A meeting location availability system determines the meeting locations that are available for use during a specified meeting time and suggests some or all of the available meeting locations as possible locations for conducting a meeting at the specified meeting time. The meeting location availability system maintains meeting location information, such as the preferred meeting locations, for each user. The meeting location availability system may then determine the meeting locations that are available for a meeting between meeting attendees at a specified meeting time by identifying the meeting locations for all of the meeting attendees and, from these meeting locations, identifying the meeting locations that are available for use during the specified meeting time. The meeting location availability system may then suggest some or all of the identified available meeting locations as possible locations for conducting the meeting at the specified meeting time.

Efficient communication and collaboration among members of an organization is critical to the organization's success. Although the proliferation of computers and the advent of the Internet have brought about a number of alternatives to the traditional face-to-face meeting, face-to-face meetings still remain the predominant manner of communicating among organization members.
Currently, a number of software applications are available for scheduling meetings among members of an organization. Many calendaring applications allow a meeting organizer to view the schedules of the intended meeting attendees in order to find time periods when all of the intended meeting attendees are free and available to attend a meeting. Even though these calendaring applications provide increased efficiency and benefits, for example, by simplifying the task of finding time periods when all of the intended meeting attendees are available to attend a meeting, the calendaring applications still require the meeting organizer to find meeting locations (e.g., conference rooms) that are available at the identified time periods.
For example, the meeting organizer first uses the calendaring application to find an available meeting time period to propose for a meeting. Having decided upon a particular time period to propose for the meeting, the meeting organizer typically accesses a separate room reservation application to determine whether any suitable conference rooms are available for the proposed time period. Not all conference rooms managed by the room reservation application may be desirable to the meeting organizer. For example, the meeting organizer may prefer to find a conference room that is in or near the building in which the organizer is located. Using the room reservation application to find a desirable conference room that is available for conducting the meeting in at the proposed time period may be a non-trivial task. For example, the meeting organizer needs to know the room numbers of the conference rooms that are desirable to the meeting organizer. If the meeting organizer does not know the room numbers, the meeting organizer has to perform a search for the room numbers of the desirable conference rooms. Having identified the room numbers of the desirable conference rooms, the meeting organizer then has to determine whether any of the corresponding conference rooms are free during the proposed time period. If none of the conference rooms are free, the meeting organizer has to return to the calendaring application to pick a new time period to propose for the meeting. Subsequent to picking the new time period, the meeting organizer again accesses the room reservation application and repeats the tedious process of finding a desirable conference room that is free during the newly proposed time period. The meeting organizer may have to repeat this process numerous times before finally finding both an appropriate time period to propose for the meeting and a desirable conference room that is available during that time period. Having found a combination of an available time period to propose for the meeting and a desirable conference room available to hold the meeting in, the meeting organizer uses the room reservation application to reserve the conference room for the proposed meeting time period, and the calendaring application to send out meeting invitations to the intended meeting attendees.

Suggesting meeting locations for conducting meetings


A three-dimensional mobile construction is fabricated as a two dimensional object and thereafter expanded into a three dimensional configuration suited for suspension as a mobile. Cut lines in a web defines elements linked in a contiguous arrangement, and the elements are moved out of the plane of the web to create the three dimensional display.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to mobiles that are typically used for esthetic enhancement of occupied spaces and, more particularly, to three dimensional mobiles that are fabricated as two dimensional objects and expanded to three dimensional form.
2. Description of Related Art
Mobiles are generally defined as abstract sculptures having moving parts that are driven either by motors or the natural force of air movement. The word mobile was initially suggested by Marcel Duchamp for a 1932 Paris exhibition of such works by the American artist Alexander Calder. One of Calder's first mobiles consisted of colored spheres motorized to move up and down curving wires at different speeds. Later, he developed wind mobiles from flat metal shapes suspended by wires from movable rods, which allowed for rotation. The revolving part s created a new visual experience of constantly changing volumes and forms; Calder, as he expressed it, was "making one or two objects at a time find actual relationship in space."
Following Calder's example, mobiles have become commonplace in modern decor for residential, business, and commercial uses. Mobiles are generally constructed of individual pieces or objects that are suspended from each other or from supporting struts or structures. Generally this construction technique involves some effort to balance the assembly so that it may be suspended from a single point and be susceptible to movement by air currents and the like. Thus the artisan must be skilled in selecting visually appealing combinations of elements, as well as balancing the weights of the elements to arrive at an assembly that is in equilibrium while permitting movement of the elements.
These factors tend to mitigate against mass production of mobile assemblies, due in part to the requirements of weight balancing. As a result, mobiles tend to be regarded as one-of-a-kind artistic creations, rather than commonly available decorative objects.
In the prior art, Design Pat. No. 413,078 appears to depict a kinetic sculpture which is formed from a three dimensional expansion of an object that may be collapsed into a flattened disposition. The object is a spiral suspended from its central point, and it is not apparent how the spiral is fabricated nor whether the flattened disposition involves a two-dimensional originating object.

Three dimensional mobile converted from two dimensional object


Depth-based recursive video effects are generated by including depth information in the recursive loop. A combined depth coefficient signal output from a depth-based video combiner is modified by a recursive key signal from the recursive image output from the recursive loop. The resulting depth coefficient signal may then be blurred when a recursive blur effect is selected by using an appropriate filter corresponding to that used in the luminance and key recursive loops. The recursive depth coefficient signal from the depth recursive loop is used, together with the depth coefficient signal associated with an incoming image, to produce the priority signal used in the depth-based video combiner.

The present invention relates to video signal processing, and more particularly to depth-based recursive video effects that use depth information inherent in a three dimensional video effects digital picture manipulator (DPM) to automatically transition between over and under trails modes.
Recursive effects use a digital memory to store an image from previous frames of a video signal in order to create a decaying after-image. The video signal and associated key, or opacity, signal for previous frames are recursively decayed and combined with the incoming video signal to create such effects as "over trails" and "under trails". In over trails the incoming image appears over, or in front of, the previous image in the recursive memory. In under trails the incoming image appears under, or in back of, the previous image in recursive memory and is not seen unless the incoming image moves from beneath the stored image or there is some transparency in the stored image, such as from decay of the stored image.
The combining equations for video and key signals for over trails is: EQU V'.sub.OUT =V'.sub.1 +(1-K.sub.1).times.Q.times.V'.sub.R EQU K.sub.OUT =K.sub.1 +(1-K.sub.1).times.Q.times.K.sub.R
where K.sub.1 and K.sub.R are the incoming and stored key signals respectively, V'.sub.1 and V'.sub.R are the incoming and stored shaped video signals respectively, and Q is a frame-to-frame persistence value between zero and one where zero causes immediate decay and one causes no decay. For under trails the corresponding equations are: EQU V'.sub.OUT =V.sub.1 .times.(1-Q.times.K.sub.R)+Q.times.V'.sub.R EQU K.sub.OUT =K.sub.1 .times.(1-Q.times.K.sub.R)+Q.times.K.sub.R
The above equations are special cases of the following priority combiner equations: EQU V'.sub.OUT =V'.sub.1 .times.(1-(1-P).times.Q.times.K.sub.R)+(1-K.sub.1 .times.P).times.Q.times.V'.sub.R EQU K.sub.OUT =K.sub.1 .times.(1-(1-P).times.Q.times.K.sub.R)+(1-K.sub.1 .times.P).times.Q.times.K.sub.R
between the incoming shaped video and key signals V'.sub.1, K.sub.1 and the decayed and stored shaped video and key signals Q.times.V'.sub.R, Q.times.K.sub.R, where P is a priority control signal value of the incoming image over the stored image. When P=1, the over trails case, the incoming image has priority over the stored image, and when P=0, the under trails case, the stored image has priority, reducing the equations to the special cases above.
By using a priority combiner, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,851,912 issued Jul. 25, 1989 to Richard A. Jackson and Kevin D. Windrem entitled "Apparatus for Combining Video Signals", intermediate priority levels may be achieved and there is some transparency in the image having priority. In current commercial recursive video effects, the over and under trails are modes specifically selected by the operator based on explicit front panel control. The under and over trails modes may be used to give a feeling of "depth" to the video effect in that the image having priority appears to be closer to the viewer than the image being overwritten.
What is desired are depth-based recursive video effects that use depth information inherent in a three-dimensional DPM unit to automatically transition on a pixel by pixel basis between over and under trails modes.


The described technology is generally directed towards a composite HARQ-ACK response that contains information corresponding to a current HARQ-ACK composed with one or more previous HARQ-ACKs in a single uplink transmission. As a result, even with a HARQ-ACK repetition factor greater than one, the network is able to schedule the user equipment in consecutive time intervals as if the repetition factor was one (that is, as if no repetition).

