In a virtualized computer system, a network frame is transmitted from a virtual machine using a network interface device, possibly through a virtual switch, by copying only a part of the network frame to the transmit buffers that have pre-translated mappings from guest physical addresses to hypervisor virtual addresses and to machine addresses. The length of the part of the network frame that is copied to the transmit buffers may be variable.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a virtualized computer system and, in particular, to a method and system for transmitting data from virtual machines to a network interface device via a virtual switch by partial copying of the data to transmit buffers with pre-mapped address translations.
2. Description of the Related Art
The advantages of virtual machine technology have become widely recognized. Among these advantages is the ability to run multiple virtual machines on a single host platform. This makes better use of the capacity of the hardware, while still ensuring that each user enjoys the features of a "complete" computer. Depending on how it is implemented, virtualization can also provide greater security, since the virtualization can isolate potentially unstable or unsafe software so that it cannot adversely affect the hardware state or system files required for running the physical (as opposed to virtual) hardware.
As is well known in the field of computer science, a virtual machine (VM) is an abstraction—a "virtualization"—of an actual physical computer system. FIG. 1 shows one possible arrangement of a computer system 700 that implements virtualization. A virtual machine (VM) or "guest" 200 is installed on a "host platform," or simply "host," which will include system hardware, that is, a hardware platform 100, and one or more layers or co-resident components comprising system-level software, such as an operating system or similar kernel, or a virtual machine monitor or hypervisor (see below), or some combination of these. The system hardware typically includes one or more processors 110, memory 130, some form of mass storage 140, and various other devices 170.
Each VM 200 will typically have both virtual system hardware 201 and guest system software 202. The virtual system hardware typically includes at least one virtual CPU, virtual memory 230, at least one virtual disk 240, and one or more virtual devices 270. Note that a disk—virtual or physical—is also a "device," but is usually considered separately because of the important role of the disk. All of the virtual hardware components of the VM may be implemented in software using known techniques to emulate the corresponding physical components. The guest system software includes a guest operating system (OS) 220 and drivers 224 as needed for the various virtual devices 270.
Note that a single VM may be configured with more than one virtualized processor. To permit computer systems to scale to larger numbers of concurrent threads, systems with multiple CPUs have been developed. These symmetric multi-processor (SMP) systems are available as extensions of the PC platform and from other vendors. Essentially, an SMP system is a hardware platform that connects multiple processors to a shared main memory and shared I/O devices. Virtual machines may also be configured as SMP VMs. FIG. 1, for example, illustrates multiple virtual processors 210-0, 210-1, . . . 210-m (VCPU0, VCPU1, . . . , VCPUm) within the VM 200.
Yet another configuration is found in a so-called "multi-core" architecture, in which more than one physical CPU is fabricated on a single chip, with its own set of functional units (such as a floating-point unit and an arithmetic/logic unit ALU), and can execute threads independently; multi-core processors typically share only very limited resources, such as some cache. Still another technique that provides for simultaneous execution of multiple threads is referred to as "simultaneous multi-threading," in which more than one logical CPU (hardware thread) operates simultaneously on a single chip, but in which the logical CPUs flexibly share some resource such as caches, buffers, functional units, etc. This invention may be used regardless of the type—physical and/or logical—or number of processors included in a VM.
If the VM 200 is properly designed, applications 260 running on the VM will function as they would if run on a "real" computer, even though the applications are running at least partially indirectly, that is via the guest OS 220 and virtual processor(s). Executable files will be accessed by the guest OS from the virtual disk 240 or virtual memory 230, which will be portions of the actual physical disk 140 or memory 130 allocated to that VM. Once an application is installed within the VM, the guest OS retrieves files from the virtual disk just as if the files had been pre-stored as the result of a conventional installation of the application. The design and operation of virtual machines are well known in the field of computer science.
Some interface is generally required between the guest software within a VM and the various hardware components and devices in the underlying hardware platform. This interface—which may be referred to generally as "virtualization software"—may include one or more software components and/or layers, possibly including one or more of the software components known in the field of virtual machine technology as "virtual machine monitors" (VMMs), "hypervisors," or virtualization "kernels." Because virtualization terminology has evolved over time and has not yet become fully standardized, these terms do not always provide clear distinctions between the software layers and components to which they refer. For example, "hypervisor" is often used to describe both a VMM and a kernel together, either as separate but cooperating components or with one or more VMMs incorporated wholly or partially into the kernel itself, which will be the meaning of hypervisor as used herein; however, "hypervisor" is sometimes used instead to mean some variant of a VMM alone, which interfaces with some other software layer(s) or component(s) to support the virtualization. Moreover, in some systems, some virtualization code is included in at least one "superior" VM to facilitate the operations of other VMs. Furthermore, specific software support for VMs may be included in the host OS itself. Unless otherwise indicated, the invention described below may be used in virtualized computer systems having any type or configuration of virtualization software.
Moreover, FIG. 1 shows virtual machine monitors that appear as separate entities from other components of the virtualization software. Furthermore, some software components used to implement one illustrated embodiment of the invention are shown and described as being within a "virtualization layer" located logically between all virtual machines and the underlying hardware platform and/or system-level host software. This virtualization layer can be considered part of the overall virtualization software, although it would be possible to implement at least part of this layer in specialized hardware. The illustrated embodiments are given only for the sake of simplicity and clarity and by way of illustration—as mentioned above, the distinctions are not always so clear-cut. Again, unless otherwise indicated or apparent from the description, it is to be assumed that the invention can be implemented anywhere within the overall structure of the virtualization software, and even in systems that provide specific hardware support for virtualization.
The various virtualized hardware components in the VM, such as the virtual CPU(s) 210-0, 210-1, . . . , 210-m, the virtual memory 230, the virtual disk 240, and the virtual device(s) 270, are shown as being part of the VM 200 for the sake of conceptual simplicity. In actuality, these "components" are usually implemented as software emulations 330 included in a VMM 300. One advantage of such an arrangement is that the VMM may (but need not) be set up to expose "generic" devices, which facilitate VM migration and hardware platform-independence.
Different systems may implement virtualization to different degrees—"virtualization" generally relates to a spectrum of definitions rather than to a bright line, and often reflects a design choice with respect to a trade-off between speed and efficiency on the one hand and isolation and universality on the other hand. For example, "full virtualization" is sometimes used to denote a system in which no software components of any form are included in the guest other than those that would be found in a non-virtualized computer; thus, the guest OS could be an off-the-shelf, commercially available OS with no components included specifically to support use in a virtualized environment.
In contrast, another concept, which has yet to achieve a universally accepted definition, is that of "para-virtualization." As the name implies, a "para-virtualized" system is not "fully" virtualized, but rather the guest is configured in some way to provide certain features that facilitate virtualization. For example, the guest in some para-virtualized systems is designed to avoid hard-to-virtualize operations and configurations, such as by avoiding certain privileged instructions, certain memory address ranges, etc. As another example, many para-virtualized systems include an interface within the guest that enables explicit calls to other components of the virtualization software.
For some, para-virtualization implies that the guest OS (in particular, its kernel) is specifically designed to support such an interface. According to this view, having, for example, an off-the-shelf version of Microsoft Windows XP™ as the guest OS would not be consistent with the notion of para-virtualization. Others define para-virtualization more broadly to include any guest OS with any code that is specifically intended to provide information directly to any other component of the virtualization software. According to this view, loading a module such as a driver designed to communicate with other virtualization components renders the system para-virtualized, even if the guest OS as such is an off-the-shelf, commercially available OS not specifically designed to support a virtualized computer system. Unless otherwise indicated or apparent, this invention is not restricted to use in systems with any particular "degree" of virtualization and is not to be limited to any particular notion of full or partial ("para-") virtualization.
In addition to the sometimes fuzzy distinction between full and partial (para-) virtualization, two arrangements of intermediate system-level software layer(s) are in general use—a "hosted" configuration and a non-hosted configuration (which is shown in FIG. 1). In a hosted virtualized computer system, an existing, general-purpose operating system forms a "host" OS that is used to perform certain input/output (I/O) operations, alongside and sometimes at the request of the VMM. The Workstation product of VMware, Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., is an example of a hosted, virtualized computer system, which is also explained in U.S. Pat. No. 6,496,847 (Bugnion, et al., "System and Method for Virtualizing Computer Systems," 17 Dec. 2002).
As illustrated in FIG. 1, in many cases, it may be beneficial to deploy VMMs on top of a software layer—a kernel 600—constructed specifically to provide efficient support for the VMs. This configuration is frequently referred to as being "non-hosted." Compared with a system in which VMMs run directly on the hardware platform, use of a kernel offers greater modularity and facilitates provision of services (for example, resource management) that extend across multiple virtual machines. Compared with a hosted deployment, a kernel may offer greater performance because it can be co-developed with the VMM and be optimized for the characteristics of a workload consisting primarily of VMs/VMMs. The kernel 600 also handles any other applications running on it that can be separately scheduled, as well as a console operating system that, in some architectures, is used to boot the system and facilitate certain user interactions with the virtualization software.
Note that the kernel 600 is not the same as the kernel that will be within the guest OS 220—as is well known, every operating system has its own kernel. Note also that the kernel 600 is part of the "host" platform of the VM/VMM as defined above even though the configuration shown in FIG. 1 is commonly termed "non-hosted;" moreover, the kernel may be both part of the host and part of the virtualization software or "hypervisor." The difference in terminology is one of perspective and definitions that are still evolving in the art of virtualization.
In order to more efficiently utilize memory resources in a computer system, virtual memory is often used. For example, FIG. 2 illustrates virtual memory management and address mapping functions performed by the VMM 300 and various other components of a virtualized computer system. The guest OS 220 generates a guest OS page table 292. The guest OS page table 292 contains mappings from GVPNs (Guest Virtual Page Numbers) to GPPNs (Guest Physical Page Numbers) to enable translations from "guest virtual addresses" to "guest physical addresses." Suppose that a guest application 260 attempts to access a memory location having a first GVPN, and that the guest OS 220 has specified in the guest OS page table 292 that the first GVPN is backed by what it believes to be a physical memory page having a first GPPN. The mapping from the first GVPN to the first GPPN is used by the virtual system hardware 201. A memory management module 350 translates the first GPPN into a corresponding hardware page number PPN (Physical Page Number), say a first PPN, which can be used to address the hardware memory to access "machine addresses." Note that in some literature involving virtualized systems, GVPNs, GPPNs, VPNs and PPNs are sometimes referred to as "VPNs," "PPNs," "VPNs" and "MPNs," respectively, where "MPN" means "machine page number," that is, the page number used to address the hardware memory. The problem is, though, that "VPN" is then used to mean the virtual page number in both the guest and host contexts, and one must always be aware of the current context to avoid confusion. Regardless of notation, however, the intermediate GPPN PPN mapping performed by the VMM is transparent to the guest system. The memory management module 350 creates a shadow page table 392, and inserts a translation into the shadow page table 392 mapping the first GVPN to the first PPN. This mapping from the first GVPN to the first PPN is used by the system hardware 100 to access the actual hardware storage device that is backing up the GVPN, and is also loaded into the TLB (Translation Look-Aside Buffer) 194 to cache the GVPN to PPN mapping for future memory access.
FIG. 3 illustrates a first plurality of VMs 200-1, 200-2, 200-3 and VMMs 300-1, 300-2, 300-3 transmitting network frames to a second plurality of network interface cards (NICs) 172-1, 172-2, 172-3 of the system hardware 100 through a virtual switch 602. Guest operating systems 220 (not shown in FIG. 3), each running on one of the VMs 200-1, 200-2, 200-3, in association with the VMMs 300-1, 300-2, 300-3, transmit network frames to the NICs 172-1, 172-2, 172-3 through the virtual switch 602 of the kernel 600. The virtual switch 602 determines how and where to route the network frames transmitted from the VMs/VMMs to the NICs.
Network frames sent from a guest OS 220 to the NICs do not have to be "copied" to the NICs 172-1, 172-2, 172-3. Rather, the NICs 172-1, 172-2, 172-3 could simply DMA (Direct Memory Access) the network frames from whichever memory location the guest OS 220 has placed them. To DMA the network frames, the NICs 172-1, 172-2, 172-3 would need to have the machine addresses of the memory locations at which the network frames are placed, in order to access the network frames. Avoiding data copying in the path of transmitting the network frames significantly improves the performance of the guest OS 220.
However, there are challenges associated with avoiding data copying when transmitting the network frames to the NICs 172-1, 172-2, 172-3 through the virtual switch 602. Specifically, the VMMs 300-1, 300-2, 300-3 and the virtual switch 602 should determine from the data in the network frames whether the frame is to be sent over to the NICs 172-1, 172-2, 172-3 or whether its destination is merely the local virtual network. As a result, in one conventional technique, some address mapping between guest physical addresses, hypervisor virtual addresses, and machine addresses associated with the network frames is performed to determine the destination of the network frame. Note that the "hypervisor virtual address" is the virtual address used by virtualization software such as the hypervisor or kernel 600, and is distinct and different from the guest virtual address used by the guest OS 220.
In another conventional technique, the cost of the repeated address mapping is avoided by allocating a set of transmit buffers between the VMs and the VMMs with pre-translated address mappings and storing the network frames temporarily until the virtual network interface devices in the VMMs sends the network frames to the virtual switch 602. However, use of the transmit buffers require copying the network frame to the transmit buffers, which is also computationally costly to the guest OS.
Therefore, there is a need for a technique of transmitting network frames that can avoid costly address translation and costly copying of the network frame data to the transmit buffers at the same time.

