A method of removing an oxide mask during fabrication of semiconductor devices which includes providing a providing a III-V compound semiconductor substrate having a surface, the surface having a growth area and a masked area masked by an oxide film formed on the surface thereof. The oxide film is removed with a Trisdimethylamino group V compound.

In the semiconductor field it is common to sequentially grow several different layers of semiconductor material and use various masks and etching steps to form the desired devices and terminals on the devices. In some methods, masking material, e.g. nitride/oxide or the like, is applied and semiconductor material is grown over masked and unmasked areas. The material on the masked areas is then removed by etching and lift-off. In some instances material is selectively grown in unmasked areas and the masking material is then removed. In some processes a photoresist mask is used to define and develop a hard mask, i.e. a metal mask, a nitride mask, etc.
Generally, in these prior art methods of fabricating semiconductor devices, etching is required to remove unwanted material and masks are removed by etching, solvent, or the like. During the etching and/or mask removal processes, the material of the semiconductor device has a high likelihood of being contaminated by the etchant, which contamination greatly reduces the life of the device, the operating characteristics of the device, and the reliability of the device. Further, the etching process severely damages semiconductor material adjacent the etched areas which further reduces life, operating characteristics, and reliability. Also, etching processes are very time consuming and difficult to perform.
Thus, these prior art techniques involve many process steps such as resist spinning, exposure, developing, cleaning and so on. All of these processes can introduce contamination, decrease yield, etc. A further problem that arises is that the structure or substrate (generally a wafer) must be removed from the growth chamber to remove the masking material. The structure is then masked again and reintroduced into the growth chamber for re-growth. Thus, the prior art techniques keep the wafer vacuum incompatible.
In addition to the masking and etching problems, all known prior art fabrication processes require many interspersed growing, masking and etching steps which greatly complicate and lengthen the process. For example, when epitaxial layers are grown, the wafers must be placed in a vacuum or pressure chamber to provide the atmosphere for the growth. Each time the wafer must be etched and/or masked, it must be removed from the chamber, resulting in large amounts of preparation time for each step. Also, each time wafers are removed from a chamber and subsequently replaced, the opening and preparation of the chamber (as well as the processing of the wafer) is an opportunity for additional impurities and contaminants to be introduced to the wafer.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to provide fabrication methods for semiconductor devices with improved masking processes.
It is a purpose of the present invention to provide a new and improved method of masking gallium arsenide substrates during semiconductor device fabrication.
It is another purpose of the present invention to provide a new and improved method of masking gallium arsenide substrates during the fabrication of semiconductor devices which does not require removal of the substrate from the processing chamber to remove the mask.
It is still another purpose of the present invention to provide a new and improved method of masking gallium arsenide substrates during the fabrication of semiconductor devices which does not require the introduction of contaminants, such as photoresist, solvents and etchants.
It is a further purpose of the present invention to provide a new and improved method of masking gallium arsenide substrates during the fabrication of semiconductor devices which is much simpler and includes less chance of contamination of the devices.
And a further purpose of the present invention is to reduce the temperature to which the substrate is exposed, to perform the masking steps.
Another purpose of the present invention is to provide a new and improved method of masking gallium arsenide substrates wherein the mask is removed at conditions similar to growth, with small changes in chemistry.
Still another purpose of the present invention is to provide a new and improved method of masking gallium arsenide substrates wherein the mask is removed, enabling regrowth, without significantly etching or contaminating the grown epilayer.
Yet another purpose of the present invention is to provide a new and improved method of masking gallium arsenide substrates enabling the mask to be without changing the gases used for regrowth.

Masking methods during semiconductor device fabrication


An inline type electron gun has a lopsided electric field applied to it to improve the spot formation of an electron beam in forming an expanded focus lens. The electron gun has first electrode to eighth electrode and has a lopsided electric field formed only at the two side apertures of a trio of apertures formed at one of the opposing sides of the sixth and seventh electrodes before a lopsided main focus lens formed between the seventh and eighth electrodes.

Color cathode ray tubes are, as shown in FIG. 8, have a bulb 8 formed by uniting a face plate 4 in which a fluorescent layer 2 is formed on the inside surface of a funnel 6. At the inside of a neck portion of bulb 8, there is received an electron gun 10 which emits R,G,B electron beams 12. The beams pass through apertures of a shadow mask 14 and then strike fluorescent layer 2 to form a picture element on a screen. A deflection yoke 16 disposed on the outside surface of the funnel 6 deflects the beams to form the picture on the screen.
The inline type electron gun for such color cathode ray tubes has advantages of being easily manufactured due to the simple structure in which R,G,B electron beams are transversely arranged in a line and omitting vertical dynamic convergence. However, this gun has the disadvantage of having serious spherical aberration of a focus lens for focusing the electron beams.
To reduce spherical aberration, it is well known that greater spacing between a pair of electrodes forming the focus lens creates an expanded focus lens. In this case, the greater the spacing between the pair of electrodes forming the focus lens, the smaller the spherical aberration is. However, when the spacing therebetween is excessively great, static electric charge generated from the periphery of the neck portion has influence on the focus lens to cause the electron beams misconvergence, which severely restricts the expanded focus lens of the inline type electron gun.
Thus, attempts at forming the expanded focus lens have been continued. One of them is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,592 "Color Picture Tube having an Improved Inline electron Gun with an Expanded Focus Lens", issued to Richard H. Hughes on Jan. 25, 1983. FIG. 9 shows the main focus lens structure of the inline type electron gun provided in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,592. The electron gun of such method has R,G,B apertures 18R,18G, 18B, 20R, 20G, 20B which are included in a pair of electrodes 18,20, facing each other and has a horizontal lens 22,24 which is formed by deep drawing at a predetermined depth from the opposing side of the two electrodes 18 20 at their peripheries, thereby, in practice, forming the expanded main focus lens without the influence of external static charge. The width of both horizontal lenses 22,24 is, in practice, determined by the lateral width D of the third electrode 18 and by the lateral width E of the fourth electrode 20. While the lateral width D,E is severely restricted by the inside diameter of the neck portion of the color cathode ray tube (CRT), in a practical manufacturing process, it is much restricted by the distance A between the axes of each aperture. That is, while the horizontal lens 22,24 can be used in a SS(small separation) type of 5.08 mm or in a MS(middle separation) type of 5.5-5.6 mm, it can not be used in a LS(large separation) type of more than 6.6 mm.
The reason for not applying the horizontal lens to the LS type will be described as follows. FIG. 10 illustrates n a plan view the fourth electrode 20. Each R,G,B electron beam ER,EG,EB which passes through each aperture 20R,20G,20B thereof is positioned at the center thereof. However, when the distance A between the axes of each aperture is more than 6.6 mm, the respective distance from the two side apertures 20R,20B to the two ends of the horizontal lens 24 become different from each other, whereby each horizontal focusing voltage between the central aperture and the two side apertures is different.
The reason of the horizontal focusing voltage difference above is that the both side apertures 20R, 20B are nearer the electrode 20 than the central aperture 20G, whereby the side apertures have higher potential than the center aperture. For the same reason as above, the two side apertures 20R,20B have a partial or local difference between the horizontal and vertical focusing voltage, whereby the picture element formed on the screen is distorted.
FIG. 11 shows shapes of each electron beam when the expanded focus lens electron gun as described above is used in the LS type. As shown in this figure, a core C and a haro H of spot shape formed on the screen by R,G beams ER,EB are deformed right and left so as to be lopsided and in the spot shape of the center G beams EG, the lateral width is 130% of its vertical height for the core C to be formed in a lengthy ellipse shape, and, at the same time, an haro H is formed in a diamond type.

Inline type electron gun for color cathode ray tubes


An image reader that uses a fluorescent lamp as a light source and that corrects colors in accordance with quantities of light reflected from a reference white plate prior to scanning a document. A relationship between a tube wall temperature of the fluorescent lamp and a quantity of light which have been measured in advance is stored in a RAM, and an AGC circuit for controlling gain of a color sensor in accordance with the temperature detected by a temperature sensor is provided, or the tube current of the fluorescent lamp in accordance with the temperature detected by the temperature sensor is controlled so that the quantity of light of the fluorescent lamp can be maintained constant.