In wireless communication systems, based on pilot or reference signals, user equipment computes channel estimates, and computes the parameters needed for channel state information (CSI) reporting. A CSI report is sent from the user equipment to a network device via a feedback channel on request from the network, or the user equipment may be configured to send the CSI report periodically. A network scheduler uses this information in choosing the parameters for scheduling of this particular user equipment. The network sends the scheduling parameters to the user equipment in a downlink control channel. After that, actual data transfer takes place from the network to the user equipment.
When user equipment receives a packet, the user equipment returns a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest-ACKnowledgement (HARQ-ACK) on the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) to the network device/gNodeB. The gNodeB needs to correctly decode the HARQ-ACK from the PUCCH information to know whether the packet it transmitted was received correctly or not. Once the gNodeB decodes the PUCCH information, the gNodeB determines whether to retransmit the packet (if NAK) or pass it to upper layers (if ACK).
However, the PUCCH transmissions from multiple sets of user equipment increase the uplink interference level (or more specifically rise over thermal (RoT)) received in uplink at the gNode B. This is because in uplink, each user equipment transmits on the same resources; (users are separated by non-orthogonal scrambling codes also referred to as Constant Amplitude Zero AutoCorrelation waveform or CAZAC sequences). Therefore uplink transmissions have to share interference-limited radio resources.
One way to improve PUCCH performance and thereby improve the PUCCH coverage is to repeat the HARQ-ACK transmission for each received packet. This is accomplished by the use of a HARQ-ACK repetition factor, which describes how many times the user equipment is to transmit the (same) HARQ-ACK message associated with a transport block. However when the HARQ-ACK is repeated the network cannot schedule the user equipment in consecutive time intervals, because the user equipment will be transmitting the repeated HARQ-ACK during this next time interval; as a result, peak throughput is reduced.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Reporting hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgements in wireless communication systems


A waste line connector assembly for a food waste disposer includes a tailpipe member having a first inlet connectable to an outlet of a food waste disposer, a second inlet connectable to a waste water outlet of a dishwasher, and an outlet connectable to a waste or drain line. A one-way valve, such as a duck-bill valve, is in fluid communication with the second inlet. A flexible coupler, may be provided to be connected to the outlet, with one or both ends of the coupler being angled and rotatably connected to the outlet and/or the waste line so that the angular position of the waste line is variable relative to the tailpipe member.

The present disclosure relates generally to food waste disposers, and more particularly, to a waste line assembly for food waste disposers.
Typically, most kitchen sinks, whether they are double compartment or single compartment sinks, have a bottom outlet plumbed directly to the main waste inlet of a conventional food waste disposer system. Wastewater from the sink flows down through the food waste disposer and exits horizontally via an outlet-plumbing elbow, provided with and attached to the disposer at its lower side portion, below the inlet. This in turn typically leads through a 90° bend vertically and downwardly into the upper inlet end of a standard plastic or brass tubular plumbing trap. Typically, the disposer also has a dishwasher drain line that is connected into the upper side portion of the food waste disposer, feeding the wastewater from the dishwasher through the disposer and out of the disposer outlet.
Problems have existed with such undercounter drain installations, including retrofit installations, regarding the manner and means for connecting the outlet end of the dishwasher waste water line to the standard food waste disposer drain plumbing fittings conventionally encountered in most household plumbing systems. Typically, as mentioned above, the dishwasher drain hose is connected to the drain plumbing in one of four ways—directly to the undersink drain connection in the instance that no food waste disposer is in place; directly to a food waste disposer dishwasher inlet leading to the food conveying section of the food waste disposer, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,481,652B2; to the undersink dishwasher drain connection via an air-gap; and, to a food waste disposer inlet leading to the food conveying section of the food waste disposer. However, several potential problems exist with these installations, especially where a food waste disposer is involved. First, when water drains from a dishwasher at the end of a cycle, a large volume of wastewater (typically about 6-10 gallons, depending on the number of washes and rinses included in that particular cycle and the particular machine being used) is pumped out of the dishwashing machine, through the waste lines, and into the sewer/septic drainage system. If a food waste disposer is included in the waste water loop, as is often the case, the food conveying section/grind chamber of the food waste disposer must be of a substantial size to accommodate the large volume of wastewater passing though it when the dishwashing machine finishes a cycle. This in turn results in larger, heavier, and bulkier food waste disposers being installed under sinks.
Additionally, while dishwashers typically drain directly into the household drain plumbing, most kitchen compartment sinks have their sole bottom outlet plumbed directly to the main waste inlet of a conventional food waste disposer, wherein waste water from the sink flows through the waste disposer and exits horizontally via an outlet plumbing elbow attached to the disposer at its lower side. As a result of this setup, dishwasher drain lines are often connected directly to the food waste disposer at the upper side of the disposer, and drain out of a lower disposer outlet. Since the wastewater discharge lines of the dishwasher are typically directly linked to the food conveying section of the food waste disposer, wastewater can potentially backup due to, for example, a clog in the grinding plate section of the food waste disposer.
Thus, there exists a need for a way to provide an improved dishwasher waste water drain line outlet connection system and adaptable coupling hardware which overcomes the aforementioned problems in a simple, efficient, reliable and economical manner.


The present invention relates to an apparatus for feeding sheets separately, the apparatus comprises a feed unit disposed over a stack of sheets for causing a conveyance force upon the uppermost of the stack thereby to feed the uppermost sheet from the stack with the conveyance force being directed in a sheet path direction. The feed unit has an alternating charged pattern on a surface thereof. The apparatus further comprises a separation unit disposed opposite to the feed unit so as to form a sheet path in association with the feed unit for causing a preventive force onto an under face of the fed sheet thereby to prevent the sheet from being fed. The preventive force is set to be less than the conveyance force and greater than a friction force between sheets. The separation unit has another alternating charged pattern on a surface thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for feeding sheets, separately in an image-forming device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A friction type pick-up member is adopted in the form of a roller or a belt made of a material having a high friction coefficient, such as a rubber, for a feed unit for feeding a sheet in an image-forming device such as an electronic photo copy machine, or a printer. The friction type pick-up member has a simple structure, but it needs to be pressed onto a sheet by a spring, etc., to obtain a large friction force. Furthermore, the friction type pick-up member cannot necessarily feed a sheet steadily as the friction coefficient of the material of the pick-up member initially having a high friction coefficient, such as a rubber, may change over a long period of time or in certain environments.
Instead of the friction type pick-up member, a suction type pick-up member which sucks in air over a sheet to pick up and convey the sheet by negative pressure, is also used. A sheet can be fed more steadily by the suction type pick-up member than by the friction type. However, a loud noise is generated when air is sucked in, and size of the apparatus is large so that the suction type feed system is unsuitable for use in an office and so on.
Furthermore, it often occurs that two or more sheets are fed at once in the friction type feed system so that a unit for separating the sheets individually must be provided to feed the sheets separately.
A friction pad made from a material having a high friction coefficient, such as a rubber, or a rolling member rotating in a direction so as to return a sheet to be fed, is pressed onto the pick-up member or a conveyance roller provided at the lower reaches of the sheet path, and a friction coefficient between the friction pad or the rolling member and a sheet is set to be smaller than a friction coefficient between the pick-up member or the conveyance roller and a sheet, and larger than a friction coefficient between sheets in order to feed sheets separately. This enables only one sheet on the side of the pick-up member or the conveyance roller to be fed when multiple sheets are supplied together, and enables a sheet to be fed against a friction force between the friction pad or the rolling member and the sheet, when only one sheet is sent by the pick-up member. Since this friction type separating system is simple, it has been widely adopted.
However, this system does not necessarily enable sheets to be separated when a vacuum state exists between sheets of a stack of sheets in a cassette for feeding, when sheets pull against or adhere to each other due to an electrostatic force, or when each sheet has a long nap on the surface thereof so that the nap of one sheet becomes entangled with that on the facing sheet.
Instead of the friction type separating system, a system for separating sheets individually having a conveyance roller that rotates in such a direction as to feed a sheet and a prevention roller rotatable in either direction, arranged so as to provide a predetermined torque in such a direction as to return a sheet facing another sheet so that a sheet path is formed between them, and positioned at the lower reaches of the sheet path is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laying Open (KOKAI) No. 56-7847, laid open on Jan. 27, 1981 (The corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 2459773). In this system, the prevention roller does not slide over the conveyance roller or a sheet when the prevention roller makes contact with the conveyance directly or when only one sheet is fed by the pick-up roller into a clearance between the conveyance roller and the prevention roller, so that abrasion of the roller, reduction of a friction coefficient, generation of fiber dust from a sheet, and reduction of a friction coefficient owing to the dust can be prevented. Sheets cannot be separated steadily when a sheet tightly contacts a facing sheet or the nap of a sheet becomes entangled with that of the facing sheet as mentioned above, as the difference in friction forces between a roller and a sheet and between sheets is utilized in this system also.
The present applicants et al. disclosed an apparatus for feeding sheets steadily one by one without a separating unit in an image-forming device, and also an apparatus for feeding sheets separately and steadily when multiple sheets are fed together by a pick-up member owing to a tight contact of the sheets, aimed at overcoming the above-mentioned drawback of the related art in Japanese Patent application No. 2-283707 filed Oct. 22, 1990 (The corresponding U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/774349)
The first of the above-mentioned apparatus is shown in FIG. 12. The apparatus comprises an endless belt 2 for feeding a sheet. The belt 2 is made of a dielectric material, wound round rollers 5 and 6 and positioned over a stack 1 of sheets, the apparatus comprises an electrode member 3 for applying an alternating voltage from a power source 4 for an alternating current. The electrode member 3 is arranged to contact a surface of the endless belt 2, to thereby generate an alternating charged pattern on the surface of the endless belt 2. The stack 1 of sheets is carried on a movable plate 7 to be moved upward by a member 8 which press up against the plate 7, and a top surface of the stack 1 is held at a predetermined position. A sheet is fed along guide plates 10 and is conveyed by a pair of rollers 9.
An unequal electric field is caused near the surface of the endless belt 2 when an alternating charged pattern is generated on the surface of the endless belt 2 as mentioned above. A Maxwell's stress effect acts on a sheet 1a in the form of a dielectric contacting the endless-belt when a non-uniform electric field is caused near the surface of the endless belt, so that the sheet 1a is adhered onto the endless belt 2 by an electrostatic force. Accordingly, the sheet 1a is conveyed along a sheet path as a result of movement of the endless belt 2 around rollers 5 and 6. The attractive force owing to the charged pattern acts only upon the uppermost sheet 1a of the stack 1 and not upon the second sheet 1b so that feeding of multiple sheets can be prevented when a contacting pressure between the belt 2 and the top surface of the stack 1 is adjusted to be small.
The second of the above-mentioned apparatus is shown in FIG. 13 and 14. The apparatus comprises a friction type separating unit facing the endless belt 2 forming a sheet path between them, in which the unit is shown as a friction pad 110 of a rubber fixed on a base member 111 and always urged in an upward direction by a spring 112.
Sheets can be steadily separated by this unit as a sheet is strongly adhered by an electrostatic attractive force stronger than a friction force between sheets. However, the reliability of a separation of sheets is reduced when a friction force between the pad 110 and a sheet becomes nearly equal to a friction force between sheets due to a reduction in a friction coefficient between the pad 110 and a sheet over a period of time or owing to an adhesion of fiber du'st from a sheet and so on, as the prevention of feeding the lowest sheet of sheets that are being fed together, depends on a friction force.