Partial copying of data to transmit buffer for virtual network device


A method for using a self-tamping brewing material holder tamps loose ground brewing material obtaining richer flavor. The brewing material holder includes a holder base and a holder lid. Brewing material is loosely deposited in the brewing material holder base and the holder lid is attached to the reusable holder base. Cooperation of the reusable holder base and holder lid biases a tamper against the brewing material to tamp the brewing material. The tamping may be biased by a spring or by a resilient solid material attached to the brewing material holder lid and push the brewing material down inside the base or may be biased by a spring or by a resilient solid material attached to the brewing material holder base and push the brewing material up against the holder lid.

The present invention relates to coffee makers and in particular to a method for using a brewing material holder which tamps brewing material.
Coffee is generally prepared in a coffee maker by measuring an amount of ground coffee into a coffee filter, closing a lid over the ground coffee, and providing a stream of hot water through the loosely packed ground coffee. Unfortunately, water passes freely through the loosely packed ground coffee and does not obtain the full flavor which might otherwise be obtained.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/777,831 filed Jul. 13, 2007 for "Pod Adapter System for Single Service Beverage Brewers" by the present applicant overcomes this problem by packaging the coffee in closed filter paper commonly called a pod, and inserting the closed pod into a pod holder including a tamping spring and bottom tamper for tamping the pod between the bottom tamper and a coffee holder lid. While the pod adapter of the '831 application works well for some applications, it does not facilitate the simple use of bulk ground coffee in all general coffee makers.

Method for tamping brewing material using a self tamping single serving brewing material holder


In order to produce a formed part furnished with a through hole, a rod material is advanced by a defined length in the direction of its lengthwise extension into a forming die through a stationary guide and then immobilised by a clamping arrangement that engages with it circumferentially. The end portion of the rod material is then axially swaged by a swaging tool and is thus shaped into a disc, the circumference of which is defined by the forming die. The disc is then penetrated axially by a dishing tool and impact extruded at the same time, the displaced material flowing between the dishing tool and the inner circumferential wall of the forming die. The formed part located in the forming die is then rotated coaxially relative to the rest of the rod material and thereby separated from the rest of the rod material by torsion shearing.

Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for producing a formed part furnished with a through hole and to a device for carrying out the method.
Description of Related Art
Such a method is known for example from DE 31 47 897 A1. According to that document, identical annular metal parts are produced without cutting from a metallic rod material by swaging and the resulting deformation of an end portion of the rod material to form a disc, followed by axial perforation of the disc with a punch having the same cross-sectional shape as the (uncompressed) rod material, and separation from the disc of the disc core that is perforated by the punch. The disc core and the uncompressed rod material portion together constitute an integral part and the starting point for a subsequent process cycle until there is no longer enough rod material remaining to form any more formed parts and the remainder is lost as waste.
When the disc core is perforated, the shear and tensile stresses generated give rise to an undesirable fracture surface with cracks and possibly buns on the peripheral edge of the hole in the disc formed thereby, possibly necessitating reworking of the formed parts.
An object of the invention is therefore to improve a method of the type described above in such manner that the formed parts produced thereby require substantially less reworking, if any. In addition, no burrs or other deformations that would hinder the subsequent processing steps should occur at the separation sites of the rod material.

Method for producing a formed part furnished with a through hole


A method and computer-readable medium are provided for fitting text to shapes within a graphic. According to the method, initial constraints are defined that comprise initial values describing how a shape and text within the shape should be laid out. Constraint rules are also defined for use in modifying the initial constraints when application of the initial constraints to the text in a shape results in the text overflowing the boundaries of the shape. A change may be detected to the graphic that would affect the size or position of one or more of the shapes or the text within one of the shapes. If such a change causes text to overflow when laid out using the initial constraints, the constraint rules are applied sequentially to modify the constraints. The modified constraints are then reapplied to the shapes to create a new layout for the graphic.