The invention relates to an image reader that causes an image reading optical system including a color reading sensor to scan a document region.
An exemplary image reader including a color reading sensor is shown in FIG. 4. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 1 designates an image reader unit; 1a, a housing thereof; 2, a document; 3, a platen glass; 4, a fluorescent lamp; 5, a reflecting mirror; 6, a rod lens array; 7, a filter; 8, a CCD (charge-coupled device) color line sensor; 8a, a connecting member; 9, a circuit board; 10, a lamp heater; 11, a control signal flexible cable; 12, an illumination power supply flexible cable; 13, a radiation plate; 13a, a projecting portion; 14, an electromagnetic shield punching drive; 15, an IC (integrated circuit) chip; and 16, a reference white plate.
FIG. 5 is an electric block diagram of the image reader. An optical output from a document read by the sensor 8 is converted into a digital signal by an A/D converter circuit 17, and the digital signal is then applied to an image output terminal 19 through an image processor circuit 18.
If the fluorescent lamp 4 is used as a light source in such an image reader, an image reader having the characteristics that the warmup time is short and that the lamp heater power is set to a low value because the optical output is temperature-dependent and must start copying even if the lamp tube wall temperature is still low and has not yet reached an optimal temperature. If the image reader starts a continuous copying operation at this point, the lamp tube wall temperature rises due to heating by itself with the lamp being turned on, thus causing fluctuations of the quantity of light.
A lamp tube wall temperature rising characteristic at 10.degree. C. is shown in FIG. 6. It is assumed here that the lamp heater power cannot be increased and that the warmup time must be one minute. FIG. 6 shows an operation sequence of an image reader, a solid line indicating a nominal condition and broken lines including an upper and lower limits of an acceptable tolerance. This image reader exhibits a characteristic that the heater temperature is risen to 37.degree. C. under the nominal condition; that the heater is turned off upon turning the lamp on at 37.degree. C.; and an AGC/AOC operation is started upon turning the lamp off after 55 seconds. Further, the control temperature during standby is 50.degree. C.
With the characteristic shown in FIG. 6, to satisfy the one-minute warmup time, the lamp must be turned on at about 19.degree. C. and a copying operation is then started under the condition of the nominal heater power (the solid line). As a result, the fluctuations in the quantity of light, such as shown in FIG. 7, are observed, i.e., the quantity of light changes noticeably while making initial 10 copies or performing 40 scanning operations. The reason is that the optical output of the fluorescent lamp depends on the temperature and has the characteristic shown in FIG. 8.
In FIG. 8, the optical output of the fluorescent lamp peaks with the tube wall being at 45.degree. to 50.degree. C., and decreases with decreasing temperature. Assuming that its peak output is 100%, then the optical output at 19.degree. C. becomes about 40% of the peak value. If the copying operation is performed continuously under this condition, the tube wall temperature of the fluorescent lamp changes drastically, thus causing the conspicuous fluctuations in the quantity of light, as shown in FIG. 7.
In the case of the image reader, a sensor output of the CCD color line sensor 8 with respect to the reference white plate 16 is monitored, and an analog gain must be set before A/D conversion at the A/D converter circuit 17 (see FIG. 5) that comes after sensing by the sensor. This operation is called "AGC," and the normal operation sequence is that AGC is effected before the image reader becomes ready to start copying (READY).
Let us take the case shown in FIG. 7 as an example and assume that AGC is effected after the lamp has been turned on during warmup. This timing corresponds to the zero copy state in FIG. 7. Assuming that the quantity of light is 100% at this timing, as the continuous copying operation is proceeded, the quantity of light increases to a level of as much as 250%. This makes AGC useless and the increase in the quantity of light causes the AGC set value to overflow (either the output of the amplifier or the output of the A/D converter becomes saturated).
Consequently, a normal reproduction characteristic such as D.sub.OUT shown in FIG. 9 cannot be obtained, producing a very low-quality image whose low-density portion is not well reproduced as shown in FIG. 10.


The present invention relates to a security device for section processor which can execute an information security function of high speed data in an super highway information network in real time by implementing an information security algorithm by hardware in the section processor. According to the present invention, related hardware can be easily implemented by simply imbedding an encoder and a decoder in the section processor of the super highway information network. Thus, a section processor having information security functions can be easily implemented in one integrated circuit. Also, the security device for section processor in accordance with the present invention is superior to other device in terms of an information security function itself, economicity, efficiency, and power consumption efficiency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a security device for section processor, and more particularly, to a security device for section processor which can execute an information security function for high speed data in a super highway information network in real time by implementing an information security algorithm by hardware.
2. Description of the Related Art
The research towards the super highway information network which is currently being developed in many countries is focused on the development of the technologies required in the super highway information network itself. However, an information security function in the super highway information network has not yet been developed thus far. In this regard, works directed to the preparation of a draft as to the information security in the super highway information network have been initiated at the ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) forum since 1995. However, these works are still in an early stage that only an information security scheme at an upper level by software has been proposed. Note that the processing speed is relatively slow according to the information security scheme at the upper level. Also, the information security scheme by software has a drawback that high speed data in the super highway information network cannot be processed in real time.
Recently, multimedia users who try to communicate by using the ATM technology, which is a key to the super highway information network, are increasing. However, the risk that various information in the ATM system can be lost increases due to hackers or crackers. Particularly, the information security in the super highway information network is becoming more important than in any other system since information intrusions in the super highway information network by hackers or crackers can be done within a very short period.
The conventional information security technique in the ATM has been implemented at the upper level of the super highway information network by software by using generalized processors or digital signal processors. However, according to these conventional techniques, the data processing speed is very slow. Further, these conventional techniques have a drawback that high speed data transferred via the super highway information network cannot be processed at a high speed, since they are implemented by using generalized processors or digital signal processors at the upper level of the super highway information network by software.

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


In a telecommunication network, a method of determining the accuracy of the real time clocks associated with each element of the network is disclosed. The method comprises sending a marker signal at a predetermined reference time along with the traffic signals to one or more elements in the network, and arranging the element to record the time of the arrival of the marker signal using its clock. The recorded time is then compared with the reference time at the network management center so as to determine the accuracy. In order to correct an inaccurate clock, a message signal is sent, so as to cause the clock to be adjusted by the difference between the reference and its recorded time.

This invention relates to a method of determining the accuracy of the real time clocks which are provided within each element of a distributed telecommunications network.
Managed Network Elements (NEs), for example a shelf of electronic switches each contain a Real Time Clock (RTC) which is used for time stamping event reports sourced from the respective element. Such reports may, for example, be the start or finish times of a traffic connection. It is clearly important that all the RTCs are synchronised to as great an accuracy as can be obtained. The known method of setting the RTC within each element relies on sending a "time set" message from the Network Management Centre (NMC) to the element. These messages suffer varying delays during transmission around the network and in practice have been found to provide a setting accuracy of only between 3 and 5 seconds, depending on the network size and loading of the network. The known setting method is "open looped"--the NMC has no way of knowing to what accuracy a respective RTC has been set after the time set command has been sent.

Real time clock synchronization in a telecommunications network


The invention is directed to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor. The method comprises steps of providing a substrate having a gate structure formed thereon and forming a source/drain extension region in the substrate adjacent to the gate structure. A spacer is formed on the sidewall of the gate structure and a source/drain region is formed in the substrate adjacent to the spacer but away from the gate structure. A bevel carbon implantation process is performed to implant a plurality carbon atoms into the substrate and a metal silicide layer is formed on the gate structure and the source/drain region.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device capable of solving junction leakage problem.
2. Description of Related Art
With the decreasing of the size of the integrated circuit and the increasing of the integration of the integrated circuit, the line width, junction area and junction depth are decreased. To effectively increase the functionalities of the device and to decrease the resistance and signal transmission delay due to the resistance and the capacitance, the metal silicide is formed at the junction region to effectively decrease the contact resistance.
In the well known self-aligned metal silicide manufacturing process, nickel silicide is formed at the surfaces of the gate, the spacer and the source/drain region of the metal-oxide semiconductor. However, nickel silicide possesses piping and spiking problems. That is, after the nickel silicide is formed, the nickel silicide diffuses into the substrate and the channel regions and the diffusion of the nickel silicide leads to current leakage. Therefore, to solve the problem mentioned above, a pre-amorphous implantation (PAI) process is commonly performed before the nickel silicide is formed so as to implant dopants including indium into the silicon substrate. Hence, the silicon surface is converted into an amorphous silicon structure. Therefore, the nickel piping and spiking phenomenon can be avoided.
Nevertheless, during the pre-amorphous implantation is performed, the end-of-range defect leads to a lot of defects generating at the surface of the source/drain region. Therefore, the junction leakage seriously happens at the source/drain region.

Method for manufacturing semiconductor device


An extendable spar buoy sea-based communication system includes a spar buoy having a retracted configuration deployable from an underwater vessel and an extended configuration after deployment, and a communication subsystem mounted to the top of the spar buoy and supported thereby.