Apparatus for feeding sheets separately using an electrostatic separator and separating member


There is a closure 1, which is, in this case, shown as closing a mouth 2 of a bottle 3, wherein the bottle is made of glass and has an external outwardly extending integral collar 4 which extends fully around an outside of the neck of the bottle and is of a constant shape and size at any location around the periphery. The seal 5 is held under compression against an uppermost rim 6 of the bottle mouth 2 and surface 7, which is adapted to engage with compression force the seal 5. Upon extraction of portion 8 from within the mouth of the bottle, a “popping” sound is achieved by having the position of the seal somewhat below the mouth prior to extraction so that there will be upon extraction an evacuation of the headspace within the bottle.

The problem to which this invention relates will be illustrated by reference to bottles of a type used to conventionally store wine but it is not intended that, at least in its broadest sense, the invention should be restricted to only this application.                "It can be argued that closing the bottle remains one of the greatest technical issues facing the wine industry. The winemaker can control many aspects of wine production to create a wine suitable for the marketplace, and yet there can be an unpredictable incidence of problems once the wine is bottled, due in large part to the properties of the closure used".        Peter Godden & Leigh Francis, The Australian Wine Research Institute, June 2001, Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research, Volume 7, Number 2, 2001.
It is currently known how to use the material natural cork to close the top of a wine bottle.
Despite being produced from an inherently variable natural product, natural cork has the advantageous characteristic of having an appropriate resiliency so that it can be used to tightly close a bottle top by being inserted inside the mouth in such a way that it will then effect substantial expansion against the inner surface of the bottle mouth to form a liquid and gas seal.
However, a very serious problem exists which is that natural cork is vulnerable to infection such as that caused by trichloroanisoles (TCA) and if an infected cork is used the infection has the probability of affecting the wine and, in more serious cases, seriously tainting the wine.
Estimates of as many as one in ten bottles of wine closed by cork might be affected in this way.
There are additional problems caused by the inconsistencies in the physical properties of natural cork, which can cause random bottle oxidation, seepage and leakage, breakage or cracking during insertion, excessive dust and inconsistent application of surface coating materials. Other problems are regularly encountered, such as crumbling and breaking over time, which becomes obvious at extraction.
The general inconsistency of cork as a closure has driven the development of alternative closures that are manufactured from materials other than natural cork.
Synthetic plugs and metallic screw caps have been developed as alternative closures, but these have not gained the same acceptance as natural cork.
Two general types of alternative closures illustrate the attempts and current difficulties being experienced, in terms of performance and public acceptance.
One attempt has been the manufacture of cylindrical plugs moulded or extruded from synthetic materials that are inserted and extracted in the same manner as traditional cork.
Significant difficulties forming an acceptable seal with foamed plastic may arise from its physical characteristics resulting in problems with flavor scalping, gas transmission and high extraction forces.
This leads to the further difficulty then that conventional extraction might be excessively difficult in some cases for a consumer or, in other cases, the closure would not be sufficient to maintain an adequate seal over a longer period to maintain the integrity of the wine inside the bottle.
Another attempt is the metallic Roll On Pilfer Proof (ROPP) or Roll On Tamper Evident (ROTE) screw cap closure, also referred to under the Trade Mark "Stelvin".
This approach includes a metal cap which is rolled into a screw thread outside a bottle neck and is able to hold under compression therefore a gasket or seal between an underneath surface of the top of the cap and the top rim of the mouth of the bottle.
This "Stelvin" type closure has been found to provide in the opinion of many the best long term seal to maintain the integrity of the product within the bottle.
There is however a problem with the public acceptance of this type of closure.


A computer key includes a base plate, a membrane circuit, a foil sheet, a biasing member, a push button, and first and second linking frames. The base plate includes a first hingeably retaining member and a first slidably retaining guideway spaced from each other in a longitudinal direction and formed with first and second retaining portions for blocking movement in an upward and normal direction. The membrane circuit is disposed on the base plate, and has left and right openings for extension of the first and second retaining portions therethrough. The foil sheet is superimposed on the membrane circuit to sandwich a lower flange on the biasing member therebetween. The first and second linking frames have first and second linking arms connected pivotally at intermediate portions to permit extension of the biasing member such that the latter is disposed between the push button and the base plate. The first linking arms have a lower portion with front and rear hooking ends, wherein the front hooking end can be inserted from a parallel direction relative to a plane of the base plate for retaining the front and rear hooking ends in the first hingeably retaining member of the base plate to block movement in the upward and normal direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a computer key, more particularly to a computer key which includes a biasing member mounted between a base member and a push button such that the biasing member will not disengage from the base member regardless of the position of the applied force. The base member is of a unique structure such that the overall height of the computer key is reduced as compared to that of the conventional computer key.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a known computer key is shown to include a base board consisting of a lower base plate 16 and a membrane circuit 15, an upper base plate 12, an upright elastomeric biasing member 14, first and second linking frames 131, 132, and a push button 11.
As illustrated, the membrane circuit 15 is disposed above the lower base plate 16. The upper base plate 12 is disposed above the membrane circuit 15 and includes a hole defining portion 12A with an inner peripheral portion 12B that defines a retaining hole 21 therethrough to expose a contact area 150 of the membrane circuit 15, a first hingeably retaining groove 122, and a first slidably retaining guideway 123 disposed on an opposite side of the retaining hole 21 relative to the first hingeably retaining groove 122. The inner peripheral portion 12B has an upper annular wall 22 with a first inner diameter, and a lower annular wall 23 with a second inner diameter which is greater than the first inner diameter to form an annular shoulder 24 between the upper and lower annular walls 22, 23.
The biasing member 14 includes an upper depressing portion 142, and a spacing lower portion 141 to space the upper depressing portion 142 from the contact area 150. The lower portion 141 of the biasing member 14 has a flange portion 32 which extends outwardly from a lower end thereof and which is inserted into an annular groove defined by the shoulder 24 and the membrane circuit 15. The depressing portion 141 of the biasing member 14 is movable against the biasing action thereof and through the retaining hole 21 to depress the contact area 150 of the membrane circuit 15 for generation of an electrical signal.
The push button 11 is disposed to actuate the the biasing member 14, and has a second hingeably retaining groove 112 and a second slidably retaining guideway 113 which are disposed underside thereof in diagonal positions relative to the first slidably retaining guideway 123 and the first hingeably retaining groove 122, respectively.
The first linking frame 131 includes a first transverse axle 1311 press-fitted to and retained hingeably in the first hingeably retaining groove 122 of the upper base plate 12, and a pair of first linking arms 1312 which extend respectively and radially from two ends of the first transverse axle 1311 and which have a pair of first hooking fingers 1313 at distal ends thereof and parallel to the first transverse axle 1311. The first hooking fingers 1313 are fitted to and slidably retained in the second slidably retaining guideway 113 of the push button 11.
The second linking frame 132 includes a second transverse axle 1321 press-fitted to and hingeably retained in the second hingeably retaining groove 112 of the push button 11, and a pair of second linking arms 1322 which extend respectively and radially from two ends of the second transverse axle 1321 to flank the first linking arms 1312 and which have a pair of second hooking fingers 1323 at distal ends thereof parallel to the second transverse axle 1321. The second hooking fingers 1323 are fitted to and retained slidably in the first slidably retaining guideway 123 of the upper base plate 12. The first and second linking arms 1312, 1322 are connected pivotally at intermediate portions thereof to confine a column of space for accommodating the depressing movement of the biasing member 14 when the first transverse axle 1311, the first hooking fingers 1313, the second transverse axle 1321, and the second hooking fingers 1323 are received in the first hingeably retaining groove 122, the second slidably retaining guideway 113, the second hingeably retaining groove 112 and the first slidably retaining guideway 123, respectively.
A drawback of the aforesaid computer key resides in that the upper base plate 12 must have a relative thickness in order to form the annular shoulder 24 between the upper and lower walls 22, 23. As a result, overall height reduction thereof is still not satisfactory.