Today's word processors and dedicated drawing application programs enable users to create both simple and complex graphics. These programs allow users to create graphics using a variety of shapes which may be annotated with text. The graphics created by these applications may be stand-alone documents or incorporated into text documents. Despite the advantages offered by these programs, however, today's versions of these programs suffer from several drawbacks which hinder the creation and layout of graphics by the typical user.
One particular drawback of current drawing programs is that these programs typically utilize defaults for text properties (e.g. margins, line spacing, etc.) that are generic across all shapes and graphics. In most cases, these defaults do not look optimal across a wide range of graphics. As a result, users must manually override the default properties to obtain a professional looking graphic. This can be frustrating and time consuming for users.
Another drawback of current drawing programs is that these programs require a user to manually resize text within shapes as shapes and text are added to graphics. For instance, if a user adds text to a shape that overflows the boundaries of the shape, the user must manually resize the graphic or the text so that the text fits completely within the shape. This problem can be extremely time consuming when a large number of shapes with text are utilized in a graphic. This problem is compounded by the fact that many graphics look best when text is sized equally across related shapes. In order to accomplish this utilizing current drawing programs, a user must manually resize the text in each of the related shapes. This also can be time consuming and frustrating for a computer user.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the various embodiments of the present invention have been made.

Method and computer-readable medium for fitting text to shapes within a graphic


A system and method for error correction and detection in a memory system. The system includes a memory controller, a plurality of memory modules and a mechanism. The memory modules are in communication with the memory controller and with a plurality of memory devices. The mechanism detects that one of the memory modules has failed possibly coincident with a memory device failure on an other of the memory modules. The mechanism allows the memory system to continue to run unimpaired in the presence of the memory module failure and the memory device failure.

This invention relates generally to computer memory, and more particularly to error detection and correction in a RAID memory system.
Computer systems often require a considerable amount of high speed RAM (random access memory) to hold information such as operating system software, programs and other data while a computer is powered on and operational. This information is normally binary, composed of patterns of 1' s and 0's known as bits of data. The bits of data are often grouped and organized at a higher level. A byte, for example, is typically composed of 8 bits, although it may be composed of additional bits (e.g. 9, 10, etc.) when the byte also includes information for use in the identification and/or correction of errors. This binary information is normally loaded into RAM from nonvolatile storage (NVS) such as hard disk drives (HDDs) during power on and initial program load (IPL) of the computer system. The data is also paged-in from and paged-out to NVS during normal computer operation. In general, all the programs and information utilized by a computer system cannot fit in the smaller, more costly dynamic RAM (DRAM), and even if it did fit, the data would be lost when the computer system is powered off. At present, it is common for NVS systems to be built using a large number of HDDs.
Computer RAM is often designed with pluggable subsystems, often in the form of modules, so that incremental amounts of RAM can be added to each computer, dictated by the specific memory requirements for each system and application. The acronym, "DIMM" refers to dual in-line memory modules, which are perhaps the most prevalent memory module currently in use. A DIMM is a thin rectangular card comprising one or more memory devices, and may also include one or more of registers, buffers, hub devices, and/or non-volatile storage (e.g., erasable programmable read only memory or "EPROM") as well as various passive devices (e.g. resistors and capacitors), all mounted to the card. DIMMs are often designed with dynamic memory chips or DRAMs that need to be regularly refreshed to prevent the data stored within them from being lost. Originally, DRAM chips were asynchronous devices, however contemporary chips, synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) (e.g. single data rate or "SDR", double data rate or "DDR", DDR2, DDR3, etc) have synchronous interfaces to improve performance. DDR devices are available that use pre-fetching along with other speed enhancements to improve memory bandwidth and to reduce latency. DDR3, for example, has a standard burst length of 8.
Memory device densities have continued to grow as computer systems have become more powerful. Currently it is not uncommon to have the RAM content of a single computer be composed of hundreds of trillions of bits. Unfortunately, the failure of just a portion of a single RAM device can cause the entire computer system to fail. When memory errors occur, which may be "hard" (repeating) or "soft" (one-time or intermittent) failures, these failures may occur as single cell, multi-bit, full chip or full DIMM failures and all or part of the system RAM may be unusable until it is repaired. Repair turn-around-times can be hours or even days, which can have a substantial impact to a business dependent on the computer systems.
The probability of encountering a RAM failure during normal operations has continued to increase as the amount of memory storage in contemporary computers continues to grow.
Techniques to detect and correct bit errors have evolved into an elaborate science over the past several decades. Perhaps the most basic detection technique is the generation of odd or even parity where the number of 1' s or 0' s in a data word are "exclusive or-ed" (XOR-ed) together to produce a parity bit. For example, a data word with an even number of 1' s will have a parity bit of 0 and a data word with an odd number of 1' s will have a parity bit of 1, with this parity bit data appended to the stored memory data. If there is a single error present in the data word during a read operation, it can be detected by regenerating parity from the data and then checking to see that it matches the stored (originally generated) parity.
Richard Hamming recognized that the parity technique could be extended to not only detect errors, but correct errors by appending an XOR field, an error correction code (ECC) field, to each code word. The ECC field is a combination of different bits in the word XOR-ed together so that errors (small changes to the data word) can be easily detected, pinpointed and corrected. The number of errors that can be detected and corrected are directly related to the length of the ECC field appended to the data word. The technique includes ensuring a minimum separation distance between valid data words and code word combinations. The greater the number of errors desired to be detected and corrected, the longer the code word, thus creating a greater distance between valid code words. The smallest distance between valid code words is known as the minimum Hamming distance.
These error detection and error correction techniques are commonly used to restore data to its original/correct form in noisy communication transmission media or for storage media where there is a finite probability of data errors due to the physical characteristics of the device. The memory devices generally store data as voltage levels representing a 1 or a 0 in RAM and are subject to both device failure and state changes due to high energy cosmic rays and alpha particles. Similarly, HDDs that store 1' s and 0's as magnetic fields on a magnetic surface are also subject to imperfections in the magnetic media and other mechanisms that can cause changes in the data pattern from what was originally stored.
In the 1980's, RAM memory device sizes first reached the point where they became sensitive to alpha particle hits and cosmic rays causing memory bits to flip. These particles do not damage the device but can create memory errors. These are known as soft errors, and most often affect just a single bit. Once identified, the bit failure can be corrected by simply rewriting the memory location. The frequency of soft errors has grown to the point that it has a noticeable impact on overall system reliability.
Memory ECCs, like those proposed by Hamming, use a combination of parity codes in various bit positions of the data word to allow detection and correction of errors. Every time data words are written into memory, a new ECC word needs to be generated and stored with the data, thereby allowing detection and correction of the data in cases where the data read out of memory includes an ECC code that does not match a newly calculated ECC code generated from the data being read.
The first ECCs were applied to RAM in computer systems in an effort to increase fault-tolerance beyond that allowed by previous means. Binary ECC codes were deployed that allowed for double-bit error detection (DED) and single-bit error correction (SEC). This SEC/DED ECC also allows for transparent recovery of single bit hard errors in RAM.
Scrubbing routines were also developed to help reduce memory errors by locating soft errors through a complement/re-complement process so that the soft errors could be detected and corrected.
Some storage manufacturers have used advanced ECC techniques, such as Reed-Solomon codes, to correct for full memory chip failures. Some memory system designs also have standard reserve memory chips (e.g. "spare" chips) that can be automatically introduced in a memory system to replace a faulty chip. These advancements have greatly improved RAM reliability, but as memory size continues to grow and customers' reliability expectations increase, further enhancements are needed. There is the need for systems to survive a complete DIMM failure and for the DIMM to be replaced concurrent with system operation. In addition, other failure modes must be considered which affect single points of failure between the connection between one or more DIMMs and the memory controller/embedded processor. For example, some of the connections between the memory controller and the memory device(s) may include one or more intermediate buffer(s) that may be external to the memory controller and reside on or separate from the DIMM, however upon its failure, may have the effect of appearing as a portion of a single DIMM failure, a full DIMM failure, or a broader memory system failure.
Although there is a clear need to improve computer RAM reliability (also referred to as "fault tolerance") by using even more advanced error correction techniques, attempts to do this have been hampered by impacts to available customer memory, performance, space, heat, etc. Using redundancy by including extra copies (e.g. "mirroring") of data or more sophisticated error coding techniques drives up costs, adds complexity to the design, and may impact another key business measure: time-to-market. For example, the simple approach of memory mirroring has been offered as a feature by several storage manufacturing companies. The use of memory mirroring permits systems to survive more catastrophic memory failures, but acceptance has been very low because it generally requires a doubling of the memory size on top of the base SEC/DEC ECC already present in the design, which generally leaves customers with less than 50% of the installed RAM available for system use.
ECC techniques have been used to improve availability of storage systems by correcting HDD failures so that customers do not experience data loss or data integrity issues due to failure of an HDD, while further protecting them from more subtle failure modes.
Some suppliers of storage systems have used redundant array of independent disks (RAID) techniques successfully to improve availability of HDDs to computer RAM. In many respects it is easier to recover from a HDD failure using RAID techniques because it is much easier to isolate the failure in HDDs than it is in RAM. HDDs often have embedded checkers such as ECCs to detect bad sectors. In addition, cyclic redundancy checks (CRCs) and longitudinal redundancy checks (LRCs) may be embedded in HDD electronics or disk adapters, or they may be checkers used by higher levels of code and applications to detect HDD errors. CRCs and LRCs are written coincident with data to help detect data errors. CRCs and LRCs are hashing functions used to produce a small substantially unique bit pattern generated from the data. When the data is read from the HDD, the check sum is regenerated and compared to that stored on the platter. The signatures must match exactly to ensure the data retrieved from the magnetic pattern encoded on the disk is as was originally written to the disk.
RAID systems have been developed to improve performance and/or to increase the availability of disk storage systems. RAID distributes data across several independent HDDs. There are many different RAID schemes that have been developed each having different characteristics, and different pros and cons associated with them. Performance, availability, and utilization/efficiency (the percentage of the disks that actually hold customer data) are perhaps the most important. The tradeoffs associated with various schemes have to be carefully considered because improvements in one attribute can often result in reductions in another.
RAID-0 is striping of data across multiple HDDs to improve performance. RAID-1 is mirroring of data, keeping 2 exact copies of the data on 2 different HDDs to improve availability and prevent data loss. Some RAID schemes can be used together to gain combined benefits. For example, RAID-10 is both data striping and mirroring across several HDDs in an array to improve both performance and availability.
RAID-3, RAID-4 and RAID-5 are very similar in that they use a single XOR check sum to correct for a single data element error. RAID-3 is byte-level striping with dedicated parity HDD. RAID-4 uses block level striping with a dedicated parity HDD. RAID-5 is block level striping like RAID-4, but with distributed parity. There is no longer a dedicated parity HDD. Parity is distributed substantially uniformly across all the HDDs, thus eliminating the dedicated parity HDD as a performance bottleneck. The key attribute of RAID-3, RAID-4 and RAID-5 is that they can correct a single data element fault when the location of the fault can be pinpointed through some independent means.
There is not a single universally accepted industry-wide definition for RAID-6. In general, RAID-6 refers to block or byte-level striping with dual checksums. An important attribute of RAID-6 is that it allow for correction of up to 2 data element faults when the faults can be pinpointed through some independent means. It also has the ability to pinpoint and correct a single failure when the location of the failure is not known.
FIG. 1 depicts a contemporary system composed of an integrated processor chip 100, which contains one or more processor elements and an integrated memory controller 110. In the configuration depicted in FIG. 1, multiple independent cascade interconnected memory interface busses 106 are logically aggregated together to operate in unison to support a single independent access request at a higher bandwidth with data and error detection/correction information distributed or "striped" across the parallel busses and associated devices. The memory controller 110 attaches to four narrow/high speed point-to-point memory busses 106, with each bus 106 connecting one of the several unique memory controller interface channels to a cascade interconnect memory subsystem 103 (or memory module, e.g., a DIMM) which includes at least a hub device 104 and one or more memory devices 109. Some systems further enable operations when a subset of the memory busses 106 are populated with memory subsystems 103. In this case, the one or more populated memory busses 108 may operate in unison to support a single access request.
FIG. 2 depicts a memory structure with cascaded memory modules 103 and unidirectional busses 106. One of the functions provided by the hub devices 104 in the memory modules 103 in the cascade structure is a re-drive function to send signals on the unidirectional busses 106 to other memory modules 103 or to the memory controller 110. FIG. 2 includes the memory controller 110 and four memory modules 103, on each of two memory busses 106 (a downstream memory bus with 24 wires and an upstream memory bus with 25 wires), connected to the memory controller 110 in either a direct or cascaded manner. The memory module 103 next to the memory controller 110 is connected to the memory controller 110 in a direct manner. The other memory modules 103 are connected to the memory controller 110 in a cascaded manner. Although not shown in this figure, the memory controller 110 may be integrated in the processor 100 and may connect to more than one memory bus 106 as depicted in FIG. 1.
There is a need in the art to improve failure detection and correction in memory systems. It would be desirable for a memory system to be able to survive a complete DIMM failure and for the DIMM to be replaced concurrent with system operation.