Modern warfare frequently involves multiple branches of the military working in cooperation, and high speed and high data rate communications between the acting forces during unpredictable conditions in hostile environments is frequently necessary. Time critical targets need to be neutralized quickly. The ability to communicate high-resolution images at a very high data rate is often required. To perform and execute military missions, the effectiveness of such communications often depends on, for example, a real time data link. In another example, high-resolution intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) images distributed by the satellite global broadcast system (GBS) may be required. In many of these situations, stealth is paramount. The sensor or communication system should not reveal the location of recipient forces or ships or otherwise compromise an operation.
Underwater vessels such as submarines often form an integral part of the battlefield scenario. Submarines can aid a variety of missions and deployment scenarios including neutralizing targets, support of special operations forces and clandestine missions, as well as enhancing linkage to other theater assets.
Submarines provide mobility, stealth and endurance for military operations. However, in the littorals or coastal regions near the sea surface, at slow speed, the probability of the submarine being detected increases and the consequences of detection are magnified. Therefore, it is advantageous for the submarine to have the ability to communicate while at sufficient depth and speed to maintain stealth and while carrying on mission functions.
Sea-based communications enable submarine participation in the battlefield scenario. High bandwidth satellite communication (SATCOM) is one enabler for submarine participation in the battlefield scenario, such as time-critical Network Centric Warfare (NCW) operations. Existing options for such communications, however, offer either high data rate communications with an antenna exposed such as for SATCOM reception/and or transmission, or stealth (with very low data rates), but not both. Known sea-based communication systems, particularly for high bandwidth submarine communications, have included mast-mounted antennas that are deployed and retracted from the submarine sail. However, deployment from the submarine sail has several drawbacks. The limited length of the mast requires that the submarine operate at relatively shallow periscope depths for extended periods of time. Wakes generated by the mast can be detectable for miles. Thus, the safety of the mission and the submarine can be compromised. Finally, the size (and hence, data rate) of retractable mast mounted SATCOM antennas are limited.
Alternatively, a variety of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) have been developed or are under development for establishing communications for submerged submarines. UUVs are capable of carrying out a number of sophisticated tasks and may provide for multiple roles, i.e., communication and reconnaissance. Such systems, however, typically have a number of disadvantages. A UUV can maintain its attitude in wave motion near the surface only by operating above some minimum speed. This limits the life of the battery that powers the UUV. Also, the UUV creates a small wake which increases its detectability. Moreover, the UUV must be able to support an antenna large enough to receive GBS at a high data rate, and it must be high enough out of the water to avoid frequent sea wave upsets. To achieve these requirements, a moderately large UUV is required, at high cost. Additionally, recovery of an expensive and relatively large UUV diverts the submarine from its primary mission, and incurs additional risk of detection.
Traditional spar buoy designs are typically very large, stiff floating platforms comprising a large mass with significant righting moments. These spar buoys serve as large work platforms or data collection/telemetering buoys. One example is the ODAS Italia 1 spar buoy, which is approximately 150 feet in length with 24,000 pounds displacement. An open sea laboratory for oceanographic studies is one use of the ODAS Italia 1 spar buoy. Such designs, however, must be radically rescaled for uses where qualities such as small size and stealth are necessary or desired.
A surface floating buoy, even with deployed outriggers, also has disadvantages especially if used for communications purposes. It provides a poor platform for a stabilized antenna that must maintain its beam on a satellite in rough seas and high winds. The antenna must be high enough to minimize wind effects and wave washover, and the buoy must be large enough that wind drag on the elevated antenna will not upset it. These factors make a surface floating buoy too large for the intended purposes.
Retrievable buoys constitute another type of known buoy for use in submarine communications systems. Retrievable buoys are of modest size and may include a directional antenna on the top end. The retrievable buoy is released from a cradle on the deck a submarine, aft of the sail, and carries a data and recovery cable with it. This retrievable buoy system has a number of disadvantages. First, the concept calls for two such retrievable buoys, so that one may be active while the other is being retrieved and re-launched. Frequent release and retrieval activity produces acoustic signatures and increase the probability of detection, which is undesirable. Also, the system does not provide wideband communications at depth and speed because the buoy will reach the surface only if neither depth nor speed is excessive. Moreover, the size of the antenna that can be enclosed in the top of the retrievable buoy is too small to receive some types of communications such as wide-band GBS reception. In addition, the motion of the submarine only allows for data gathering until the data and recovery cable is depleted, which is only a few minutes due to the limited length of cable available because the cable must be strong enough to retrieve the retractable buoy. At that point, communications are interrupted and the retrievable buoy is pulled underwater and back into its cradle on the submarine.

Extendable spar buoy sea-based communication system


An image-forming device for an electrographic printer, in which a latent electrical charge pattern of electrical signals is produced in an electrode unit having an electrode matrix situated between a particle carrier and a backing electrode. The matrix comprises a screen or grid of electrodes and a plurality of apertures. The apertures are partly opened and closed electrostatically for the controlled transmission of pigment particles of toner to an information carrier (e.g., paper). The electrodes and other surfaces of the device which are contacted by the pigment particles are provided with a layer of antistatic coating of an electrically conductive or semiconductive material. Tribo friction charges which are produced between the pigment particles and the electrodes and other surfaces are transported by the antistatic coating to a control unit which is connected to ground and which conducts the tribo charges from the device.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention refers to an image forming device in printers of the type which comprise an electrode unit, including a screen or grid of electrodes and a plurality of apertures or passages between the electrodes, situated between at least a particle carrier and a backing electrode, whereby the passages are partly opened and closed electrostatically for the controlled transition of the pigment particles through the electrode unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Swedish Patent No. 8704883-1 (PCT-SE88-00653) discloses a method for developing pictures and text with pigment particles on an information carrier, directly from computer generated electric signals, without the need for these signals to be intermediately stored for temporary conversion to light energy, which is the case in the photo-conductive printers, e.g., laser printers.
These problems have been solved by bringing the information carrier into electrical cooperation with at least a screen or a grid-shaped matrix, preferably an electrode matrix, which, through control in accordance with the configuration of the desired pattern, at least partly opens and closes passages through the matrix, which is galvanically connected to a voltage source. An electric field is thus exposed through the opened passages for the attraction of the pigment particles of the toner towards the information carrier.
In this method, herein referred to as the EMS-concept, the pigment is produced by the pigment particles passing through the openings or passages in the electrode matrix. Thus, the pigment particles can touch parts of the electrode matrix during the developing process. This physical contact between the pigment particles and the isolating surface layer of the electrode matrix or other non-conducting parts of the printer device gradually can give rise to tribo (friction) charges. These charges change the electric field so that the dots produced on the information carrier (e.g., the paper) are negatively affected in shape, size, blackness and definition. Further tribo charges may cause attraction forces between the pigment particles and other parts of the printer device, so that passages are plugged as a result of the increased quantity of attracted pigment particles.
It has also been observed that electric fields can attract pigment particles in areas adjacent the passages, so that developed dots on a paper can emit pigment particles onto non-desired surfaces and other parts of the device.
In the other methods, described, for example, in GB 2108432, the pigment particles touch nonconducting parts of the device, which control the electric field pattern between the information carrier and the pigment particles, and printing quality is affected and degraded by the above-mentioned tribo charges.


A fully depleted semiconductor-on-insulator (FDSOI) transistor structure includes a back gate electrode having a limited thickness and aligned to a front gate electrode. The back gate electrode is formed in a first substrate by ion implantation of dopants through a first oxide cap layer. Global alignment markers are formed in the first substrate to enable alignment of the front gate electrode to the back gate electrode. The global alignment markers enable preparation of a virtually flat substrate on the first substrate so that the first substrate can be bonded to a second substrate in a reliable manner.