An approach is provided for rendering content based on chunks and layers. A request is received to render content at a device. One or more layers of the content are determined. One or more patterns are determined corresponding to one or more of the layers. One or more chunks are determined based, at least in part, on the one or more patterns. At least one of the layers and corresponding one or more chunks are determined to be rendered separately from the other layers.

Service providers and device manufacturers (e.g., wireless, cellular, etc.) are continually challenged to deliver value and convenience to consumers by, for example, providing compelling network services. One area of interest has been the development of services and technologies using web-based applications. In particular, service providers are developing content that can be displayed on devices (e.g., via the web). However, service providers and device manufacturers face significant challenges to providing content to users efficiently. For example, some devices may have limited processing power and/or bandwidth capabilities. As such, these devices may be slow to retrieve and render content to present to a user. Such latency can lead to a negative user experience for users of a service and/or device, which may cost a service and/or device manufacturer a customer.

Method and apparatus for rendering content


A method for manufacturing a display device of the present invention includes the steps of forming insulating barriers which surround electrode and project upward from the surface of the electrode, and bringing the whole substrate into contact with water after applying the solution including an acceptor in wet process. According to the present invention, an organic conductive layer can be uniformly formed over a substrate in wet process even if the substrate does not have a smooth surface and has distribution in wettability of the surface.

An display for displaying an image is one of essential information display mediums for modern life. The display for displaying an image is found as usage in several modes, such as starting from a so-called TV monitor, a liquid crystal display that has been rapidly developed recently, and an organic EL display that is expected the further development. Specifically, the liquid crystal display and the organic EL display are characterized by being able to drive in lower voltage, and are an important research and development issue in view of energy saving.
Above all, the organic EL display attracts most attention as a next generation flat panel display.
The emission mechanism of the light emitting element using an organic EL material used in the organic EL display is the mechanism of using a photon, in which a molecular exciton is formed with recombination of an electron injected from a cathode and a hole injected from an anode in the luminescent center of the electroluminescent film by being provided with a thin film (hereinafter referred to as an electroluminescent film) including a luminescent body between the electrodes and applying current to them, and then the photon is ejected when the molecular exciton returns to a ground.
Usually, the electroluminescent film is formed with a thin film having a film thickness of less than 1 μm. Further, the light emitting element using the organic EL material is a self-luminous type element in which electroluminescent film itself emits light, backlight used for the conventional liquid crystal display is not required. Therefore, it is a big advantage that the light emitting element can be manufactured extremely thinner and lighter.
As described above, the emission mechanism of the light emitting element using the organic EL material is the mechanism of using a photon, in which a molecular exciton is formed with recombination of an electron injected from a cathode and a hole injected from an anode in the luminescent center of the electroluminescent film by being provided with the electroluminescent between the electrodes and applying the current to them, and the photon is ejected when the molecular exciton returns to a ground. Therefore, it is one of requirements to efficiently inject the hole and the electron into the electroluminescent film for manufacturing an efficient light emitting element.
As a typical operation condition of the light emitting element using an organic EL material, current of approximately 100 mA/cm2 is applied to the electroluminescent film with originally higher electrical resistance. In order to realize the current injection having such a higher density, a hole injection barrier from the anode and an electron injection barrier from the cathode are to be reduced as far as possible. Namely, a metal with a smaller work function is to be used as the cathode; on the other hand, a metal with larger work function is to be used as the anode. As for the cathode, the work function can be practically controlled voluntarily by selecting various metal or alloy. On the contrary, the transparency is required for the anode in the light emitting element using the general organic EL material, the material for the light emitting element is limited to the transparent conductive oxide as it now stands. Considering the stability, the transparency and the resistivity, several oxide conductive films typified by indium-tin oxide (hereinafter referred to as ITO) must be selected for the anode.
The ITO electrode is the one doped (added) with tin into the indium oxide, and the tin gets into the substitution site of indium. The tin and the some oxygen defect become the donor, and conductivity is developed by partly filling the conductive band. The ITO is formed over a glass by sputtering, ion beam sputtering, vapor growth method, or the like. The lower resistance electrode with higher transparency can be manufactured by choosing the adequate amount of tin doping.
However, because the surface of the ITO film is not always flattened, it is pointed out that the contact with an electroluminescent film used for the light emitting element using the organic EL material is deteriorated or a pin hole is generated in the electroluminescent film. And it is said that is a reason of the deterioration of the light emitting element using the organic EL material. Further, the work function of the ITO film can be varied to some extent according to record in the film formation or the surface treatment, however the technique thereof is limited. Consequently, the reduction of the hole injection barrier is prevented.
As a method for reducing the hole injection barrier from ITO film as the anode, the technique to deposit a buffer layer over the ITO film is known. To make the adequate ionization potential of the buffer layer, the hole injection barrier can be reduced. The buffer layer is referred to as a hole injection layer. A substance that functions as the hole injection layer can be roughly categorized by metal oxide, low molecular organic compound, and high molecular compound. A conjugated polymer such as polyaniline (refer to non-patent literature 1) and polythiophene derivative (refer to non-patent literature 2) are known as the high molecular compound material. The conjugated polymer such as the polyaniline and the polythiophene rarely has conductivity by itself. And by mixing with strong acid such as camphor sulfonic acid and poly (styrenesulfonic acid) as acceptor, namely by doping, higher conductivity is developed. Accordingly, the conductive conjugated polymer which has been doped functions as the hole injection material.
(Non-Patent Reference. 1)
Y. Yang et al., Applied physics letters, Vol. 64, 1245 page, 1994
(Non-Patent Reference. 2)
S. A. Carter et al., Applied physics letters, Vol. 70, 2067 page, 1987
By using the conductive conjugated polymer which has been doped as the hole injection layer, the hole injection barrier is reduced and the hole can be efficiently injected. As a result, the efficiency and the lifetime of the light emitting element using the organic EL material can be improved, and the drive voltage can be reduced. The conductivity conjugated polymer is characterized by being able to be formed over the ITO surface in wet application method or ink-jetting.
A method of obtaining hydrophilic property of the substrate by using UV ozone rinsing or oxygen plasma rinsing is widely conducted so that the conductive conjugated polymer is uniformity formed in wet process against the substrate surface having the ITO.

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


A semiconductor device includes a thyristor, trigger circuit and surge detection/leakage reduction circuit. The anode of the thyristor is connected to a first terminal and the cathode thereof is connected to a second terminal. The trigger circuit is configured to fire the thyristor when surge voltage is applied to the first terminal. The surge detection/leakage reduction circuit is provided between the gate of the thyristor and the second terminal and configured to interrupt current flowing from the trigger circuit to the second terminal in the normal operation mode and set trigger voltage which is used to fire the thyristor in cooperation with the trigger circuit at the surge voltage application time.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a semiconductor device having an electrostatic destruction protection circuit which prevents flow of excessively large current caused by a surge or the like and more particularly to a semiconductor device having an electrostatic destruction protection circuit which uses a thyristor (SCR) as a protection element.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a semiconductor device such as an IC and LSI, an electrostatic destruction (ESD) protection circuit is provided to protect an internal circuit from excessively large current caused by a surge or the like.
Various configurations of the electrostatic destruction protection circuit are proposed and circuits which protect the internal circuits by use of diodes and MOS transistors are widely used. However, as the integration density of the semiconductor device is more enhanced and the operation voltage is further lowered, it becomes impossible to sufficiently protect the internal circuit only by use of the diodes or MOS transistors. For example, in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2003-318265 and International Patent Publication No. WO01/011685, an electrostatic destruction protection circuit which uses a thyristor as a protection element is proposed. The thyristor can perform the high-speed switching operation, permits large current to flow therein and is difficult to be broken. Therefore, the electrostatic destruction protection circuit using the thyristor has an excellent characteristic of high performance and high protection capability.
The electrostatic destruction protection circuit is configured by a thyristor, a plurality of diodes and a resistor. The anode of the thyristor is connected to a terminal (power supply terminal) to which power supply voltage is applied and the cathode thereof is connected to a terminal (ground terminal) to which ground potential is applied. The cathodes of the plurality of diodes are respectively connected to the anodes of the next-stage diodes and the plurality of diodes are connected between the power supply terminal and the gate of the thyristor. The diodes function as a trigger circuit of the thyristor. A resistor which sets the trigger voltage of the thyristor in cooperation with the plurality of diodes is connected between the gate of the thyristor and the ground terminal.
With the above configuration, if voltage between the power supply terminal and the ground terminal varies due to a surge or the like to a greater extent, current flows from the power supply terminal to the ground terminal via a plurality of diodes and resistor. Therefore, voltage occurs at the gate of the thyristor and trigger current is supplied to the gate of the thyristor based on the above voltage (trigger voltage). As a result, the thyristor is fired or triggered and short-circuits a path between the power supply terminal and the ground terminal to leakage the surge and protect the internal circuit. The trigger voltage is determined by the sum of the forward voltages VF of the plurality of diodes and the resistance of the resistor.
By further enhancing the integration density of the recent semiconductor device and lowering the operation voltage thereof, MOS transistors configuring the internal circuit are further miniaturized and the gate oxide film is made thinner and is liable to be destroyed. In order to safely protect the thus miniaturized MOS transistor, it is necessary to lower the trigger voltage which turns on the thyristor at the time of application of a surge voltage and set the trigger voltage lower than the breakdown voltage of the gate oxide film.
If the gate oxide film of the MOS transistor is thick, voltage applied between the power supply terminal and the ground terminal exceeds the maximum value of the power supply voltage and the thyristor is turned on in a range of voltage lower than the breakdown voltage of the gate oxide film. Therefore, the internal circuit can be effectively protected from the excessively large current caused by a surge. However, if the gate oxide film is thin, the breakdown voltage of the gate oxide film is lowered and a difference between the maximum value of the power supply voltage and the breakdown voltage of the gate oxide film becomes smaller. As a result, there occurs a possibility that voltage which turns on the thyristor may exceed the breakdown voltage of the gate oxide film. That is, the gate oxide film of the MOS transistor configuring the internal circuit will be destroyed before the protection operation by the electrostatic destruction protection circuit is performed.
In order to realize the low trigger voltage in the electrostatic destruction protection circuit using the thyristor as described above, it is necessary to reduce the number of stages of the diodes which function as the trigger circuit. However, if the number of stages of the diodes is reduced, the leakage current flowing from the power supply terminal to the ground terminal through the diodes and resistor in the normal operation mode becomes large and the current consumption increases.