System and method for error correction and detection in a memory system

International Business Machines Corporation


A broadband light source is disclosed. The broadband light source includes a semiconductor optical amplifier for generating and amplifying light of a broadband wavelength, the amplifier having a first end and a second end and a mirror spaced from the second end of the semiconductor optical amplifier to reflect the light, which is provided by the semiconductor optical amplifier, back to the semiconductor optical amplifier, wherein the semiconductor optical amplifier amplifies the light reflected from the mirror and outputs the amplified light to the first end of the semiconductor optical amplifier. The light source further including at least one lens system to converge light passing through the amplifier ends.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light source, and more particularly to a light source having a low ripple and high gain.
2. Description of the Related Art
A wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical network (hereinafter, referred to as "WDM-PON") is a communication system for connecting a plurality of subscribers with a central office through an optical fiber. This system is also advantageous as it can easily expand communication lines. The WDM-PON includes a central office for generating downstream optical signals, a plurality of subscribers for receiving the downstream optical signals and a remote node linked to the central office through a single optical fiber and connected to each of the subscribers. The system also allows the users to transmit respective upstream optical signals to the central office.
The remote node demultiplexes the downstream optical signals received from the central office according to the respective wavelengths and outputs the demultiplexed optical signals to corresponding subscribers. Also, the remote node multiplexes the upstream optical signals inputted from the respective subscribers and outputs the multiplexed optical signals to the central office.
In the above-mentioned WDM-PON, it is necessary that the central office generate a plurality of downstream optical signals having different wavelengths in order to provide the respective downstream optical signals to each of the subscribers.
An optical transmitter for generating the downstream optical signals may include a plurality of laser light sources capable of generating optical signals having different wavelengths. The optical transmitter may also include either a spectrum-sliced light source or a wavelength-locked light source. The spectrum-sliced light source divides light of a broadband wavelength into several channels having different wavelengths, and modulates each of the channels into a downstream optical signal. The wavelength-locked light source generates downstream wavelength-locked optical signals by using each of the channels having different wavelengths.
The spectrum-sliced light source and the wavelength-locked light sources may include a light emitting diode (LED), a superluminescent LED, or an erbium-doped fiber amplifier, or other similar device(s) in order to generate light of a broadband wavelength. The erbium-doped fiber amplifier can stably generate light that has no connection with polarized light. But the erbium-doped fiber amplifier has problems in that it generates only a limited wavelength band and has a large size and a high manufacturing cost.
The LED and the superluminescent LED can generate light of a wide wavelength range but problems are known to incur as they have a low output power and they are influenced by polarized light.
FIG. 1 is a view illustrating a construction of a conventional broadband light source including a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier. As illustrated the conventional broadband light source includes a semiconductor optical amplifier 110, an anti-reflection layer 130 on a first end of the semiconductor optical amplifier 110, and a high-reflection layer 120 on a second end of the semiconductor optical amplifier 110. The semiconductor optical amplifier 110 includes a gain medium 111 for generating spontaneous emission light and clads 112a and 112b formed around the gain medium 111. The spontaneous emission light generated by gain medium 111 is reflected from the high-reflection layer 120 and is outputted to the outside through the anti-reflection layer 130. Hence, the semiconductor optical amplifier 110 amplifies the light reflected from the high-reflection layer and outputs the amplified light to the anti-reflection layer, thereby having an advantage of improving amplification efficiency.
However, because the reflective semiconductor optical amplifier includes the anti-reflection layer 130 coated on the first end and the high-reflection layer 120 coated on the second end, a so-called resonance phenomenon may occur while the light reflected from the high-reflection layer 120 is progressing through the gain medium 111. That is, there is a problem in that as reflectance of the high-reflection increases, the intensity of light amplified in the reflective semiconductor optical amplifier increases, and gain ripple of amplified light increases simultaneously. In a broadband light source for generating light of a broadband wavelength having predetermined flatness, the gain ripple is a primary factor that disturbs the flatness of light outputted from the broadband light source.


A sealed container (10) having a plurality of compartments. A first compartment (11) has a window (15) with a transparent panel. A humidity indicator device (16) is placed within the first compartment (11). A second compartment (12) is coupled to the first compartment (11) by a plurality of environmental exchange channels (17). At least one article (27), such as plastic encapsulated electronic components, is stored in the second compartment (12). A third compartment (13) is coupled to the second compartment (12) by a plurality of moisture transport channels (20). A desiccant (31) is placed in the third compartment (13). An internal environment of the sealed container (10) is monitored by viewing the humidity indicator device (16) through the window (15).