The present invention relates to field-effect transistors (FETs), and more particularly to thin-body fully-depleted semiconductor-on-insulator (SOI) FETs including a back gate self-aligned to a front gate, and methods of manufacturing the same.
Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) field-effect transistors (FETs) are employed in almost every electronic circuit application, such as signal processing, computing, and wireless communications. Scaling down the gate length of both N-channel FETs (NFETs) and P-channel FETs (PFETs) in CMOS circuits to shorter dimensions can increase the speed of the CMOS circuits. However, detrimental short-channel effects can lead to high off-state leakage currents in CMOS devices, thereby increasing the power consumption. In case of extreme short-channel effects, CMOS circuits fail to operate.
Fully-depleted semiconductor-on-insulator (FDSOI) FETs with thin SOI bodies provide improved electrostatic integrity than thick-body partially-depleted SOI (PDSOI) FETs. For example, K. K. Young, "Short-channel effect in fully-depleted SOI MOSFETs", IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 36, pp. 399-402 (1989); V. P. Trivedi and J. G. Fossum, "Scaling fully depleted SOI CMOS", IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 50, pp. 2095-2103 (2003); A. Kumar, J. Kedzierski, and S. E. Laux, "Quantum-based simulation analysis of scaling in ultrathin body device structures", IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 52, pp. 614-617 (2005); and D. V. Singh et al., "Stress memorization in high-performance FDSOI devices with ultra-thin silicon channels and 25 nm gate lengths", in IEDM Tech. Dig., 2005, pp. 511-514 provide theoretical predictions and experimental demonstration of superior short-channel characteristics of thin semiconductor-on-insulator (SOI) FETs.
As described in V. P. Trivedi and J. G. Fossum, "Nanoscale FDSOI CMOS: thick or thin BOX ?", IEEE Electron Device Lett., vol. 26-28, pp. 26,2005, the application of a back gate voltage with the buried oxide (BOX) acting as the back gate dielectric leads to further improvement in short-channel effects of thin SOI FETs. Further, it is well known that a back gate voltage can also be used for tuning the FET threshold voltage.
Several back-gated SOI structures have been proposed in the past, though primarily for threshold voltage control, where the back gate electrode is beneath the entire active area, such as, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,027 to Terrill et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,619,054 to Hashimoto, U.S. Pat. No. 6,080,610 to Hashimoto, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,307,233 Awaka et al. The overlap of the back gate electrode with the source/drain region leads to increased parasitic capacitance, which leads to slower FET switching speed. Therefore, in order to minimize the parasitic capacitance penalty, localized back gates are desired.
A known method for creating localized and self-aligned back gates is a replacement gate process, where the back gates are implanted after the removal of the dummy gate. This method is disclosed, for example, in U. S. Pat. No. 5,942,781 to Burr et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,072,217 to Burr, U.S. Pat. No. 6,100,567 to Burr, U.S. Pat. No. 6,383,904 to Yu, U.S. Pat. No. 6,391,695 to Yu, U.S. Pat. No. 6,423,599 to Yu, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,611,023 to En et al. Creating a back gate in a replacement gate flow involves back gate ion implantation through the SOI channel and the BOX layers, which necessitates the use of high energy ion implantation. High energy implants through the thin SOI region may amorphize the channel region, which is detrimental for FET drive current. Furthermore, high energy back gate implants will have large vertical as well as lateral straggle (e.g., 300 nm for As implantation at 500 keV of energy). Large lateral straggle not only limits the proximity of adjacent NFETs and PFETs, but also leads to unintentional overlap of the back gate electrode with the source/drain region.
In general, reliable alignment of forming FDSOI devices in which a back gate is aligned to a front gate poses a challenge to semiconductor manufacturing. An economical and manufacturing-friendly method of reliably aligning a back gate to a front gate on FDSOI devices while minimizing an overlay offset is desirable.

Back-gated fully depleted SOI transistor

International Business Machines Corporation


An illuminating product display providing customer interaction and product synchronization is disclosed. The product display may include an upright display member having an illuminating member and lighting niches through which dynamic light shows may be projected. A product may be positioned in a lighting niche. A product experience shelf may also be coupled to the upright display member. The product experience shelf may include translucent recesses for holding and illuminating demonstration products. The product experience shelf may also incorporate an illuminated ring or border lining the outer edge of each recess for additional lighting effects. An interactive customer interface may allow customers to adjust a control module which coordinates synchronized dynamic light shows throughout the display. The customer interface may also be illuminated and positioned on the product experience shelf. Furthermore, the dynamic light shows may be synchronized with the lighting products.

Product displays and fixtures for promoting merchandise within a retail environment are well known in the art. Promotional displays serve to catch the attention of customers, spark an interest in a product, and to eventually persuade customers to purchase the product. Displays attempt to accomplish this in any one of a variety of ways and may take any form. But in particular, product displays need to set a product apart from its competition within a retail environment, without being too excessive or intrusive to customers.
Some of the more common types of product displays use images, posters, signage or banners to promote a product. Because of the widespread use of such imagery, however, such displays tend to be too plain and blend into a retail setting. To further set a product apart from its surroundings, some displays may employ sound effects, music, video or other media. However, the volume on such displays may be set too low for the environment to effectively advertise the product. Alternatively, the continuous playback of such media may prove to be too loud, annoying, and deter rather than attract customers. Although some displays also include motion sensors to play such media only when customers are nearby, the sensors are often too sensitive and do not help to that effect. While there are several ways to effectively promote a product at the point of sale, the more effective displays tend to provide alluring displays that also allow customers to fully sample the product. More specifically, a display may provide a proper showcase and a demonstration, or dummy model, of a particular product for customers to evaluate and test in the store before purchase.
With respect to lighting products, a demonstration model of the product may be displayed within the store. However, displays promoting lighting products are generally uninteresting, unattractive, and offer customers limited, if any, interaction with the device. Furthermore, typical retail stores do not provide an elaborate display for only one product or manufacturer. Specifically, if a demonstration model is provided for one lighting unit it will almost certainly be surrounded by several other similar displays for competing units grouped into the same aisle, department, or the like. This arrangement makes it difficult to set a particular lighting product apart from the competition. Additionally, light from surrounding units and strong overhead lights typically found in retail stores make it extremely difficult to evaluate the illumination of a single lighting product.
Displays promoting fragrance objects similarly provide demonstration bottles or testers for sampling. Testers are bottles of perfume that customers can spray into the air or onto a sampling card at the point of sale to sample a scent. However, multiple testers from different manufacturers are usually grouped together in a single area designated for sampling. As with displays for lighting products, this makes it difficult to distinguish and advertise one particular fragrance product over the competition. Furthermore, testers are generally provided only for perfumes and colognes, but not for fragrance dispensers designed for the home. Consequently, when selecting a fragrance for home use, customers are forced to guess by reading the description on package labels, smelling the packaging, or opening the package in the store.
Therefore, multiple needs exist for an attractive illuminating display that provides an interesting destination within a retail environment as well as proper demonstrations of products associated with lighting, fragrance, or the like. More specifically, needs exist for a display promoting products that attracts customers from a distance, sets the products apart from the competition, substantially blocks unwanted ambient light, and also provides customer interaction. An ideal display should also be cost-conscious and provide a display that may be easily installed and readily adaptable to new products or changing retail environments. The display should also require minimal space and mountable on existing shelving units.

Illuminated product display with consumer interaction and product synchronization


An outer frame (71) is formed by orderly connecting four connecting blocks (74) arranged at predetermined intervals with four beam members (75). The connecting block (74) is made of heat insulating synthetic resin as well as the beam member (75). A lower cover (73) is fitted in a lower surface of the outer frame (71) and an upper cover (72) is fitted in an upper surface of the outer frame (71). Foamable synthetic resin is charged into a panel space (P) enclosed by the outer frame (71) and both the covers (72), (73) from a filling port (84).

1. Technical Field
This invention relates to an outer panel adapted to be attached to an outer surface of a frame of an air conditioner.
2. Description of the Earlier Technology
There is an outer panel of this kind, which fills a space between two steel cover plates with foamed urethane resin for securing heat insulation. The insulating outer panel has been manufactured according to the following procedures.
First, the two cover plates are disposed to vertically face each other at a predetermined interval. Then, a mold plate is pressed against each of four sides of the upper and the lower cover plates and the space between the upper and the lower cover plates is charged with urethane resin under that condition. After the foaming of the urethane resin has finished, the mold plates are removed.
With the outer panel of the above-mentioned conventional construction, during the charging or the foaming of the urethane resin, the urethane resin is apt to leak from clearances at contact portions between the cover plates and the mold plates. When the leaked resin attaches to the outer surfaces of the cover plates and cures there, it becomes necessary to remove the cured resin from the outer surfaces of the cover plates. Accordingly, the outer panel takes much labor to be manufactured and tends to be damaged in its outlook.


The present invention relates to a user friendly, inexpensive, portable space saving apparatus in which to house a conventional commercially available tagging gun and actuation means for automation of the tagging operation. The instant invention will significantly reduce operator fatigue and substantially increase plant safety and productivity. In particular, one embodiment is disclosed for electrical operation and a second embodiment is disclosed for pneumatic operation.