Semiconductor device having electrostatic destruction protection circuit using thyristor as protection element


A method of processing images from an imaging device corrects defective pixels in an image acquired with the imaging device. The method includes a step of acquiring position information about continuous defective pixels from the position information about the defective pixels, a first correcting step of correcting the defective pixels with at least one normal pixel adjacent at least one defective pixels based on the position information about the defective pixels and a second correcting step of correcting the continuous defective pixels with a plurality of normal pixels adjacent at least one continuous defective pixels based on the position information about the continuous defective pixels. The second correcting step relies upon a greater number of normal pixels than the first correcting step to correct the defective pixels in a higher precision than the first correcting step.

The present invention relates to a method of processing images formed with an imaging device, more particularly, to a method of processing images formed with an imaging device by correcting defective pixels in the imaging device.
One of the methods for image acquisition is by using an imaging device that converts light to an electric signal.
Take, for example, an image scanner, facsimile, digital camera, or a video camera; the available method is to record image using a semiconductor light-receiving device (so-called "charge-coupled device," which is hereinafter sometimes referred to as "CCD") that converts light to an electric signal.
In other applications such as medical diagnostic imaging and industrial non-destructive testing, the available method is to record a radiation image by first allowing a radiation (e.g. X-rays, α-rays, β-rays, γ-rays, electron beams or uv rays) to pass through the object, causing it to be stored as a record in a storage phosphor sheet (so-called imaging plate), and reading the photostimulated luminescence that is emitted from the storage phosphor sheet.
Another method adopted in these applications such as medical diagnostic imaging and industrial non-destructive testing is to use a radiation image detector which records a radiation image by first allowing a radiation (e.g. X-rays, α-rays, β-rays, γ-rays, electron beams or uv rays) to pass through the object and then picking up the radiation as an electric signal.
An example of this radiation image detector is a device that employs a solid-state radiation detector (so-called "flat panel detector" which is hereinafter sometimes referred to as "FPD") that picks up the radiation as an electrical image signal.
FPDs are operated by one of two methods, direct and indirect; in the direct method, electron-positive hole pairs (e-h pairs) emitted from a film of photoconductive material such as amorphous selenium upon incidence of a radiation are collected and read as an electric signal, whereby the radiation is "directly" converted to an electric signal: in the indirect method, a phosphor layer (scintillator layer) which is formed of a phosphor that emits light (fluoresces) upon incidence of a radiation is provided such that it converts the radiation to visible light, which is read with a photoelectric transducer, whereby the radiation "as visible light" is converted to an electric signal.
The above-described image recording apparatus using the CCD or the radiation image recording apparatus using the FPD may suffer a deterioration in the quality of images and defective pixels in the CCD or FPD may be mentioned as one of the causes of such deterioration.
To be more specific, not all of the pixels (detecting elements) in the CCD or FPD will output a signal of the right intensity in response to the incident light or radiation (radiation dose) but there exist some pixels which output a signal of either abnormally low or abnormally high value in response to the light or radiation.
These areas (pixels) where defective pixels occur are unable to produce the right image. If the right image cannot be obtained on account of the defective pixels, an especial problem arises in the case where the produced image is to be used as a medical image since this can lead to such a serious trouble as wrong diagnosis.
Hence, in the radiation image recording apparatus, the positions of defective pixels are preliminarily detected on a specified timing and when the radiation image is to be recorded, the result of detection of the defective pixels is relied upon to perform defective pixel correction, in which pixels adjacent a defective pixel (or the relevant image data) are used to correct the defective pixels, and the radiation image that has been corrected for the defective pixels is displayed as the diagnostic image or the like, or reproduced as a print.
The following methods have been proposed with a view to correcting the image detects due to the above-described defects in the imaging device (see Patent Documents 1 and 2).
JP3-279936 A describes a radiation image display method characterized in that when a storage phosphor sheet in which a radiation image has been stored as a record is irradiated with exciting light and the resulting photostimulated luminescence that is emitted from the storage phosphor sheet is captured to obtain an image signal which is relied upon to display a visible image, a singular point position signal that represents the position of a singular point due to a defect on the surface or in the bulk of the storage phosphor sheet which appears in the radiation image that is carried by the image signal is entered, an interpolating operation is performed based on the image signals corresponding to pixels adjacent the singular point to thereby determine an interpolated image signal corresponding to the singular point, the interpolated signal is substituted for the image signal corresponding to the singular point, and a visible image is displayed based on the substituted image signal.
JP3-279936 A also describes one-dimensional interpolation that is performed as a method of correcting detective pixels.
JP2006-60678 A mainly relates to image processing as applicable to digital cameras and describes an imaging apparatus which, when a continuous shooting mode or a video shooting mode is set that requires high-speed image data processing which puts greater emphasis on speed than on image quality compared with a still image shooting mode for obtaining image data for still image, the image data corresponding to each of the defective pixels within the image data for the recorded image that have occurred at consecutive positions is subjected to a defective pixel correcting treatment based on the position information about the defective pixels that is loaded in a continuous defect correcting LUT 66A stored in a high-speed memory SRAM 66 whereas when a still image shooting mode that requires acquisition of image data of higher quality than in the continuous shooting mode or the video shooting mode is set, image data associated with the position information about all defective pixels within the image data for the recorded image is corrected based on two kinds of position information, one being the position information about the defective pixels that is loaded in an single defect correcting LUT 78A stored in memory SDRAM 78 which has a lower access speed than SRAM 66, and the other being the position information about the defective pixels that is loaded in continuous defect correcting LUT 66A stored in high-speed memory SRAM 66.

Method of processing images from an imaging device


In a process for producing a narrow groove in a layer of, for example, silicon nitride, a wide groove is first formed in the layer. A layer of a metal, for example aluminium, is evaporated on to one side of the wide groove. The remainder of the wide groove is then filled with a material such a silicon nitride. The metal layer is then etched away, leaving a narrow groove in the silicon nitride equal to the thickness of the metal layer.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a fabrication process, and particularly to a process for producing grooves of very small (e-g, nanometre) dimensions in, for example, silicon nitride,
2. Description of Related Art
The fabrication of, for example, large-scale integrated circuits can necessitate the production of grooves (commonly known as "trenches") of sub-micron width and depth. The trenches must be of uniform width along their length.
The accurate production of such narrow trenches is very difficult to achieve lithographically, even with the use of expensive electron beam, ion beam or x-ray lithography equipment and processes.


An anchoring device having a clasp region and a closure means for rapid release, a body for grasping, and an attachment means for receiving a tethering means such as a lead, leash, rope or the like, is provided. The clasp region has a gateway opening at its outer most tip. The closure means is preferably a spring biased rotary arm actuated by a thumb nub which allows rapid release in the direction to of pull of a harness, belt, or rope when a portion of the aforesaid is encircled by the clasp and the thumb nub is actuated. While the inventive anchoring device may be used in a variety of ways such as for rock climbing or industrial safety harnesses, the anchoring device is especially useful for animal husbandry where restraining devices, such as for example, leads or leashes used to guide animals, are terminated by clasps.

