure of a typical VCSEL usually consists of an active region sandwiched between two distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) mirrors, as shown schematically in FIG. 1. For the fabrication of long wavelength (e.g., 1.3 or 1.55 xcexcm) VCSELs, it is very difficult to form the desired materials in one single growth step on a substrate. For instance, it is difficult to grow either the desired 1.3 xcexcm active region on a GaAs substrate or to grow proper DBR mirrors on an InP substrate, despite the maturity of the technology for growing the DBR structure on GaAs substrates. Likewise, it is difficult to grow a 1.3 xcexcm wavelength DBR structure on an InP substrate, despite the maturity of the technology for growing the active region. Recently, some alternative material systems, such as InGaNAs, GaAsSb and InGaAs quantum dots, have been developed to grow directly on a GaAs substrate using an AlxGa1xe2x88x92xAs/AlyGa1xe2x88x92yAs DBR for a 1.3 xcexcm wavelength active region. However, these material systems are very difficult to grow and not easy to reproduce.
Another alternative approach to fabricate a long wavelength VCSEL is by using the so-called wafer bonding technique. However, this approach requires at least two to three wafer growth and one to two wafer-to-wafer bonding processes, which leads to very high fabrication cost and very low device yield. Therefore, a single wafer growth approach would be preferable to the wafer bonding approach, other considerations being equal.
One alternative approach to fabricate a long wavelength VCSEL with a single wafer growth step is to use the (In,Ga,Al)As material system lattice matched to Inx(AlyGa1xe2x88x92y)1xe2x88x92xAs, where, e.g., 0.15 less than x less than 0.45, and growth of an InAlGaAs/InAlAs DBR structure and a moderately strained InGaAs quantum well (QW) structure active region. (Depending on the value of x, y is selected such that the material utilized has a bandgap absorption edge less than the lasing wavelength, e.g. less than 1.3 xcexcm for a 1.3 xcexcm VCSEL.) However, there is no commercially available substrate that is lattice matched to this material system. It is very difficult to control the composition precisely of a ternary InxGa1xe2x88x92xAs substrate uniformly over a whole wafer. Therefore, a high quality alternative substrate needs to be developed for this application.
One approach is to create a substrate that has the same crystalline structure and the same surface lattice constant as those of non-strained Inx(AlyGa1xe2x88x92y)1xe2x88x92xAs, where 0.15 less than x less than 0.45. Another approach is to make a substrate that has a thin layer that is physically attached to the substrate, but can freely expand in a direction parallel to the substrate surface during material growth. This thin surface layer must have the same crystalline structure and a similar lattice constant as those of non-strained Inx(AlyGa1xe2x88x92y)1xe2x88x92xAs, where 0.15 less than x less than 0.45.
For lattice-mismatched epitaxial layers, it is widely accepted that there exists a critical thickness beyond which misfit dislocations are introduced causing the breakdown of coherence between the substrate and epitaxial layers. The relaxation mechanism for lattice-mismatched epilayers known as the Matthews-Blakeslee model, and other aspects of epitaxial, layer lattice mismatching problems are discussed in J. W. Matthews, S. Mader and T. B. Light, J. Appl. Phys. 41 (1970): 3800; J. W. Matthews and A. E. Blakeslee, xe2x80x9cDefects in Epitaxial Multilayers I,xe2x80x9d J. Cryst. Growth 27 (1974): 118-125; J. W. Matthews and A. E. Blakeslee, xe2x80x9cDefects in Epitaxial Multilayers II,xe2x80x9d J. Cryst. Growth 29 (1975): 273-280; J. W. Matthews and A. E. Blakeslee, xe2x80x9cDefects in Epitaxial Multilayers III,xe2x80x9d J. Cryst. Growth 32 (1976): 265-273; and J. W. Matthews, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. 12 (1975): 126.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,294,808 for xe2x80x9cPseudomorphic and Dislocation Free Heteroepitaxial Structuresxe2x80x9d proposes to use a thin substrate having a thickness on the order of the xe2x80x9ccriticalxe2x80x9d thickness, which is the thickness at which defects form when growing one lattice mismatched material on another. The critical thickness is only a few hundred angstroms, and it is difficult to sustain the mechanical and chemical processes required for epitaxial (epi) growth and device fabrication on a substrate having a thickness of only a few hundred angstroms. However, in practical situations, after the thin substrate is bonded to the supporting substrate, the bonding strength between the interface is so strong that this thin substrate can no longer freely change its lattice constant in the in-plane direction. Therefore, threading dislocations will still be generated due to the very limited strain accommodation in the thin substrate.
There is, therefore, a need for improved substrates and fabrication techniques that address the foregoing problems. In general, there is a need for alternative substrates that can be used for a variety of epi material systems without giving rise to conventional problems caused by lattice mismatch between the epi layers and the substrate. For example, there is a need for alternative substrates that address the problems associated with lattice mismatching between a substrate and the (In,Al,Ga)As material intended to be used for long (e.g., 1.3 or 1.55 xcexcm) wavelength VCSELs or other special material systems. Such alternative substrates could be advantageously used for other material systems and device structures as well, and in general for any material system for which other substrates cannot satisfy the lattice-matching requirement for device applications.

Alternative substrates for epitaxial growth


According to one embodiment, a semiconductor integrated circuit includes a first circuit, a second circuit, and a signal propagation control circuit. The first circuit is configured to have a first power supply terminal. The second circuit is configured to have a second power supply terminal independent of the first power supply terminal. The signal propagation control circuit is configured to provide a first fixed value to the second circuit for a predetermined period after power is supplied to the second circuit, and after the predetermined period, configured to control whether to transfer an output signal from the first circuit to the second circuit or provide the first fixed value to the second circuit.

Recently, due to downsizing of semiconductor devices, a lot of functions are implemented on a semiconductor integrated circuit. In order to realize general-purpose properties, it is common that circuits which are used for a certain application but not used for another application are implemented on a semiconductor integrated circuit and selected by users whether a specific function is used or not.
If power is not supplied to a circuit which is not used for a certain application to reduce the power consumption, output signals of the circuit become uncertain values or high impedance state. If a signal of the uncertain value or the high impedance is connected to another circuit being used, leakage current may occur and result in large power consumption, or the circuit may malfunction. To prevent the problem, there is a solution to provide signal propagation control circuit on the integrated circuit between the circuits and prevent the propagation of the uncertain value or the high impedance to the circuit being used. In this case, a dedicated terminal is necessary to define the usage of the function because the information whether a function is used or not, is necessary to control the signal propagation control circuit during the ramp-up period of the integrated circuit. However it increases the number of terminals of the integrated circuit.
If the additional terminal is not allowed due to area constraints, the signal propagation control circuit cannot be used. Therefore, even a circuit which is not used for a certain application must be provided with power and it may result in large power consumption.

Semiconductor integrated circuit and system of controlling the same