This invention relates to a housing apparatus to house a tagging gun which affixes tags to garments by means of tag fasteners of the "bar lock" or similar type.
Clothing manufactures generally have a need to affix tags to clothing. The tags contain such information as size, price, style, color, inventory control numbers and other such similar information. The tags are affixed to the garments by the use of a tag fastener with the fastener being dispensed into the garment by some form of tagging apparatus.
Two common apparatus are available for use in dispensing the tag fastener into the garment. The first and more basic method is by the use of a common hand-held tagging gun. The tagging gun is readily available, inexpensive to obtain and is simple and straight-forward to operate. Despite these benefits, the tagging gun suffers many drawbacks. In order to operate the gun the operator must place the gun in one hand and the garment in the other, then position the gun to the appropriate place on the garment and squeeze the trigger of the tagging gun. As one hand is continually occupied by the tagging gun, the operator has but one free hand with which to manipulate the garment. This proves to be an inefficient method of tagging. Whenever the tagging gun is lifted up the possibility exists that the operator retrieves the gun by the needle end thereby causing injury. Whenever the tagging gun is placed back upon the work station the possibility exists that it is placed down on the needle end or dropped thereby causing damage to the gun. Through constant holding and squeezing of the tagging gun trigger, operator fatigue quickly sets in.
In order to alleviate the problems associated with hand-held tagging guns, automated tagging apparatus have been proposed. Illustrative of the previously proposed automated apparatus is that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,318, issued Nov. 1, 1988 to Meyers. Such apparatus provide means for securing the fastener dispensing device in a fixed position and for effecting the automatic operation of the apparatus by means of actuating a readily accessible switch. This type of apparatus enhances productivity by freeing both hands of the operator and eliminating the necessity of the operator having to hold and squeeze the tagging gun trigger. This type of apparatus eliminates the possibility of an operator grabbing a needle and also eliminates damage to the tagging dispenser by eliminating the possibility of dropping the dispenser or placing it down on the needle end.
While these types of apparatus can greatly increase the speed, safety and efficiency of the tagging process, they suffer from several shortcomings. Due to the complexity of the apparatus, these machines are difficult to manufacture and assemble. As this type of apparatus uses a proprietary tag dispensing unit, added expense is realized in manufacturing and maintaining the device. With many moving parts, repairs can be frequent and costly. This situation can be aggravated if the broken part needs to be ordered from the manufacturer and the tag dispensing unit is nonfunctional until arrival of the replacement part. A final disadvantage is that this type of apparatus must be modified each time a fastener of a different size is necessary.
The present invention overcomes the shortcomings of both types of methods previously proposed. The present invention securely houses a readily available tagging gun in a secure and stationary position, thereby freeing both hands of the operator and also eliminating the necessity of the operator holding and squeezing the tagging gun trigger, and also eliminating the possibility of either grabbing the tagging gun needle or dropping the gun onto the floor. The present invention consists of a simple design utilizing a minimal number of moving parts. This will substantially reduce manufacture and assembly costs of the invention. As the invention utilizes a minimal number of moving parts, all constructed of common materials, both machine down-time and repair costs will be reduced. Should the invention malfunction, the tagging gun can be used manually, if necessary, during the pendency of the repairs. As the invention accepts a readily available commercial tagging gun, the costs associated with proprietary tagging fasteners is eliminated, as is the need to modify the tagging gun to accept fasteners of a different type.
Prior techniques do not suggest the present inventive combination of component elements as disclosed and claimed herein. The present invention achieves its intended purposes, objectives and advantages over the prior devices through a new, useful and non-obvious combination of component elements, which is simple to use, with the utilization of a minimum number of functioning parts, at a reasonable cost to manufacture, assemble, test and by employing only readily available material.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive, portable, and user-friendly housing apparatus for securely housing any conventional readily available tagging gun which readily accepts fasteners of any size, and means for automatic hands free operation of the tagging gun.
Another object of the invention is that the apparatus be of simple design, being constructed of inexpensive and common and readily available parts and have a minimal number of internal moving parts.
A final object of this invention to be specifically enumerated herein is to provide a housing apparatus and method for a conventional tagging gun in accordance with the proceeding objects and which will conform to conventional forms of manufacture, be of simple construction and easy to use so as to provide a device that would be economically feasible, long lasting and relatively trouble free in operation.
The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent objects of the invention. These objects should be construed to be merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the intended invention. Many other beneficial results can be obtained by applying the disclosed invention in a different manner or modifying the invention within the scope of the disclosure. Accordingly, other objects and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the summary of the invention and the detailed description of the preferred embodiments in addition to the scope of the invention defined by the claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Housing unit for securing tagging gun with electrical or pneumatic actuation means


A receiver for receiving an incident beam of optical power from a remote transmitter over a predefined field of view, comprising an input lens having a high durability coating that can withstand domestic handling and contamination. Such a high durability coating may reflect a non-insignificant part of the light incident thereon. Behind the lens, there is fitted a retroreflector disposed such that it reflects that part of the incident beam traversing the lens, back through the lens to the transmitter. Reflections from the front surface of the lens impinge on one or more transparent beam catchers appropriately located, and equipped with energy conversion devices, such as photovoltaic cells, to convert light from the reflections of the incident beam into electricity. Additional energy conversion devices may be located inward of the lens, to collect and convert reflections from the inner surface of the lens, of light returning from the retroreflector.

In prior art patent documents U.S. Pat. No. 4,209,689 to G. Linford for "Laser Secure Communications System", WO 2007/036937 for "Directional Light Transmitter and Receiver", WO 2009/083990 for "Wireless Laser Power Transmitter" and WO 2012/172541 for "Spatially Distributed Laser Resonator", the latter three having a common inventor with the present application, there are described various distributed resonator laser systems. All of the distributed resonator systems described in that prior art include a transmitter which incorporates a gain medium and a retro reflector acting as one mirror of the lasing system, and a receiver which also incorporates a retro reflector which can act as the second mirror of the lasing system and an output coupler for extracting the energy from the resonator.
In the case of WO 2012/172541, various optical elements are also incorporated to manipulate, monitor, and control the beam. Additionally, there is also taught therein elements such as beam blockers and irises, for blocking or avoiding unwanted reflections from the receivers. Such reflections could be a potential safety hazard.
The receivers described in the prior art may not be optimum for use in modern portable electronic devices, such as cellular phones and tablets, or even laptop PCs, as they are generally too large, and especially too deep. Furthermore, they may be unsuitable for use in the consumer environment, since, given the power requirements of cellular phones and other portable electronics devices, which is reflected in the power level circulating in the distributed laser cavity, they may not fulfil safety regulations. This is particularly so in an environment where finger prints, dirt, spilled liquids and the like are a reality of life, and their presence on the surface of the light receiving element of the receiver may compromise any safety measures taken to prevent stray laser emission.
Such systems can potentially be used to transfer energy to a remote device, such as a cellular telephone, and charge it. Eliminating or reducing the need to charge the phone by a cord, or by being placed on an inductive charging mat, therefore extends the time a device can operate between connections to a wall charger or being placed on a static charging mat.
As an example of the requirements of such a receiver, a receiver incorporated into the body of a cellular telephone, aimed at charging it, would typically need to have the following limiting parameters:    (a) Thickness preferably less than 6 mm.    (b) Radiation emissions limited, such that they are not a safety hazard. Typically, they should be less than the levels specified in the IEC60825 standard.    (c) Capability of generating at least 1 W of power    (d) A field of view of at least ±30 degrees, where the field of view is the sum of all angular directions from which the receiver could receive power, if a properly aligned transmitter were to transmit power thereto.    (e) The transmission range should be at least 3 meters.
Some of the above characteristics are more and some less critical. The first two criteria are perhaps the most important. The thickness is mandated by the thickness of mobile electronic devices such as cellular telephones. Unless the thickness is limited to that of these devices, typically 6 mm, the receiver solution may not be commercially acceptable. Therefore it is important to provide receivers sufficiently thin for inclusion within the thickness of such portable devices, where the field of view of the receiver faces in a direction generally towards the normal to the large surface of the device, since that is the position in which such devices are usually held. With regard to criterion (b), the front surface of the optical input element of such devices, on which light impinges before entering the receiver, is a particularly problematic feature, since reflections from that front surface may be a main source of safety problems with the receiver. Therefore, it would be important to provide an optimized coating for the front surface of such a receiver input element, to prevent or reduce such reflections to meet the relevant safety standard maximal permissible exposure (MPE). Furthermore, the optical beam blocking arrangement used should be such as to prevent unwanted reflections above the MPE from being directed in directions other than back to the transmitter unit.
Such receivers typically consist of a lens and a partially reflective mirror at its focal plane, such as can be seen in FIG. 7 of the above referenced publication WO 2012/172541. The front surface of the lens reflects some of the light impinging upon it, and such reflection can be controlled and minimized but cannot be completely eliminated. Such systems are limited in the amount of power they could safely transmit, as some of the power will always be reflected by the front surface. In such prior art systems, this surface is coated with an anti-reflection (AR) coating for at least some of the following reasons:    1. Safety—Optimizing the system for higher power transmission requires very low reflection from the front surface so that it would not exceed the maximal permissible exposure (MPE), such as that mandated by IEC60825. This would require having the front surface coated with anti-reflective (AR) coating, reflecting as little as possible light of the incoming light and therefore creating the least hazard.    2. Increasing efficiency and usefulness—Such AR coating would also improve the overall system efficiency. Reflections from the front surface represent a power loss, and losses reduce the system's efficiency dramatically as they compete with output coupling. To achieve minimal losses, the front surface should have a coating having a reflection as low as possible.    3. Increasing field of view—since symmetrical receiver configurations create the widest field of view, as they are indifferent to the direction the beam comes from, the front surface of the input lens of the receiver should be a spherical or nearly spherical surface. The radius of curvature of such a surface should be chosen to be minimal as this would serve to make the reflected beam intensity decrease rapidly with distance from the receiver as the beam diverges, so that it poses reduced risk after a short distance.
For a receiver with a large field of view, there are additional specific advantages for the use of such an AR coating:    (a) Without an AR coating, such a surface would have different Fresnel reflection/transmission properties at different angles and this may distort the beam's wavefront.    (b) The large field of view makes it difficult to use other means such as beam blockers to block the light reflected from the front surface. Such physical beam blockers are simpler to design when the field of view is small.
However, the use of an AR coating on a domestically used device such as a cellphone is problematic, since in such a consumer environment, dirt, spilled liquids, dust, fingerprints, and similar layers on top of the AR coating will amend the effectiveness of the AR coating, leading to higher reflections, and secondly, may eventually lead to degradation and peeling of the AR coating, again compromising safety. Therefore, alternative solutions must be found in order to reduce potentially dangerous reflections from the input optical surface of the receiver.
Other alternative solutions have been proposed, but each of these solutions has its own disadvantages:    1. Increasing the beam diameter so much that reflection from the receiver lens would be at a size and intensity so that it would be safe. Typically, a beam diameter of more than 7 mm would be required, which is the standard aperture used in IEC60825. However, using this technique, the size of the beam needed to transmit the power required by a mobile device may be bigger than the entire area available for a receiver on the mobile device! For example, to supply power in the range of between 1 and 5 W, as needed to charge cellphones of various sizes, and using 20% photovoltaic efficiency, an optical power in the range of at least 5 to 25 W is needed. Taking into account that an uncoated glass surface reflects about 4% of the power incident on it, the range of optical power that needs to be transmitted ranges from at least 5.2 to 26 W. The MPE for 1400 nm light according to the IEC60825 (2nd edition) is of the order of 40 mW/cm2, Taking into account the field of view required (at least ±30 degrees) a beam having a diameter of approximately 3 cm would be required to charge the phone. Such a large beam cannot be input through the surface available for that purpose in a modern cellphone.    2. Using a beam block, typically made of an absorbing "black" material which essentially absorbs 100% of the light received by it. Its surface is typically a non-flat diffuser, so that light reflected by it would be diffused and pose minimal risk. However, using a beam block, of the type that is described in the above referenced WO 2007/036937, involves a significant thickness increase of the receiver as can be seen in FIG. 1 of that application. A beam block would have to be block any reflected beams within the field of view (FOV), which are typically reflected at a wider angular spread compared to the FOV, but at the same time, not block any beam within the field of view. Such a beam block height would have a very significant impact on the overall receiver height.    3. Diffusing the beam impinging on the receiver lens front surface—however this solution is not suitable for use inside a laser resonator, as it would distort the laser beam in a way that would not allow the wave front to be recreated after a round trip.
In the light of all of the above described disadvantages, it is clear that alternative solutions must be found in order to reduce potentially dangerous reflections from the input lens of the receiver.
Furthermore, in such prior art receivers, a single photovoltaic cell is generally placed directly behind the back mirror output coupler of the system, at a suitable distance so that the beam is spread to the diameter where maximal efficiency of the photovoltaic cell is achieved. This also increases the overall depth of the receiver, which is disadvantageous for such an application. It is clear that the prior art positioning and configuration of the photovoltaic cell(s) has a number of disadvantages, the trade-off between which is always a compromise to performance.
There therefore exists a need for a thin receiver unit of a distributed laser resonator which overcomes at least some of the disadvantages of prior art systems and methods.
The disclosures of each of the publications mentioned in this section and in other sections of the specification, are hereby incorporated by reference, each in its entirety.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Distributed optical resonator with thin receiver unit