An anchoring device for attaching a line, lead or leash to a harness, halter, collar or the like generally has two opposing ends. At one end of the anchoring device is a means for attaching the anchoring device to the line, lead or leash. At the opposite end is a hook and nose portion. A gateway blocked by a movable gate is situated between the hook and nose portions. In order to detach the anchoring device from that which the hook portion encircles such as a ring portion of a harness, the gateway is opened and the hook portion is manipulated to free the ring.
In animal husbandry, current restraining devices for animals utilize a carabineer or a snap hook for attaching a lead or leash to an animal harness, halter or collar. U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,726 (Harris) illustrates a C-shaped carabineer having an inwardly opening gate which is similar in design to carabineers used for mountaineering. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,373,814 (Seymour) and 5,351,654 (Fuentes) illustrate various types of snap hooks that have been suggested for use with devices for restraining animals. None provides a gateway and gate which would allow release of an animal in the direction the animal was pulling.
When a highly excitable animal is restrained, rapid release may be desirable to prevent injury to either the handler or the animal itself. For example, when a young horse is led from the barn to the pasture, the horse may exert a strong pull on the anchoring device or snap hook attached to the lead held by the handler. As the horse pulls away, force is exerted upon the upper most curved portion of the hook making release difficult because the hook portion must be manipulated to free the harness. Further, this force can bend the hook, thereby enlarging the gateway until the animal escapes prematurely and the snap hook is rendered useless. If the anchoring device is not easily releasable, the handler may be forced to drop the lead rather than release it, thus risking entanglement of the horse in the lead. Alternatively, the handler may be injured by contact with the animal while attempting to manipulate the hook portion around the harness portion.
Similarly, when a worker is using a safety harness, dangerous situations occur which require rapid release of the worker in order to avoid injury. However, if the worker is disengaged prematurely injury is also possible. In both situations, the anchoring device should be easy to grasp quickly to facilitate rapid release, strong enough to prevent premature release, and easy to free.
It is an object of this invention to provide an anchoring device which rapidly releases at one end in the direction of pull, while remaining secured at the opposing end. It is a further object of this invention to provide an anchoring device which is easy to grasp, to manipulate, and to control. It is a still further object of this invention to provide a strong, but rapidly releasable anchoring device that has a clasp which requires minimum hand strength to open.
When used in animal husbandry, it is an object of this invention to provide an anchoring device which allows the animal handler greater, safer control over the animal.

Anchoring device having a rapid release clasp


A low turn-on voltage GaN diode having an anode metal with a consistent crystal orientation and a preparation method thereof. The low turn-on voltage GaN diode having an anode metal with a consistent crystal orientation provided by the present disclosure includes a substrate layer, a GaN buffer layer, a GaN channel layer and an AlGaN barrier layer, which are arranged in sequence from bottom to top; a cathode arranged on the AlGaN barrier layer; a groove arranged in the GaN channel layer and the AlGaN barrier layer, and an anode provided on a bottom and a side wall of the groove and part of the AlGaN barrier layer; a dielectric layer provided on an uncovered portion of the AlGaN barrier layer; wherein, a contact portion of the anode with the groove and the AlGaN barrier layer is W or Mo metal with a crystal orientation of <100>.

GaN has advantages of large band gap, direct band gap, high breakdown field strength, and high thermal conductivity, as well as excellent electrical and optical properties in harsh environments, so it has been widely used in power electronic devices and other fields, and the main application is diodes and high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs). However, due to the material properties of GaN, when GaN material is used in diode devices, the Schottky barrier of the device is high due to the large difference of the work function between GaN material and metal, which leads to the higher opening voltage of GaN diode compared with the diode prepared by traditional materials, thereby greatly affecting its efficiency.
The traditional aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN)/GaN structure-based diodes mostly use Pt and AlGaN layer to achieve Schottky contact. Due to the high barrier, the turn-on voltage of the device is more than 1 V, which makes it limited in low-power rectification and other fields. Therefore, the preparation of GaN diodes with a low turn-on voltage can greatly improve the performance of the device, which is of great use significance.

Low turn-on voltage GaN diodes having anode metal with consistent crystal orientation and preparation method thereof


A method of fabricating a spatial light modulator. The method includes providing a first substrate including a first bonding surface, forming a first layer coupled to the bonding surface, wherein the first layer is characterized by a first set of material parameters, and forming a second layer coupled to the first layer, wherein the second layer is characterized by a second set of material parameters. The method also includes patterning the first layer and the second layer to form a plurality of landing structures extending to a first distance from the bonding surface of the first substrate. The method further includes providing a second substrate including a second bonding surface, joining the first bonding surface of the first substrate to the second bonding surface of the second substrate, and forming a plurality of moveable mirrors from the second substrate. During operation, the moveable mirrors make contact with the second layer.

The present invention relates generally to semiconductor processing techniques. More particularly, the invention includes a method and structure for forming a spatial light modulator with multi-layer landing structures. Merely by way of example, the invention has been applied to a method of forming landing structures from several layers of different materials, with each material characterized by different material properties. The method and structure is applicable to spatial light modulators utilizing various mirror designs. The method and structure can be applied to other applications as well, such as actuators, sensors, detectors, and display components.
Spatial light modulators (SLMs) have numerous applications in the areas of optical information processing, projection displays, video and graphics monitors, and televisions. Reflective SLMs are devices that modulate incident light in a spatial pattern to reflect an image corresponding to an electrical or optical input. The incident light may be modulated in phase, intensity, polarization, or deflection direction. A reflective SLM is typically comprised of a one or two-dimensional array of addressable picture elements (pixels) capable of reflecting incident light. Source pixel data is first processes by an associated control circuit, then loaded into the pixel array, one frame at a time.
Some SLMs are fabricated using micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) architectures. Generally these MEMS devices include multiple components arranged in an array configuration. The components include electrodes, which are actuated to attract or repel an associated moveable mirror. Typically, the moveable mirror is attracted toward a position associated with an electrode upon application of an electrical force and restored to an original position by a restoring force. In the position associated with the electrode, some SLMs reflect light toward a viewing screen, while the SLM reflects light away from the viewing screen in the original position.
In some system architectures, landing structures, also called landing posts or landing pads, are utilized to arrest the motion of the moveable mirror in one or more of the several positions. The reliable operation of some SLM devices as a function of time are hampered by stiction forces, which can cause the moveable mirror to stick to the landing structures. Moreover, in some SLM designs, repeated contact between a moveable mirror and a landing structure results in damage to the mirror and/or the landing structure.
Therefore there is a need in the art for improved methods and structures for SLMs with landing structures.

Spatial light modulator with multi-layer landing structures


A flow sensor which is used for measuring the flow rate of a gas is disclosed. The flow sensor comprises a flow tube for allowing a gas to be circulated therethrough, a resistance is arranged so as to go across the inside of the flow tube, and pressure ports arranged on a tubular wall of the flow tube. The resistance includes a fixed resistance and a variable resistance. The fixed resistance is a block being fixed to a circumferential wall of the flow tube and closing part of a flow path of the flow tube. Parallel plates are arranged in the block so as to confront the two pressure ports, respectively, and so as to extend in parallel to the gas flowing direction. The two pressure ports are positioned within areas defined by the parallel plates, respectively. The variable resistance is an orifice membrane having a flap, an outer circumference of the membrane being fixed to an inner circumference of the flow tube, the flap forming an aperture in the middle of the membrane while being displaced in a direction of flow of the gas.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flow sensor used for measuring the flow rate of a gas, and more particularly to a flow sensor adapted for measuring the respiratory flow of a living body.
2. Description of Related Art
As instruments for measuring parameters related to the respiration of a patient while connected to an artificial respiration device, an anesthesia device, or the like, various types have heretofore been known. As an apparatus for measuring respiratory flow among these instruments, a differential pressure type flow measuring apparatus is widely used. The differential pressure type flow measuring apparatus measures flow rate based on differential pressure by arranging a resistance within a flow path and by detecting pressure before and past the resistance.
The construction of an exemplary conventional flow measuring apparatus of this type is shown in FIGS. 10 to 12. An apparatus shown in FIGS. 10 and 11 has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,332, and is characterized as fixing a resistance within a flow path. In FIGS. 10 and 11, three vanes 2 are arranged on the inner circumference of a flow tube 1 at an angular interval of 120.degree. toward the center. Apertures 3 are formed on both surfaces of each vane 2, the surfaces being at the center portion toward which the three vanes 2 join and being on the outer sides of the vane as viewed in the axial direction. The apertures 3 on both sides are connected to directly communicate with tubes 4 that are formed within the vane 2 so as to be orthogonal to the axial direction. The tubes 4 are connected further to a measuring instrument 5.
In the aforementioned construction, pressures of a gas at before and past the vane 2, a fixed resistance, in the flow direction are sensed through the apertures 3 and the tubes 4, and a differential pressure is detected by the measuring instrument 5, whereby the flow rate of the gas flowing through the flow tube 1 can be measured. Since the vanes 2 are arranged radially at an equal angular interval around the apertures 3, the effects of an asymmetrical flow profile are automatically eliminated. In this example, channels 6 for satisfactorily guiding a stream of gas, which collides against the surfaces of the vanes 2, into the aperture 3 are arranged in the surfaces of the vanes 2.
An apparatus shown in FIG. 12 has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,245. In this apparatus, a variable resistance is provided within the flow path. It may be noted that in FIG. 12, parts and components corresponding to the portions shown in FIG. 10 are denoted by the same reference numerals and that their descriptions will be omitted as appropriate. In FIG. 12, the flow tube 1 includes an entrance/exit portion 1a and an exit/entrance portion 1b. Both portions 1a, 1b are fixed to each other through flanges 11a, 11b. Pressure ports 12a, 12b are respectively arranged on both portions 1a, 1b in such a manner that the pressure ports 12a, 12b are opened onto the tube. These pressure ports 12a, 12b are connected to the measuring instrument 5 through the tubes 4, respectively.
An orifice membrane 13 serving as a variable resistance is held between the flanges 11a, 11b. The orifice membrane 13 is made of rubber or an elastic body, and has at the center thereof a notched flap 14, one end of the flap 14 being integrally connected to the orifice membrane 13.
In the aforementioned construction, the pressures at before and past the orifice membrane 13 as viewed in the flow direction are sensed through the pressure ports 12 and the tubes 4, and a differential pressure is detected by the measuring instrument 5, whereby the flow rate of a gas flowing through the flow tube 1 can be measured. At this time, the orifice opens only slightly for a relatively small flow of gas, thereby giving a relatively high resistance. When the flow rate of the gas has increased, the flap 14 is pushed outward as shown in FIG. 12, so that the aperture of the orifice is increased, so that resistance is reduced. As a result, resistance that increases with increasing flow rate can be suppressed to stay constant.
A flow sensor disposed in the flow measuring apparatus shown in FIGS. 10 and 11 has the vanes 2 serving as a fixed resistance arranged radially so as to be symmetrical with respect to the apertures 3 at the center. Therefore, the flow direction can be controlled independently of the gas flow profiles, which in turn permits highly reliable differential pressure sensing. However, since the vanes 2 are fixed, fluid resistance, which corresponds to a gauge pressure on the entrance side of the flow sensor, increases with increasing flow rate of the gas flowing in both directions. As a result, sensitivity to a differential pressure to be detected on the entrance/exit side of the flow sensor varies in accordance with the flow rates. That is, within a normal respiratory flow range of .+-.3 L/sec, the differential pressure sensitivity at low flow rates is low and the differential pressure sensitivity at high flow rates is high.
Further, since the flow tube 1 is connected to an endotracheal tube through an L connector, a Y piece, or the like, the amplitudes of pressure vibrations become large as shown in FIG. 15. As a result, noises appear in differential pressure outputs. This noise increases with increasing flow rate. To cope with this problem, correction based on electric processing must be made, which in turn makes it difficult to extract the true values of the differential pressure outputs. It may be noted that FIG. 14 shows a case where a laminar flow is caused to flow through a direct tube, exhibiting smaller noise than the case shown in FIG. 15.
A flow sensor disposed in the flow measuring apparatus shown in FIG. 12 has the resistance being designed as a variable resistance that is constructed of the orifice membrane 13 having the flap 14. Therefore, when the flow rate of a gas increases, resistance is decreased with the flap 14 having been opened, which in turn keeps the resistance of the orifice constant. However, as shown in FIG. 16, fluid resistance is decreased and so is differential pressure sensitivity at high flow rates. In this case, as shown in FIGS. 17 and 18, the effects of the connected tubes are small and noise is decreased compared with the case of the fixed resistance shown in FIG. 10. It may be noted that FIG. 17 shows a case where a laminar flow is caused to flow through a direct tube similarly to FIG. 14, and that FIG. 18 is a case where the flow tube is connected to an endotracheal tube similarly to FIG. 15.