This invention relates, in general, to containers, including, but not limited to, containers capable of serving as moisture barriers, providing electro-static discharge protection, and having an internal environmental monitor.
Typically, semiconductor manufacturers store and ship plastic encapsulated electronic components within a sealed container. The sealed container provides, among other things, a low moisture environment and electro-static discharge (ESD) protection for the plastic encapsulated electronic components. Moisture present within the sealed container may be absorbed by the plastic encapsulating material. Subsequent high temperature operations such as surface mounting of the plastic encapsulated electronic components, may vaporize the absorbed moisture thereby generating a tremendous pressure within the plastic encapsulating material. The pressure may crack the plastic encapsulating material and result in failure of the encapsulated electronic component.
In addition to the plastic encapsulated electronic components, a desiccant and a humidity indicator are typically enclosed within the sealed container. The desiccant absorbs any moisture trapped within the sealed container during the sealing operation. The humidity indicator provides a visual display of the amount of moisture present within the sealed container. The sealed container must be opened in order to inspect the encapsulated humidity indicator. If the humidity indicator indicates that the sealed container had a humidity level within an acceptable level, the plastic encapsulated electronic components, a new desiccant, and a new humidity indicator are sealed inside another container. Thus, unsealing the container to inspect the humidity indicator adds considerable expense to the storage and shipping of plastic encapsulated electronic components. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a low cost means for monitoring the internal environment of a sealed container without unsealing the container.


A device and a method are provided. Approximate match operations are performed for each of a group of attributes for each of a group of tuples with respect to a query to create a respective ranking for each of the group of attributes. The rankings of the group of attributes are combined to provide a ranking score for each of the group of tuples. Data representing a ranking score of each of the group of tuples is generated according to a position of a respective ranking of each one of the group of tuples for a first k positions of the ranking. K of top ranked ones of the group of tuples are identified based at least in part on the generated data, wherein a number of the group of tuples is n and k<n.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to efficiently identifying approximate matches to a query string among a collection of attribute values in a relation, and more specifically to apparatuses and methods for identifying a top-k optimal final ranking of tuples that approximately match a query tuple.
2. Introduction
Data Cleaning, which is defined as the task of identifying and correcting errors and inconsistencies in data is an important process that has been at the center of research interest in recent years. A collection of attribute values in a relation is known as a tuple. Efficiently identifying approximate matches to a query string among a collection of attribute values in a relation is a key operation for effective data cleaning. Such techniques construct an ordering (ranking) of the relational tuples for the given query string based on different notions of approximate match including edit distance (and variants thereof) and cosine similarity.
One of the end goals of effective data cleaning is to identify the relational tuple or tuples that are "most related" to a given query tuple. Since multiple attributes could exist in the query tuple, issuing approximate match operations for each of them will effectively create an equal (to the number of attributes) number of rankings of the relation tuples. Combining the rankings to identify a final ranking and return a few highly ranking tuples to the application is a challenging task.

Apparatus and method for merging results of approximate matching operations


A computer implemented method is described. Data is collected about a number of member entities that have online interaction with a group entity. A predefined state is assigned to a selected one of the member entities automatically, in response to applying a predefined rule to analyze some of the collected data. The rule is defined in part by the group entity. The method automatically determines whether or not online content is to be delivered to the selected member entity, based on the assigned state. In another embodiment, online content that is to be delivered to the selected member entity is automatically personalized for the selected member entity, again based on the assigned state. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

An embodiment of the invention is directed to automated processes for distributing online content that may be used for influencing the behavior of recipients. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
Online content provision including online advertising and marketing has grown steadily since the inception of the Internet and the growth of publicly available online services. Users can access a wide variety of information that meets their interests, by for example accessing Web sites that are generated by content providers. A computer equipped with a client program called a "browser" makes it a relatively simple task to traverse the vast network of information available on the Internet and in particular through the protocol known as the "World Wide Web". In addition to Web sites however, other types of online content delivery techniques have flourished, including electronic mail (email) and online chat (e.g., Instant Messaging). Software protocols have been developed that allow relatively rich content to be included in addition to plain text, such as graphics, audio and video.
An individual user's interactions with a particular merchant's Web server may be tracked. For example, visits, sales, buying trends, product/service preferences, as well as identifying information such as the user's home or office location geographically speaking may be discovered. Based on this information, a service provider may then present or offer its customers certain products and services that are believed to most likely to be purchased on an individual basis. To gain new or retain existing customers, a provider may need to ensure that it presents products and services that the consumer is interested in and is likely to sign up for or purchase. Accordingly, the importance of targeted advertising and content provision is becoming an important role in the way providers conduct business over the Internet.
Recently, more sophisticated techniques for online marketing have been developed to help better promote the products and services of merchants who have online presence. For example, email marketing has proven to be an efficient and effective way to engage a merchant's existing customers, as well as attract potential consumers. Email messages (as part of what is referred to as an email "campaign") may be sent automatically to a list of addressees including existing customers, where these email messages may originate from an Internet domain of the merchant and contain some form of targeted advertising. There are also products that are available to help increase a merchant's list of opt-in recipients, improve the percentage of the outgoing email messages that are actually opened by the recipient, customize the format, content, and subject line of the email so the recipient will be more eager to do business with the merchant, and measure the results of this email campaign to determine whether the money has been well spent. Such marketing tools become even more important when considering that consumers generally eye online marketing that is in the form of unsolicited email or spam suspiciously.
Conventional implementations of target content provisions for Web sites are also associated with the disadvantage of time consumption. The conventional techniques for adjusting Web site and email campaign renderings is a time consuming process which incorporates continuous human intervention and an extreme amount of information. To evaluate the success of content presented on Web sites, the providers of the site generally collect user response data similar to that described above. That is, user information such as cookies, and general content information is monitored and collected. A database is created of this collected information, which includes massive amounts of data. The information is later analyzed either by an analytical engine, or through user intervention, and resultant data is created expressing the likelihood of successful content for various profiles of target users. Decisions are made on the type of content that should be provided, and the content is manually adjusted by a human. This includes changing a Web site's presentation, or the content provided by the site, for example, or offering a discount on a type of product or service for sale. This process, however, may require highly skilled programmers operating a database with a complicated database query language, and can take days, weeks or sometimes months to update an email or Web site campaign, depending upon the resources available to a provider.

Method and apparatus for automatically performing an online content distribution campaign


Disclosed are methods for forming boron nitride-containing aggregates that exhibit improved wear by attrition, and resulting filled polymers that exhibit significantly improved thermal conductivity. The boron nitride-containing aggregates are prepared according to a method that includes wet granulating boron nitride powder with a granulation solution to form wet boron nitride-containing granules; and drying the wet boron nitride-containing granules to cause evaporation of solvent in the granulation solution, thereby forming boron nitride-containing granules. Sintering achieves the desired boron nitride-containing aggregates.

The use of powders of mineral particles as filler in polymers is well known in the prior art, this filler making it possible to provide additional functionalities depending, in particular, on the properties of the material constituting the filler. These functionalities are, for example, increasing the thermal conductivity and/or the hardness and/or the density of the polymer. The filled polymers thus obtained are used, in particular, in numerous technical fields such as thermal interface materials, for example, thermal pastes or thermal dissipaters, or printed circuit cards.
Due to its high thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity, boron nitride (BN) powders are used in thermal management systems. Among other publications, US 2003/0073769, US 2008/0076856, WO 2008/088774 and WO 2014/136959 describe such uses. The use of a BN powder is known particularly for increasing the thermal conductivity of the polymer, which is particularly desired in thermal interface material applications, such as thermal pastes.
To improve the through plane conductivity and reduce the anisotropy of its properties, BN is used as agglomerates or spherical powder, in the range 20-500 microns. The challenge is to develop a high strength and low cost agglomerates. Two processes currently used in the industry are: (i) isostatic pressing, crushing, sieving, and firing, which suffers from low yield and high costs; and (ii) dispersing, spray-drying, and firing, which leads to spherical granules presenting very low density and relatively low strength.
There is a need for a process allowing the manufacturing of BN agglomerates presenting the following properties: yield in the range 50-500 micron above 80%, sphericity above 0.8, and improved wear resistance (i.e., low wear by attrition).
The present invention is directed to overcoming these and other deficiencies in the art.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Process for manufacturing boron nitride agglomerates