A non-blocking load buffer is provided for use in a high-speed microprocessor and memory system. The non-blocking load buffer interfaces a high-speed processor/cache bus, which connects a processor and a cache to the non-blocking load buffer, with a lower speed peripheral bus, which connects to peripheral devices. The non-blocking load buffer allows data to be retrieved from relatively low bandwidth peripheral devices directly from programmed I/O of the processor at the maximum rate of the peripherals so that the data may be processed and stored without unnecessarily idling the processor. I/O requests from several processors within a multiprocessor may simultaneously be buffered so that a plurality of non-blocking loads may be processed during the latency period of the device. As a result, a continuous maximum throughput from multiple I/O devices by the programmed I/O of the processor is achieved and the time required for completing tasks and processing data may be reduced. Also, a multiple priority non-blocking load buffer is provided for serving a multiprocessor running real-time processes of varying deadlines by prioritization-based scheduling of memory and peripheral accesses.

Conventionally, microprocessor and memory system applications retrieve data from relatively low bandwidth I/O devices, process the data by a processor and then store the processed data to the low bandwidth I/O devices. In typical microprocessor memory system applications, a processor and a cache are directly coupled by a bus to a plurality of peripherals such as I/O devices and memory devices. However, the processor may be unnecessarily idled due to the latency between the I/O devices and the processor, thus causing the processor to stall and, as a result, excessive time is required to complete tasks.
In known processing systems, when an operation is performed on one of the peripherals such as a memory device, the time between performing such an operation and subsequent operations is dependent upon the latency period of the memory device. Thereby, the processor will be stalled during the entire duration of the memory transaction. One solution for improving the processing speed of known processing systems is to perform additional operations during the time of the latency period as long as there is no load-use dependency upon the additional operations. For example, if data is loaded into a first register by a first operation (1), where the first operation (1) corresponds to: EQU load r1.rarw.r2! (1)
and the first register is added to another operation by a second operation (2) where the second operation (2) corresponds to: EQU add r3.rarw.r1+r4 (2)
the operation (2) is load-use dependent and the operation (2) must wait for the latency period before being performed. FIGS 1(a) and 1(b) illustrate a load-use dependent operation where the time for initiating the operation (2) must wait until the operation (1) is completed. Operation (2) is dependent upon the short latency period t.sub.1 in FIG. 1(a) corresponding to a fast memory and the long latency period t.sub.2 in FIG. 1(b) corresponds to a slower memory.
A non-blocking cache and a non-blocking processor are known where a load operation is performed and additional operations other than loads may be subsequently performed during the latency period as long as the operation is not dependent upon the initial load operation. FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b) illustrate such operations. In operation (1), the first register is loaded. Next, operations (1.1) and (1.2) are to be executed. As long as operations (1.1) and (1.2) are not load dependent on another load, these operations may be performed during the latency period t.sub.2 as illustrated in FIG. 2(a). However, if operation (1.1) is either load-dependent or a pending load, operations (1.1) and (1.2) must wait until the latency period t.sub.2 ends before being performed.
Also known is a Stall-On-Use (Hit Under Miss) operation for achieving cache miss optimizations as described in "A 200 MFLOP Precision Architecture Processor" at Hot Chips IV, 1993, William Jaffe et al. In this Hit Under Miss operation, when one miss is outstanding only certain other types of instructions may be executed before the system stalls. For example, during the handling of a load miss, execution proceeds until the target register is needed as an operand for another instruction or until another load miss occurs. However, this system is not capable of handling two misses being outstanding at the same time. For a store miss, execution proceeds until a load or sub-word store occurs to the missing line.
This Hit Under Miss feature can improve the runtime performance of general-purpose computing applications. Examples of programs that benefit from the Hit Under Miss feature are SPEC benchmarks, SPICE circuit simulators and gcc C compilers. However, the Hit Under Miss feature does not sufficiently meet the high I/O bandwidth requirements for digital signal processing applications such as digital video, audio and RF processing.
Known microprocessor and memory system applications use real-time processes which are programs having deadlines corresponding to times where data processing must be completed. For example, an audio waveform device driver process must supply audio samples at regular intervals to the output buffers of the audio device. When the driver software is late in delivering data for an audio waveform device driver, the generated audio may be interrupted by objectionable noises due to an output buffer underflowing.
In order to analyze whether or not a real-time process can meet its deadlines under all conditions requires predictability of the worst-case performance of the real-time processing program. However, the sensitivity of the real-time processing program to its input data or its environment makes it impractical in many cases to exhaustively check the behavior of the process under all conditions. Therefore, the programmer must rely on some combination of analysis and empirical tests to verify that the real-time process will complete in the requisite time. The goals of real-time processing tend to be incompatible with computing platforms that have memory or peripheral systems in which the latency of the transactions is unpredictable because an analysis of whether the real-time deadlines can be met may not be possible or worst-case assumptions of memory performance are required. For example, performance estimates can be made by assuming that every memory transaction takes the maximum possible time. However, such an assumption may be so pessimistic that any useful estimate for the upper bound on the execution time of a real-time task cannot be made. Furthermore, even if the estimates are only slightly pessimistic, overly conservative decisions will be made for the hardware performance requirements so that a system results that is more expensive than necessary.
Also, it is especially difficult to reliably predict real-time processing performance on known multiprocessors because the memory and peripherals are not typically multi-ported. Therefore simultaneous access by two or more processors to the same memory device must be serialized. Even if a device is capable of handling multiple transactions in parallel, the bus shared by all of the processors may still serialize the transactions to some degree.
If memory requests are handled in a FIFO manner by a known multiprocessor, a memory transaction which arrives slightly later than another memory transaction may take a much longer amount of time to complete since the later arriving memory requests must wait until the earlier memory request is serviced. Due to this sensitivity, very small changes in the memory access patterns of a program can cause large changes in its performance. This situation grows worse as more processors share the same memory. For example, if ten processors attempt to access the same remote memory location simultaneously, the spread in memory latency among the processors might be 10:1 because as many as nine of these memory transactions may be buffered for later handling. In general, it is not possible to predict which of these processors will suffer the higher latencies and which of these processors will receive fast replies to their memory accesses. Very small changes to a program or its input data may cause the program to exhibit slight operation differences which perturb the timing of the memory transactions.
Furthermore, types of memory which exhibit locality effects may exacerbate the above-described situation. For example, accesses to DRAMs are approximately two times faster if executed in page mode. To use page mode, a recent access must have been made to an address in the same memory segment (page). One of the most common access patterns is sequential accesses to consecutive locations in memory. These memory patterns tend to achieve high page locality, thus achieving high throughput and low latency. Known programs which attempt to take advantage of the benefits of page mode may be thwarted when a second program executing on another processor is allowed to interpose memory transactions on a different memory page. For instance, if ten processors, each with its own sequential memory access pattern, attempt to access the same DRAM bank simultaneously and each of the accesses is to a different memory page, the spread and memory latencies between the fastest and slowest responses might be more than 25:1.
The present invention is directed to allowing a high rate of transfer to memory and I/O devices for tasks which have real-time requirements. The present invention is also directed to allowing the system to buffer I/O requests from several processors within a multiprocessor at once with a non-blocking load buffer. Furthermore, the present invention is directed to extending the basic non-blocking load buffer to service a data processing system running real-time processes of varying deadlines by using scheduling of memory and peripheral accesses which is not strictly FIFO scheduling.