Flow sensor having a fixed resistance and a variable resistance


The invention relates to corrosion inhibitors, and more specifically corrosion inhibitors for coating compositions. The invention provides for coating compositions that have improved corrosion properties, including reduced flash rust during the application of the coating composition to a metal surface, and even improved corrosion inhibition in the resulting dried coating. The invention also provides for methods of making and using the described the compositions and the corrosion inhibitors thereof.

The present invention is directed to a corrosion-inhibiting composition and to a method of protecting metallic surfaces from corrosion using the same, and more specifically corrosion inhibitors for coating compositions, and the coating compositions containing such corrosion inhibitors.
Metal surfaces can undergo very rapid corrosion, sometimes even within very short windows of exposure to certain conditions. Significant corrosion can occur in mere minutes or hours depending upon the conditions, and particularly when the metal surfaces are in contact with aqueous solutions, particularly acidic solutions, with highly ionic solutions, and even with hard water. This rapid corrosion is commonly referred to as "flash rust" in the case of ferrous metal surfaces, but is equally a problem with non-ferrous metal surfaces as well. The term "flash rust" as used below refers to the rapid corrosion whether the materials involved are ferrous or non-ferrous.
Not all flash rust is readily visible, yet the presence of any such corrosion can be harmful and can be generally detected upon more in-depth analysis. Flash rust and other forms of corrosion can be particularly problematic in the manufacture of metallic components for various uses when the components will come in contact with aqueous solutions during fabrication, assembly or subsequent testing or use.
There is an ongoing need to reduce, and if possible prevent, flash rust from occurring. There is also an ongoing need to reduce other types of corrosion so that surfaces and parts may last longer and not experience premature failures due to corrosion-related damage.
Commercially available corrosion inhibitors often have low water solubility, such as metallic sulfonates, pigment compositions containing heavy metal salts (e.g., zinc) of carboxylic acids, benzoates, nitrites and nitrates. In addition, flash rust inhibitors formed with nitrites and nitrates have limited use as long-term corrosion inhibitors in direct to metal applications as the toxicity of these corrosion inhibitors make them less attractive for commercial use.
In addition, while nitrites and nitrates mixed with amines are effective flash rust inhibitors, they can react to form N-nitrosamines, which are known carcinogens.
Consequently, a need exists for a corrosion inhibitor for coating compositions that provides early flash rusting protection, and which may also provide long-term corrosion protection. There is also a need for corrosion inhibitors that provide the desired performance in coating compositions while also being cost effective, free of heavy metals, free of nitrites, free of solvents, free of toxic and/or environmentally unfriendly materials, or any combination thereof. The corrosion inhibitors ideally would not absorb oil and could be added directly to coatings compositions, such that the coating composition provides early flash rusting protection and even long-term corrosion protection to the surface the coating is applied to. Or the CI could be made inside in-situ.
In light of the above discussion and problems being encountered, there is a continuing need for advancements in the relevant fields, including improved coating and methods for treating these and other metallic components to reduce flash rust or corrosion and also to deal with it if it occurs. The present invention is addressed to these needs.

Waterborne coatings, compositions, and methods thereof that provide improved corrosion protection


A pager comprises a receiving section for receiving message data, an LCD for displaying the message based on the message data, and a memory for storing the format No. contained in the format code specifying the display format of the message and the actually displayed display format in such a manner that they correspond to each other. When a format code is sensed from the received message data, a display format is read from the memory according to the format No. contained in the format code and develops the subsequence display data on the display format, thereby displaying it on the LCD.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a receiving terminal most suitable for paging receivers, and more particularly to a receiving terminal having a display function that develops and displays the incoming data in a fixed format and a memory function that sorts out and stores the incoming data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since pagers can be used at lower rates than automobile telephones and portable telephones, not only do more and more companies have their salespersons carry pagers with them to contact their companies by phone from where they have gone, but also an increasing number of individuals use pagers as handy tools for communicating with their friends who are out. For individuals, there are telephones as means for accessing conventional pagers. In the case of companies and individual informers, operation service companies, personal computers, information processing companies, etc. function to access conventional pagers.
With those pagers, the informer notifies the called party that he wants to be contacted by telephone, by using the call signal of the relevant pager stored in a pager service company to sound an alarm, turn on the indicator, or vibrate, or by receiving the message added to the call signal and indicating the phone number or name of the calling party.
Some of those pagers have a memory function that sorts out the incoming data by the address data specified by the call signal and stores the sorted data.
With such conventional pagers, however, in the call incoming process, the character data based on the incoming data is developed directly on the display section, which thereby displays it. When the data with a specific display format for information service is received and displayed, all of the display content data including the blank data not to be displayed is taken in. This therefore causes the problem that it takes a longer time to complete the call incoming process and more memory is needed.
In the case of a pager with the function of memorizing a plurality of address data items about the call signal, sorting out the incoming data by address, and storing the sorted data, since the incoming data is mainly used only for individual management of the information service corresponding to the incoming address data, this causes the problem that the message memory cannot be used effectively in the case of normal messages other than those of the information service.
The aim of the present invention is to provide a receiving terminal which not only enables the reduction of the amount of transmitted data in displaying the data in a fixed display format, but also makes effective use of the message memory by sorting out and storing the incoming data.

Receiving terminal with a message display function


The present invention provides, as one aspect, an apparatus for detecting an abnormality of a generator for vehicles. The generator includes a multi-phase armature winding that has phase windings and a rectifier that rectifies multi-phase output of the armature winding. The apparatus includes a first period detection unit that detects a first period of an output voltage of the generator, a second period detection unit that detects a second period of an voltage of one of the phase windings, and an abnormality determination unit that determines presence or absence of an abnormality of the generator by comparing the first period with the second period.

1. Technical field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for detecting an abnormality of a generator for vehicles.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, apparatuses are known which detect an abnormality of an alternator for vehicles. In one of these apparatuses, ripples are detected in the output voltage of a rectifier of an alternator. Then, the presence or absence of an abnormality of the alternator is determined based on the number of the ripples. Such an apparatus is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2003-61260.
However, the magnitude of the ripples varies in response to the output current and revolution speed of the alternator and the condition of a battery. Therefore, in the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2003-61260, there is a problem that it is difficult to accurately determine the presence or absence of an abnormality of the alternator based on the number of the ripples only. In addition, electric loads which are repeatedly and periodically connected and disconnected cause variations of the output voltage of the alternator. Consequently, the measurement error of the number of the ripples becomes large, thereby making it difficult to accurately determine the presence or absence of an abnormality of the alternator.