The present invention provides a hybrid nanomaterial electrode, comprising a pair of spaced-apart electrodes, at least three pairs of metallic nanowires disposed between the electrodes and respectively connected with the electrodes, and at least a detecting material connecting with the metallic nanowires. The detecting material is formed as a semiconductor nanostructure or a conductor nanostructure. The hybrid nanomaterial electrode of the present invention can be used in a gas detector for detecting volatile organic compounds, and has the advantage of providing high sensitivity, low detection limit, and the ability to operate at room temperature.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to hybrid nanomaterial electrodes, and more particularly to hybrid nanomaterial electrodes used in a gas detector for detecting volatile organic compounds.
2. The Prior Arts
Volatile solvents and oils are frequently used in industrial applications. The evaporation of the industrial solvent can form volatile organic compounds (VOCs) dangerous to the health that is propagated in the air. Common examples of volatile organic compounds include not completely burnt oxide carbon, hydrocarbons, alkene, benzene, alcohol, aldehyde, ketons, organic compounds including nitride, alkyl halides, etc.
Volatile organic compounds are dangerous to the health. Short and temporary exposure to volatile organic compounds can cause dizziness, nausea, eye tearing, nose irritation, coughing, and even death if the concentration is excessively high. Prolonged exposure can cause lever, lung and respiratory diseases or cancers. Moreover, because they usually include hydrocarbon elements, have a low evaporation point and are easily burnt, high concentrations of volatile organic compounds may induce explosion and incendiary risks. Therefore, the detection and control of the presence of volatile organic compounds is needed to reduce these risks.
A conventional gas analyzer instrument, such as a gas chromatography instrument or mass spectrometer, can have high sensitivity and provide accurate results and a low concentration detection limit. However, it is usually large in size and not conveniently portable, relatively expensive, and the need of sampling. Therefore, the conventional gas analyzer instruction is not adapted for frequently repeated and instantaneous uses.
One type of gas detectors may typically use semiconductor materials that can have variable resistance. The semiconductor detector has a high sensitivity, is simple in structure, small in size and cost-effective to fabricate. An example of material used the semiconductor detector is titanium dioxide. The gas detector using dioxide titanium as detecting material advantageously has a high sensitivity, is cost-effective to fabricate, fast response time, and short recovery time. However, this type of gas detector usually operates at a high temperature above 300° C., which limits its application. Moreover, the installation of the titanium dioxide nanostructure (nanowires, nanotubes, nanoposts or nanostrips) on the detecting electrode requires highly accurate processing, because the quality of the assembled titanium dioxide nanostructure determines the performance of the gas detector.
Dielectrophoresis is a process in which a non-uniform electric field is externally applied to control particles owing to interaction between the electric field and the dielectric property of the particles. This process can be applied for accurately assembling nanostructures, and can be implemented in room temperature to assemble a titanium dioxide nanostructure. Test experiments have shown that dielectrophoresis can be employed to accurately assemble a single nanowire on the electrode. However, if the titanium dioxide nanowire were to be assembled in a gap between two electrodes, the inventors of the present application have discovered that the nanowire can be installed with higher accuracy when the gap between the two electrodes is smaller. But the reduction of the inter-electrode gap renders the fabrication of the electrodes more difficult and requires an electron beam lithography and etching processes, which is complex, time consuming and costly.

Hybrid nanomaterial electrode and fabrication method thereof


Apparatuses, methods, and other embodiments associated with packet identification are described. One example apparatus includes a packet selection logic to identify packets associated with a data stream. The example apparatus may also include a set of packet classification logics. A packet classification logic may generate a signal as a function of whether an attribute associated with the packet matches an attribute associated with packets generated by a tested application.

Routers throughout networks (e.g., the Internet), may be configured to process network traffic based on information contained in the network traffic. For example, some companies have tried to manipulate quality of service settings for packets associated with file sharing applications. Conventional methods may attempt deep packet inspection (DPI) to detect an application with which a packet is associated. DPI is the act of examining packet payload contents. However, DPI may have difficulty determining what application a packet is associated with when the payload is encrypted. Additionally, DPI may be slow and/or resource intensive (e.g., memory, processing). Thus, regular use of DPI may introduce latency in network devices causing network slowdowns and reducing data transfer speeds. Further, some DPI implementations may have high false positive rates, and false negatives may be introduced by manipulating packet payloads with polymorphic techniques (e.g., computer viruses that rewrite their code).
Some routers use statistical classification techniques to augment other classification techniques instead of using DPI. However, some conventional statistical classification techniques that use software for gathering data are computationally high cost, slow, and therefore impractical for some typical classification scenarios. Additionally, some conventional statistical classification techniques do not reach a conclusion about a given data stream until after the stream has terminated.


A master device for calculating a synchronized actuation time for an N number of slave devices (N being an integer greater than or equal to 2) includes: a transmitting part configured to transmit a request message a K number of times (K being an integer greater than or equal to 2) to each of the N number of slave devices, where the request message includes an actuation command; a receiving part configured to receive a reply message from each of the N number of slave devices, where the reply message includes information on a K number of end-to-end delay times; and an absolute-time calculating part configured to calculate an absolute time for concurrently actuating the N number of slave devices by using the information on the K number of end-to-end delay times received from each of the N number of slave devices.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a master device and a method of controlling the master device in a system composed of a master and multiple slave devices, such as a distributed embedded system, etc., that can set the quickest time (absolute time of synchronized actuation) for concurrently actuating the multiple number of slave devices without involvement by an administrator.
2. Description of the Related Art
An embedded system refers to a computer system in which the software for operating the system is embedded in the hardware to perform only specific functions. Unlike a personal computer, the embedded system has a unique set of requirements and only performs predefined tasks.
One type of embedded system, the distributed embedded system, may include multiple slave devices that operate for the same purpose and a master device for controlling the operation of the slave devices. Here, the master device and the slave devices each correspond to a "computer system in which the software for operating the system is embedded in the hardware to perform only specific functions" mentioned above.
In a distributed embedded system such as a motion control system, etc., the multiple slave devices may have to be actuated concurrently for a common purpose. In other words, the multiple slave devices have to be synchronized for operation.
However, conventional techniques for synchronizing multiple slave devices require that an administrator personally calculate the synchronization time point and input it to each slave device.

Master device for calculating synchronized actuation time of multiple slave devices and method for controlling the same

Foundation of Soongsil University-Industry Cooperation


A MEMS device comprises a substrate, an island-shaped first insulating layer formed on the substrate, a second insulating film formed on the top and side surfaces of the first insulating layer and the top surface of the substrate, and having a thickness smaller than that of the first insulating layer, a metal layer formed on the second insulating film in an island-shaped region where the first insulating layer is formed, and a MEMS system element formed on the metal layer.

A high-frequency micro electro mechanical system (hereinafter referred to as MEMS) element formed on a semiconductor substrate of silicon or the like can be formed easily by using a conventional semiconductor manufacturing process and another nanometer-fabrication process. However, it has a disadvantage that high-frequency characteristics are deteriorated because of parasitic capacitance between a signal line and a silicon substrate.
To decrease the parasitic capacitance between the signal line and the silicon substrate, it may be required to form an insulating film having a thickness of 10 μm or more for a lower layer of the signal line.
As the insulating film which is a lower layer of the signal line, a silicon oxide film (hereinafter referred to as CVD film) produced by a CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) method is conventionally used. Such a CVD film is hardly formed to have a thickness of 10 μm or more. Therefore, there is proposed a structure that a coated layer of a resin such as polyimide is formed on a semiconductor substrate, and a CVD film is additionally formed on it (see, for example, JP-A 2006-229282 (KOKAI)).
But, when the coated layer of the resin such as polyimide is formed on the entire top surface of the semiconductor substrate and the CVD film is formed on it, a large stress acts on the CVD film in a subsequent heating step or the like due to a difference in thermal expansion coefficient from the resin coated layer.

Micro electric mechanical system device and method of producing the same


An apparatus and method for coating an organic film are disclosed. The apparatus comprises an evaporation device, an electron emission device and a spray device; wherein the evaporation device comprises an evaporation container, the evaporation container is a linear evaporation container, in which a uniform organic gas is generated; the electron emission device is horizontally arranged over the evaporation container such that the organic gas evaporated in the evaporation container is uniformly charged and becomes charged organic gas; the spray device is provided with an electric field, under which the charged organic gas is moved toward a substrate so as to deposit the organic film on the substrate.

OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) display, which is provided with an extremely thin organic material coating and a glass substrate, can achieve self-illumination, since the organic material may illuminate when the current pass through it. The OLED display has attracted considerable attention duo to the advantages such as wide viewing angle, significant power saving, simple structure and high quality dynamic picture.
Currently, the OLED display is gradually mass produced. Particularly, the research on the large size AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) display is becoming a hotspot, and then the EL (electroluminescent) module used in AMOLED display is also becoming a main research object. In the conventional process, organic film used in the luminescent layer of the EL module is formed by evaporation. In conventional evaporation process, the evaporation source is a single point source, from which the organic molecules are gasified or sublimated without directionality. The proportion of the material coated on the substrate to the material evaporated is very low, because many sublimated molecules are attached to the evaporation chamber rather than on the substrate. Moreover, it is difficult to form a uniform film by the single point source, because the distance between the evaporation source and the coating position varies with the change of the coating position on the substrate.
It is required to provide an evaporation apparatus by which a large area organic film can be formed with high accuracy, because the uniformity of the film has a great influence on the brightness and the chromaticity of luminescence. In the conventional technology, an apparatus for coating a large area film comprises: a container 24, an evaporated steam flow adjustor 25 and a top plate 26 (as shown in FIG. 1). In addition, the apparatus further comprises a heating device (not shown in FIG. 1). The evaporated steam flow adjustor 25 has a porous layered structure and is disposed between the container 24 and the top plate 26. The evaporated steam flow adjustor 25 is used to control the flow and the direction of the evaporated steam and enlarging the steam distribution area, so as to spray the steam uniformly onto the substrate for providing a planar film formed of sprayed spots. The overlapped deposition area of spray nozzles 261 can be adjusted by changing the distribution and diameter of the spray nozzles 261. However, because the accuracy of deposition cannot be improved by above apparatus and process, the serious waste of organic material has not been avoided and the deposition rate has not been improved yet.
Therefore, selecting for appropriate organic materials and designing a more efficient deposition apparatus, which are beneficial to improve the utilization and the accuracy of the organic materials deposition, become the focus of researcher and manufactory. However, during the conventional process for coating an organic material, the deposited pattern is significantly deformed and is not uniform at all due to the dimensional error and the low accuracy of the mask, thus, the pixel crosstalk and short circuit may occur, the deposition accuracy and the defect-free rate may be further decreased.

Apparatus and method for coating organic film


An apparatus and method provide for curvature corrected temperature variations in a band-gap reference circuit. The apparatus includes a band-gap cell, an IPTAT circuit, a resistor, and a feedback circuit. The band-gap cell is arranged to provide a band-gap voltage. The resistor circuit is coupled to both the band-gap cell and the IPTAT circuit. The feedback circuit is arranged to selectively activate the IPTAT circuit such that an additional correction factor is added to the temperature response of the band-gap cell to provide a second order curve. The IPTAT circuit can be implemented as a simple transistor that is responsive to changes in absolute temperature.

Band-gap voltage references are used as voltage references in electronic systems. The energy band-gap of Silicon is on the order of 1.2 V, and is independent from temperature and power-supply variations. Bipolar transistors have a negative temperature drift with respect to their base-emitter voltage (Vbe) such that their Vbe decreases as the operating temperature increases on the order of −2 mV/deg C. However, the thermal voltage (Vt) of a bipolar transistor has a positive temperature drift (Vt=kT/q) such that Vt increases as temperature increases. The positive temperature drift in the thermal voltage (Vt) may be arranged to compensate the negative temperature drift in the bipolar transistor's base-emitter voltage (Vbe). Band-gap reference circuits use the inherent characteristics of bipolar transistors to compensate for temperature effects and provide a stable operating voltage over various power-supply and temperature ranges.
An example of a modern band-gap reference circuit is illustrated as circuit 500 in FIG. 5. As shown in the figure, two bipolar transistors (Q1, Q2) are arranged with a common base that is connected to VDD. Two resistors (R1, R2) are series connected between the emitter of the first bipolar transistor (Q1) and the reference output (VREF). Another resistor (R3) is connected between the emitter of the second bipolar transistor (Q2) and the reference output (VREF). An error amplifier (EAMP) is used to adjust the voltage of the reference output (VREF) through feedback. At steady-state, the voltage at the common point of resistors R1 and R2 is the same as the voltage at the emitter of the second bipolar transistor (Q2). The two bipolar transistors (Q1, Q2) are arranged to provide a ten-to-one (10:1) current density difference with respect to one another (Q2 to Q1). The ten-to-one current density results in a 60 mV difference between the base-emitter voltages of two bipolar transistors (ΔVbe=Vt*ln(A1/A2)=26 mV*ln(10)=60 mV, at room temperature. A1 and A2 are the respective emitter areas of bipolar transistors Q1 and Q2. Current I1 is set to equal current I2 by means of resistors R2, R3, and feedback operation of error amplifier EAMP. The 60 mV difference appears across the first resistor (R1). The voltage between VDD and the output of the error amplifier corresponds to a reference voltage (VREF) that is given as VREF=Vbe+X*Vt, where X is a constant that is used to scale the temperature correction factor. The temperature correction factor (X) is adjusted by the ratio of the resistors ((R2/R1)*ln(A1/A2)). Typical temperature corrected reference voltages of 1.25 V are achieved by his configuration.


A non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery is provided with a positive electrode, a negative electrode, a separator interposed between the positive electrode and the negative electrode, and a non-aqueous electrolyte, wherein positive electrode active material is a mixture of lithium-manganese composite oxide having spinel structure represented by a general formula Li1+zMn2O4 (wherein a relationship 0≦z≦0.2 is satisfied) and lithium-transition metal composite oxide represented by the general formula LiNi1−x−yCoxMnyO2 (wherein the relationships 0.5<x+y<1.0 and 0.1<y<0.6 are satisfied), and negative electrode active material is graphite coated with low crystalline carbon where whole or a part of a surface of first graphite material as a substrate is coated with second carbon material which is lower in crystallinity compared with the first graphite material.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery provided with a positive electrode, a negative electrode, a separator interposed between the positive electrode and the negative electrode, and a non-aqueous electrolyte, and particularly, to a non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery using mixture of lithium-manganese composite oxide having spinel structure and lithium-transition metal composite oxide containing nickel and cobalt as positive electrode active material in the positive electrode, which is featuring controlled decrease in capacity and high rate discharge characteristics after charge/discharge cycles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as one of advanced secondary batteries featuring high power and high energy density, non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries of high electromotive force, using a non-aqueous electrolyte solution, which are charged/discharged making use of oxidation and reduction of lithium, and featuring light weight, high capacity, excellent charge/discharge cycle characteristics have come into practical use.
In such non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries, lithium-transition metal composite oxides including lithium-cobalt composite oxide such as LiCoO2, lithium-nickel composite oxide such as LiNiO2, and lithium-manganese composite oxide having spinel structure such as LiMn2O4 are generally used as a positive electrode active material in the positive electrode.
Where the lithium-manganese composite oxide having the spinel structure such as LiMn2O4 is used, thermal stability is higher compared with the cases where the lithium-cobalt composite oxide such as LiCoO2 or the lithium-nickel composite oxide such as LiNiO2 is used, however, there have remained problems that the capacity is decreased, hence the non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries having high capacity are not attained, and storage characteristics and charge/discharge cycle characteristics are degraded.
Therefore, in recent years, there has been proposed the use of mixture of the lithium-manganese composite oxide having the spinel structure such as LiMn2O4 and the lithium-transition metal composite oxide such as LiNiO2, to increase the capacity of the non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries, and to improve the storage characteristics and the charge/discharge cycle characteristics under high temperature conditions (refer to Japanese Patent No. 3024636, Japanese Patent Publication 2002-100358 and Japanese Patent Publication 2002-110253, for instance).
Unfortunately, however, in the non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries using the positive electrode prepared by applying the mixture of the lithium-manganese composite oxide having the spinel structure such as LiMn2O4 and the lithium-transition metal composite oxide such as LiNO2 as the positive electrode active material on a positive electrode current collector, a layer of the positive electrode active material becomes hard, and flexibility of the electrode is degraded. Therefore, there have remained problems that the positive electrode active material comes off from the positive electrode current collector, thus the battery capacity is decreased by expansion/shrinkage of the positive electrode active material during charge/discharge.
Especially in recent years, the above-mentioned non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries have been used in various ways. Where, for instance, the non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries are used in electromobiles, the charge/discharge at high current is repeatedly carried out in short time, thus, in the non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries using the positive electrode active material, the battery capacity is remarkably decreased and the charge/discharge cycle characteristics is degraded.
The above-mentioned non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries have generally used graphite as negative electrode active material in negative electrodes.
Unfortunately, however, where the charge/discharged is repeatedly carried out to the non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries using graphite as the negative electrode active material in addition to the positive electrode active material which is the mixture of the lithium-manganese composite oxide having the spinel structure such as LiMn2O4 and the lithium-transition metal composite oxide such as LiNiO2, particularly where the charge/discharge at high current is repeatedly carried out in short time, there have remained problems that internal resistance in the non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries steeply increases and high rate discharge characteristics is remarkably degraded, by deterioration of the graphite as the negative electrode active material and the like.

Non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery


Detecting diversion of spent fuel from Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) by determining possible diversion including the steps of providing a detector cluster containing gamma ray and neutron detectors, inserting the detector cluster containing the gamma ray and neutron detectors into the spent fuel assembly through the guide tube holes in the spent fuel assembly, measuring gamma ray and neutron radiation responses of the gamma ray and neutron detectors in the guide tube holes, processing the gamma ray and neutron radiation responses at the guide tube locations by normalizing them to the maximum value among each set of responses and taking the ratio of the gamma ray and neutron responses at the guide tube locations and normalizing the ratios to the maximum value among them and producing three signatures, gamma, neutron, and gamma-neutron ratio, based on these normalized values, and producing an output that consists of these signatures that can indicate possible diversion of the pins from the spent fuel assembly.