Method for storing prioritized memory or I/O transactions in queues having one priority level less without changing the priority when space available in the corresponding queues exceed


A comparator detects a set-up voltage superimposed on a video signal. The detected set-up voltage is input to a timing information detection circuit to detect the display start timings and display end timings of a video signal or a single line and a single picture, respectively. Then, the detected timing information is input to an arithmetic operation means to determine the display period of the video signal for the single line and single picture and further determine the ratios thereof with respect to predetermined reference values. Further, the amounts of dislocation of the timing relationship between the display periods for the single line and single screen and a horizontal synchronizing signal and vertical synchronizing signal from predetermined reference relative relationships are determined, respectively. A picture display area adjustment means corrects the amplitudes of a horizontal deflection current and vertical deflection current corresponding to each other in accordance with the ratios determined by the arithmetic operation means, respectively and the level or phase of the horizontal deflection current and the level of the vertical deflection current corresponding to each other in accordance with the dislocations of the relative timing relationships of the determined display periods, respectively. As a result, even if an input video signal has a different timing specification, the size and position of a picture display area can be automatically adjusted to predetermined references.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a CRT display unit. More specifically, the present invention relates to a CRT display unit having a function for automatically adjusting the position and vertical/horizontal sizes of a picture display area to a predetermined position and size in accordance with a plurality of different kinds of video signals with a different timing specification such as an input start timing, input end timing and the like, using the horizontal or vertical synchronization signal of a video signal for a single line or single picture as a reference point.
2. Description of the Related Art
The position and size in the vertical/horizontal directions of a picture display area displayed on the tube surface of a CRT display unit are determined based on a timing specification such as the cycle of the vertical/horizontal synchronization signals contained in a video signal input to the CRT display unit, input start timing, input end timing of the video signal to the synchronization signals, and the like.
More specifically, the size and position of a raster scanning area as an area in which an electron beam is scanned in accordance with the cycle of the horizontal/vertical synchronization signals are determined. A picture display area in which an effective picture is displayed is set to an area smaller than the raster display area and the horizontal size (horizontal width) of the picture display area is determined by a time width from the input start timing to input end timing of a video signal V.sub.L for a single line. The input start timing of the video signal V.sub.L corresponds to the position where the display of a picture for a single line is started. The input end timing of the video signal V.sub.L corresponds to the position where the display of the picture for the single line is ended. Therefore, the time width from the input start timing to the input end timing of the video signal V.sub.L corresponds to the display period Td.sub.H of the picture for the single line. Further, the horizontal position of the picture display area to the raster scanning area is determined by the relative positional relationship on a time axis of the display period Td.sub.H for a single line to the cycle T.sub.1H of the horizontal display signal.
On the other hand, the vertical size (vertical width) of the picture display area is determined by the time width (display period Td.sub.V) from the input start timing (display start position) to the input end timing (display end position) of a video signal V.sub.S for a single picture. The vertical position of the picture display area to the raster scanning area is determined by the relative positional relationship on a time axis between the vertical synchronization signal and the display period Td.sub.V for a single picture.
Usually, the deflection circuit and the like of a CRT display unit are designed in accordance with the predetermined reference timing specification of a video signal so that the horizontal/vertical positions and size of a picture display area has a predetermined position and size.
Incidentally, CRT display units used in recent computer systems are required to display a plurality of pictures each having a different dissolution (for example, 640 dots.times.480 lines, 1280 dots.times.1024 lines, etc.) by changing them. This requirement results from the fact that personal computers having a higher processing speed are made at a lower cost and thus systems with a high resolution can be obtained at a low cost and further application software in use covering various fields, from business to engineering, has an improved function and wide variety.
Further, work stations, CAD systems and the like increasingly require realization of so-called multi-scanning type CRT display units by which the size and position of a picture display area can be automatically adjusted in accordance with a timing specification of various video signals to support various available systems.
To satisfy these requirements, there is conventionally proposed a CRT display unit wherein raster scanning start/end positions are detected from the horizontal/vertical synchronization signals of an input video signal and the number of horizontal dots are determined by an arithmetic operation from preset display parameters such as the aspect ratio of a picture display area, display period ratio and the like to automatically adjust a display size (Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. Sho 62-91992).
Nevertheless, since the aforesaid conventional CRT display unit pays attention to the raster scanning start/end positions, a problem arises in that the size and position of the picture display area cannot be automatically adjusted unless a display period to a scanning period is preset in an arithmetic operation block.


A tamper-resistant security lock assembly for use on lockrods of cargo container doors to prevent unauthorized opening of the doors. The lock assembly includes a pair of adjustably telescopically interengaged hasps with hook configurations on opposite ends adapted to connect with the lockrods in spanning relationship to a door opening and prevent opening of the door. A plurality of openings are formed through the hasps in positions to be in registry with one another when the hasps are appropriately adjusted relative to one another, for receiving a staple and padlock to lock the hasps against relative movement. According to one feature of the invention, the openings in one hasp are spaced differently than the openings in the other hasp, whereby smaller increments of adjustment can be obtained than if the openings were all spaced the same. In accordance with another feature of the invention, an elongate guard is carried on one end of one of the hasps in position to overlie and prevent operation of the lock arm connected with a lockrod. Preferably, the staple is connected to the hasp through a pivotal support that is designed to fail before failure of the staple itself whenever an effort is made to pry or break the staple or lock, and the guard is connected to the hasp through a connection designed to fail before damage occurs to the hasps, thereby maintaining the hasps in operative condition whenever an attempt is made to break the lock assembly.

Cargo containers are widely used for shipping goods by land, air and sea. These containers are typically large rectangular structures specially designed to be handled and stored in the holds of ships, and on railway flat cars and the like. Further, upon reaching major shipping distribution points, the cargo containers may be adapted for use as trailers used in the trucking industry, so that they may be transported to local distribution points.
These cargo containers typically have caster supports and sill structure at their bottom edges, and are closable by pivoted doors held in closed position by lockrods extending vertically over the doors and into cooperating detents fixed on the surrounding door frame. Lock arms are attached to these lockrods to pivot them about their longitudinal axis for release from the detents, whereby the pivoted doors may be opened. During storage and shipment, these lock arms are locked in closed position by padlocks or the like to prevent pivoting movement of the lockrods and unauthorized access to the contents of the containers.
Unfortunately, theft has become a major problem with such containers because of the manner in which they are used. That is, such containers are frequently left untended for varying periods of time in storage facilities, or even on railway flat cars during transportation from one site to another. Thieves can relatively easily break open the pivoted doors and gain access to the goods inside by using pry bars, hammers, saws and other tools to break the lock on the lock arms, thereby enabling the lockrods to be pivoted to their open position.
Various devices have been developed in the prior art for deterring such theft by making it more difficult to break into the containers. Two examples are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,372,136 and 4,389,862. In both of these patents, the security lock comprises two J-shaped hasps for hooking engagement over the lockrods in spanning relationship to the doors of the container. A staple on one of the hook members is receivable in one of a plurality of openings in the other to lock the two hasps in assembled relationship on the lockrods so that they cannot be moved apart relative to one another. So long as the lock assembly remains secured in spanning relationship to the cargo doors they cannot be opened, even if the lockrods are disengaged from their detents.
The assemblies in these two patents are adjustable to accommodate different spacing between lockrods, with the increments of adjustment being dependent upon the spacing of slots or grooves in only one of the hook members. Further, the padlocks used to secure the two hook members together are in relatively exposed positions, making it easier to break the lock and gain access to the contents of the cargo container.
In order to reduce the amount of space required for storing and shipping such containers, particularly in the holds of ships and the like, it is essential that the containers be capable of close-fitting relationship with one another. Consequently, it is desirable that nothing be provided on the exterior of the container that protrudes beyond the sill and/or caster support, since any item protruding beyond these extremities on a container can cause damage to an adjoining container when they are being placed or moved in the hold of a ship or other storage facility. Thus, a bulky lock assembly cannot be used that projects beyond the plane of the caster assembly or sill on the container. The two patents mentioned above appear to satisfy this criteria, but fail to solve the additional problems noted.
Accordingly, there is need for a simple and inexpensive security lock that can be used to secure the doors on cargo containers against unauthorized opening movement, wherein the assembly does not project beyond predetermined limits from the container side wall, and wherein the padlock is shielded from access by destructive tools, and a wide range of relatively small increments of adjustment can be obtained to accommodate a wide variety of prior art door constructions.

Tamper-resistant security lock for cargo container doors


A method of making a bump electrode having a protrusion. The protrusion is made of a folded wire whose tail is bonded to a cavity on the base of the bump electrode. A method of manufacturing a resin sealed semiconductor device encapsulating a chip equipped with bump electrodes is also presented.

In order to meet the increasing needs for more I/O pins with narrower pitches in the field of semiconductor packages, a technique called "stud bump method" is known. This is a method of forming an electrode on semiconductor chips. This technique is specifically disclosed in the Japanese Laid-open Patent No. 63-304587 (1988). A summary thereof is described below.
FIGS. 18(a) through 18(d) are process sectional views for explaining the bump electrode forming process of the prior art.
As shown in FIG. 18(a), a ball 3 is formed by an electric torch on the tip of the wire 2 drawn out from the tip of a bonding capillary 1. As shown in FIG. 18(b), the ball 3 is bonded to an electrode pad 5 on an LSI chip substrate 4 by the capillary 1, and a base part 6 is formed. In succession, as shown in FIG. 18(c) and FIG. 18(d), the wire connected to the base is passed into the hole of the capillary, the capillary is moved in a loop form, and a protrusion is formed with folded wire 2 on the base part 6. By subsequent cutting of the wire, a bump electrode is completed.
FIG. 19 is a sectional view of a bump electrode formed by this method. Since the top surface of the base 6 is flat, the force to retain the tail of the bonded wire 2 is insufficient, and due to the movement of the capillary (when cutting off the wire after bonding the tail), the tail of the wire is often dislocated from the base 6. As a result, the shape of the obtained bump electrode is not as specified. Because reformation of the electrode is practically impossible, LSI chips having such a bump electrode must be discarded as defective products.

Method of forming a bump electrode and manufacturing a resin-encapsulated semiconductor device

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


An apparatus for conveying electronic devices comprises a track for conveying a plurality of electronic devices in a row towards a pick-up position on the track where the electronic devices are removed by a pick-up device. A guiding portion located over the track has a first restraining mechanism formed in the guiding portion that is operative to restrain and secure a first electronic device at a first position next to the pick-up position and a second restraining mechanism formed in the guiding portion that is operative to restrain and secure a second electronic device at a second position away from the pick-up position which is immediately subsequent to the first position. The first and second electronic devices are configured to be released and conveyed towards the pick-up position when the first and second restraining mechanisms respectively are deactivated. A corresponding method is also provided.

Vibrational bowl feeders typically hold a supply of electronic devices, and the electronic devices are conveyed from the bowl feeders to other locations along guide tracks linked to the bowl feeders for further processing. Translational motion of the electronic devices along the guide tracks is actuated by vibrating the bowl feeders and guide tracks towards pick-up positions at the end of the guide tracks. Currently, electronic devices fed by vibrational bowl feeders along guide tracks are typically separated by using hard stoppers and/or vacuum suction inlets on the guide tracks for separation of an electronic device at a pick-up position and another electronic device adjacent to it. The separation of the two electronic devices ensures that there is no overlap between them, which may result in jamming or failure to properly pick up the electronic device at the pick-up position.
However, for protruded ball grid array devices which have interconnectors such as solder bumps protruding from one side of the devices, the apparatus has increased difficulty with maintaining separation between the adjacent electronic devices. For instance, the use of hard stoppers is not desirable as the interconnectors are typically not robust enough to sustain a large pressing force which is required to stop the device.
When the solder bumps on the electronic devices are facing downwards on the guide track, a vacuum suction inlet located in the guide track is also ineffective as there will be an incomplete seal from gaps between the protruding interconnectors and the vacuum suction inlet.
Thus, there lacks a solution for separating protruded ball grid array devices on such a guide track next to the pick-up position thereof.

Apparatus and method for transferring electronic devices


A server apparatus provides a game which accompanies a resource increasing or decreasing in a game space to a plurality of terminal apparatuses via a network. The server apparatus collects and accumulates the resources from the plurality of terminal apparatuses in the first mode and releases the accumulated resource in the second mode. The server apparatus selectively switches between the first mode and the second mode so as to distribute the resources upon reception of a request from a terminal apparatus.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer and method for game control suitable for allowing a large number of users to participate in a game via a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a game apparatus for allowing users to play games using a plurality of pockets, such as roulette and bingo games, there is proposed a game apparatus including a play compensation means for compensating for the loss of a player (for example, patent literature 1).


The remaining capacity of a recording medium is calculated when picture recording reservation is made so as to permit the user to easily understand the reservation status and whether the reservation recording is possible or not. An apparatus of this invention can record and reproduce compressed video information on a contained hard disk in a format of the same DVD standard and can record and reproduce compressed video information on a removable DVD. Further, it is possible to specify a disk and make picture recording reservation and a reservation table thereof is stored in a memory. Then, picture recording reservation time information and the remaining capacity of the disk are calculated and whether or not reservation picture recording can be made can be displayed in a list form.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording/reproducing apparatus which can simultaneously deal with a plurality of recordable/reproducible media such as hard disks or recordable/reproducible DVDs (digital versatile disks) and a picture recording reservation method of this recording/reproducing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, optical disk reproducing apparatuses which can reproduce optical disks having data such as video pictures and audio recorded thereon and deal with moving pictures have been developed. As the optical disk reproducing apparatus, for example, laser disk (LD), video compact disk (CD) reproducing apparatuses are provided. The user can appreciate film software and enjoy karaoke and the like by use of the above apparatuses.
In the field of the optical disk and the application technique thereof, a DVD standard is proposed. In the DVD standard, an MPEG2 (Moving Picture Expert Group 2) system which is internationally standardized is used for compression of video signals and an AC3 audio compression system is used for audio.
That is, the DVD standard supports the MPEG2 system for the moving picture compression system according to an MPEG2 system layer and supports the AC3 audio compression system and MPEG audio compression system for the audio compression system. Further, as captions of movies, karaoke and the like, sub-video data having bit map data subjected to run-length compression can be dealt with based on the DVD standard. Further, in the DVD standard, control data (navigation pack) is defined so as to attain special reproduction such as fast forwarding and fast reversing in the reproducing apparatus.
In addition, in the DVD standard, the standards of IS09660 and micro UDF are supported so that data of the disk can be read out by computers.
Further, as the standards of media themselves, the standard (2.6 GB) of a DVD-RAM is also completed following on the standard of a DVD-ROM which is a medium of the DVD-video and DVD-RAM drives having also been popularized as computer peripheral devices.
At present, the DVD video standard which realizes a system capable of recording/reproducing information on a real-time basis, that is, the standard of an RTR (Real Time Recorder)-DVD is being completed by use of the DVD-RAM and the test operation is scheduled to be completed in the near future.
The standard is considered based on the standard of the DVD-ROM which is now sold. Further, a file system corresponding to the RTR-DVD is also now standardized.
On the other hand, a system which records and reproduces broadcast signals by utilizing a hard disk device (hard disk drive: HDD) contained in the recording/reproducing apparatus is also considered. In the hard disk device, data of 100 Gbytes or more can be recorded.
When the above hard disk device and DVD system are independently considered, both of them have advantages and disadvantages.
In the case of the hard disk device, it is contained in the recording/reproducing apparatus in the normal service condition and cannot be taken out. Therefore, it is impossible to store data limitlessly. The remaining amount of the recording area will become insufficient in the future. Further, it is impossible for the user to easily take the hard disk device out of the recording/reproducing apparatus. Therefore, it is impossible to take out the hard disk and reproduce data recorded on the hard disk by use of another apparatus.
On the other hand, in the case of the recordable/reproducible DVD, the storage capacity is small in comparison with the hard disk. It is impossible to record copy protected information. However, in the case of the DVD, it is removable with respect to the recording/reproducing apparatus.

Recording/reproducing apparatus and picture recording reservation method of recording/reproducing apparatus