Field of Endeavor
The present invention relates to light water reactor spent fuel assemblies, and more particularly Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) spent fuel assemblies with both UO2 and mixed oxide (MOX) types of fuel and more particularly to determining whether fuel rods (pins) within PWR spent fuel assemblies are missing or have been replaced with dummy fuel rods.
State of Technology
U.S. Pat. No. 7,514,695 for a detector and method for inspecting a sealed nuclear storage container provides the following state of technology information: "Heretofore, spent nuclear fuel has been placed in fuel storage casks which are typically stored above ground, at various locations in the continental United States. These storage areas are typically in restricted areas, and security is provided to protect the casks from possible tampering or the removal of any spent nuclear fuel. At present, the only indication of possible reactor spent fuel diversion from a storage cask is provided by means of tamper-indicating tags and seals which are provided with each of the storage casks. With the increasing risk of terrorist acts within the United States, and the possibility that spent nuclear fuel sources might by sought after and diverted for possible terrorist acts, a renewed effort has been undertaken to identify means by which spent nuclear fuel storage casks may be readily inspected to determine whether spent nuclear fuel which has been stored within same has been removed improperly from the storage cask."
U.S. Pat. No. 4,389,568 for a method for monitoring irradiated nuclear fuel using Cerenkov radiation provides the following state of technology information: "A method is provided for monitoring irradiated nuclear fuel inventories located in a water-filled storage pond wherein the intensity of the Cerenkov radiation emitted from the water in the vicinity of the nuclear fuel is measured. This intensity is then compared with the expected intensity for nuclear fuel having a corresponding degree of irradiation exposure and time period after removal from a reactor core. Where the nuclear fuel inventory is located in an assembly having fuel pins or rods with intervening voids, the Cerenkov light intensity measurement is taken at selected bright spots corresponding to the water-filled interstices of the assembly in the water storage, the water-filled interstices acting as Cerenkov light channels so as to reduce cross-talk. On-line digital analysis of an analog video signal is possible, or video tapes may be used for later measurement using a video editor and an electrometer. Direct measurement of the Cerenkov radiation intensity also is possible using spot photometers pointed at the assembly."
U.S. Pat. No. 4,335,466 for a method and apparatus for measuring irradiated fuel profiles provides the following state of technology information: "In order to comply with various safeguards agreements, inspection organizations such as NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) need a capability of very quickly and accurately monitoring in a non-destructive manner the fissile content of spent fuel assemblies in storage pools. Presently, measurements of the content of residual and produced fissile material are not directly measured but rather are inferred by measuring particular data which is correlated to burnup (which is a measure of nuclear reactor fuel consumption, expressed either as a percent of fuel atoms that have undergone fission or as the amount of energy produced per unit weight of fuel)."

Detecting pin diversion from pressurized water reactors spent fuel assemblies

Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC


Alarm systems, wireless alarm devices, and article security methods are described according to some aspects of the disclosure. In one aspect, an alarm system includes a base communication device, a remote communication device configured to communicate with the base communication device, wherein the remote communication device is adapted to be associated with an article to be secured and wherein the remote communication device comprises alarm circuitry, and wherein the remote communication device is configured to generate a reference signal comprising a plurality of identifiable components corresponding to communications intermediate the base communication device and the remote communication device and to control the alarm circuitry to generate a human perceptible alarm responsive to detection of the presence of the plurality of identifiable components in the reference signal.

Theft detection electronic systems have been used in numerous applications including for example consumer retail applications to deter theft. Some theft detection electronic systems may operate in frequency bands susceptible to electromagnetic interference emitted from sources other than components of the systems. The interference may degrade the operations of the theft detection electronic systems resulting in unreliable operation including signaling of false alarms. Electromagnetic interference may result from different possible sources including for example cellular or cordless telephones or pagers. The impact of these interference sources may be significant in view of the increasing popularity and usage of these devices, including usage by individuals in areas which are secured.
The present disclosure describes apparatus and methods which provide improved communications.


The discharge device includes a nozzle unit, a storage unit for supplying a pressure transmission medium under regulated pressure to the nozzle unit side, a pressurization unit for supplying a pressurized gas under regulated pressure to the storage unit side, a pump mechanism, a branch unit for communicating the nozzle unit, the storage unit, and the pump mechanism with each other, a discharge valve for establishing or blocking communication between the branch unit and the nozzle unit, and a supply valve for establishing or blocking communication between the branch unit and the storage unit. In a state of the discharge valve being closed and the supply valve being opened, the pressurized gas under pressure regulated by the pressurization unit is supplied to the storage unit side and the pressure transmission medium in liquid phase under pressure regulated by the storage unit is supplied to the supply valve side.

In the fields of biology, chemistry, and medical care, the so-called dispensing device is used to dispense a liquid sample and a liquid reagent into containers, such as test tubes or a microplate, in units of very small amounts for the purpose of analysis and inspection. That dispensing device receives attention particularly in use of dispensing a large number of samples, reagents, etc. for analysis of genetic information of animals and plants, screening in creation of medicines, and examination of specimens, e.g., bloods and viruses, in medical care. The reason is that the dispensing device can quickly and accurately perform a lot of operations, which are difficult for a person to manually perform using a pipette, for example. Because the dispensing is performed in many uses as described above, a discharge amount of one droplet is required to be very small (e.g., order of μL (micro-liter) to nL (nano-liter)) and the dispensing device is also required to discharge a very small amount of liquid with high accuracy in order to effectively utilize the samples that are generally expensive or rare. Further, various kinds of analysis and inspections are often performed together from the viewpoint of efficiently progressing a lot of operations. To that end, it is also required for one dispensing device to discharge plural types of liquids.
In general, the dispensing device mainly includes a discharge unit constituted by, e.g., a pump for extracting, from a container storing a liquid sample or a liquid reagent, the sample or the reagent, a nozzle through which the extracted sample or reagent is discharged, and pipes for interconnecting the pump and the nozzle, a driving unit serving as a mechanism to relatively move the nozzle and a container as a dispensing target, and a control unit for controlling operations of individual components including the pump, the driving unit, etc. Among those units, an especially important one is the discharge unit that directly handles the liquid sample and the liquid reagent.
Although there are various types of discharge units, they are mainly grouped into two types depending on a direction in which the sample or the reagent is supplied. In one type, the sample or the reagent is supplied from an opposite end to a discharge port (nozzle). In the other type, the sample or the reagent is supplied from the same end as the discharge port (nozzle), i.e., the sample or the reagent is sucked through the discharge port (nozzle) and then discharged through the discharge port (nozzle). In particular, when the sample or the reagent is expensive or rare and can be prepared just in such a small amount that the pump, the pipes, etc. cannot be filled with the sample or the reagent in amount necessary for operations, or when there are many types of samples or reagents to be discharged and operations of removing the samples or the reagents filled into the pump, the pipes, etc. and cleaning them are troublesome, the other type of the dispensing device is often used in which the sample or the reagent is supplied from the same end as the discharge port (nozzle), i.e., the sample or the reagent is sucked through the discharge port (nozzle) and then discharged through the discharge port (nozzle).
In the dispensing device of the other type described above, for accurate discharge in a very small amount, the sample or the reagent discharged through the discharge port (nozzle) is often discharged in such a manner that the sample or the reagent is departed from a tip end of the discharge port (nozzle) before reaching a target, thus causing the sample or the reagent to fly toward the target. In this specification, such discharge is called "fly-discharge" or "non-contact discharge".
Patent Document 1 states that a dispensing device for discharging a liquid with reciprocal motions of a piston has a problem of being not suitable for a dispensing operation, which requires accuracy of less than several μL, due to the occurrence of a dispensing error. To cope with such a problem, Patent Document 1 proposes a dispensing device in which a liquid can be discharged in an amount of about 200 μL at certain accuracy by discharging the liquid with application of positive pressure from a pressurized gas supply source (or application of positive pressure from a cylinder device in a combined manner). In the device of Patent Document 1, however, because gas (air) is used as a pressure transmission medium, a problem may arise in response and accuracy due to compressibility of the gas (air). For that reason, a dispensing device using a liquid as a pressure transmission medium is also proposed as disclosed in Patent Document 2. Among dispensing devices each using a liquid as a pressure transmission medium, there are dispensing devices, as disclosed in Patent Documents 3 and 4, in which, instead of directly discharging the sample or the reagent with the action of a piston (plunger) of a pump, a valve is disposed midway a piping line and the sample or the reagent is discharged with opening and closing of the valve while the sample or the reagent is previously pressurized by the pump or another pressurizing means.

Discharge device and liquid dispensing device, and method for dispensing liquid