Apparatus and method for detecting an abnormality of a generator for vehicles


A test mode controller is capable of reducing a chip area and unnecessary current consumption by integrally constructing latch units of the two test circuits. The test mode controller includes a test control block for determining a test mode between a programmable test and a wafer burn-in test to generate a reset signal and a control signal generating block for receiving a plurality of input signals activated in a wafer burn-in test to generate a plurality of test control signals in response to the reset signal and a programmable test signal activated in a programmable stress test.

In general, tests are mainly classified into two types, i.e., product tests and prove (or function) tests. The product test screens for product failures and sorts out articles of good quality from defects that can occur during wafer-processing, an assembly process, etc.
The prove test confirms whether or not the function or performance of a manufactured DRAM meets design specification. The product test is frequently performed during a shipping process, and thus there is required high throughput in the product test. The purpose of the prove test is to shorten a development period and raise the completion degree of the product by thoroughly carrying out the prove test in a research and development period.
If finding out the defects occurring during manufacturing processes by means of the product test, or finding out that the function of the actual product does not meet with the design specification, a predetermined analysis such as a failure analysis is performed for accurately diagnosing reasons for failure. In particular, it is important to diagnose where the defects occur in the DRAM beyond question.
The DRAM test measures three kinds of characteristics, i.e., DC, AC and function, by using a measurement system such as a memory test. As one part of the function test, a burn-in test is performed after a semiconductor chip is packaged. The burn-in test is performed such that excessive stress is exerted upon the whole DRAM. That is, a voltage and an ambient temperature higher than for conditions of actual use are imposed upon the DRAM in order to find out initial defects in its early stages.
The cells sorted out as defects through the test may be repaired for performing normal operations. In other words, the defective cells are replaced with redundancy cells. Furthermore, a predetermined operational condition, which is arbitrarily set using experimental data, is applied to the passed cells sorted out through the test during DRAM operation.
However, if there is a significant number of detects corresponding to several bits or higher, it is impossible to repair the wafer chip. Thus, this chip cannot be used. As a result, the package cost of the chip and the time for the burn-in test after packaging have been unnecessarily consumed.
In addition, this problem may becomes more serious in a highly integrated device so that the burn-in test becomes more and more important in order to accurately detect the defective cells vulnerable to the wafer burn-in test before the package process. In the wafer burn-in test, it is important to appropriately exert the stress on a portion where the defect may occur in adjacent cells.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional circuit for a wafer burn-in test.
The circuit for the wafer burn-in test includes a decoder 10, a wafer burn-in reset (WBI) unit 20, a trigger generation unit 30, and a plurality of latch units 40 to 46.
The decoder 10 decodes input signals WA<9>, WA<10> and WA<11> to output test mode setting signals TDCOFF, TAWL, TEWL, TOWL, T2RBE, T2RBO and TSAE. The WBI reset unit 20 outputs a wafer burn-in reset signal RESETB in response to the output of the decoder 10 or a power-up signal PWU_B of an initial operation. The trigger generation unit 30 outputs a trigger signal TRIGP in response to an input signal WA<8>.
In addition, the plurality of latch units 40 to 46 latch the test mode setting signals TDCOFF, TAWL, TEWL, TOWL, T2RBE, T2RBO and TSAE in response to the wafer burn-in reset signal RESETB and the trigger signal TRIGP, to thereby output test mode control signals TDCOFFW, TAWLW, TEWLW, TOWLW, T2RBEW, T2RBOW and TSAEW.
FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram of the latch unit 40 to 46 of FIG. 1. Herein, the structures of all the latch units 40 to 46 are identical to one another so that description will be only focused on one latch unit 40, for example.
The latch unit 40 includes NAND gates ND1 to ND3 and inverters INV1 and INV2. The NAND gate ND1 performs a NAND operation on input signals IN1 and IN2. Herein, the input signals IN1 and IN2 denote the test mode setting signal TDCOFF and the trigger signal TRIGP, respectively.
The NAND gates ND2 and ND3 form a latch circuit. That is, the output of the NAND gate ND2 is input through one terminal of the other NAND gate ND3, and vice versa. The NAND gate ND2 performs a NAND operation on the output of the NAND gate ND1 and the output of the NAND gate ND3. The NAND gate ND3 performs a NAND operation on the output of the NAND gate ND2 and wafer burn-in reset signal RESETB. The inverters IV1 and IV2 delay the output of the NAND gate ND2 to output the output signal OUT. Herein, the output signal corresponds to the test control signal TDCOFFW.
In the latch unit of FIG. 2, when the input signals are activated to 'high', the output of the NAND gate ND1 is latched at the NAND gates ND2 and ND3. Accordingly, the latch unit 40 maintains the output signal OUT to be 'high' until the wafer burn-in reset signal RESETB is input thereto.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a conventional circuit for a programmable stress test.
The conventional circuit for the programmable stress test includes a plurality of latch units 50 to 55, and a reset unit 56. The plurality of latch units 50 to 55 latch a programmable test signal TEST generated according to the test mode code which occurs when the programmable test mode is selected, mode select signals TRG1 to TRG6 setting respective different modes, and a reset signal TWLRSTB, to thereby output the test control signals TAWLT, TEWLT, TOWLT, T2RBET, T2RBOT, and TSAET. The reset signal TWLRSTB is a signal generated according to the test mode code which is generated when the programmable test mode is selected.
The reset unit 56 outputs the reset signal TWLRSTB in response to the programmable test signal TSET, a mode select signal TRG7, and a reset control signal TRSTPB.
The detailed structure of each latch unit 50 to 55 is identical to that of FIG. 2. That is, when the programmable test signal TSET and the mode select signal TRG1 to TRG6 are activated to 'high', the latch unit maintains the output signal OUT to be 'high' until the wafer burn-in reset signal RESETB is input thereto. When the reset control signal TRSTPB is activated, the output signal OUT becomes 'low'.
FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram of a conventional signal output unit 60.
The conventional signal output unit 60 includes a plurality of NOR gates NOR1 to NOR6, NAND gates ND4 and ND5, and a plurality of inverters IV3 to IV15. The signal output unit 60 performs a logic operation on the test control signals TAWLT, TEWLT, TOWLT, T2RBET, T2RBOT, and TSAET and the test control signals TAWLW, TEWLW, TOWLW, T2RBEW, T2RBOW, and TSAEW, so as to output predetermined output signals TEWL, TOWL, T2RBE, T2RBO, and TSAE.
In the conventional test mode controller, there are separately employed the wafer burn-in test circuit for controlling the wafer burn-in test mode operation, the programmable stress test circuit for controlling the programmable test mode operation, and the signal output unit 60 for combining the outputs of the wafer burn-in test circuit and the programmable stress test circuit. Therefore, an unnecessary circuit is used in the conventional test mode controller. The conventional test mode controller requires a large chip area, high current consumption, and limited operational speed.


The present invention is related to a photovoltaic device, the device comprising a first layer of a first semiconductor material of a first conductivity type, a second layer of a second semiconductor material of the opposite conductivity type of the first layer, and a third layer of a third porous semiconductor material situated between the first layer and the second layer. The present invention also provides a method for producing the photovoltaic device.

Within photovoltaic research, one strives to develop cost-effective solar cells which provide a high efficiency. The costs for producing, for instance, silicon material-based solar cells can be categorized as follows: material costs, which make up the biggest part of overall costs and which are strongly dependent on the quality of the used silicon, which is a function of its grain size; solar cell process costs; and module process costs.
HIT (Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin-layer) cells are state of the art and were developed to improve the junction properties of the classical heterojunction cell.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,213,628 describes a photovoltaic device including an intrinsic amorphous semiconductor layer formed on a monocrystalline or polycrystalline semiconductor layer of specified conductivity type, on which an amorphous semiconductor layer of the opposite conductivity type is formed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,340 describes a photovoltaic device including a crystalline silicon semiconductor layer of a specified conductivity type material, an amorphous silicon semiconductor layer of the opposite conductivity type, and an intrinsic microcrystalline silicon semiconductor layer between these two layers.
"Porous Silicon as an intermediate layer for thin-film solar cell" to Bilyalov, et al., Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells, 65 (2001) 477-485, describes the use of a dual porous silicon layer as an intermediate layer for thin-film solar cells. The porous layer has a thickness of 400 to 700 nm and serves as a seeding layer for epitaxial growth of silicon. The dual porous layer can be used for the lift-off process. In both cases, the porous layer is used outside of the active area of the solar cell device. "Transmission electron microscopy investigation of the crystallographic quality of silicon films grown epitaxially on porous silicon" to Jin et al., Journal of Crystal Growth, 212 (2000) 119/127, describes a porous layer having a thickness of 220 nm for the same purpose.
Japanese Patent Application No. 03-235371 describes the use of an intermediate porous layer to reduce the lattice mismatch between a GaAs layer and a Si layer to reduce lattice defects. A porous layer having a thickness of larger than 100 nm is described.
"Study and fabrication of PIN Photodiode by using ZnSe/PS/Si Structure" to Chang et al., IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 47, No. 1, January 2000, describes a photodiode or photodetector based on a compound material (ZnSe) and a porous silicon layer, which is used to allow high quality growth of ZnSe on a Si/porous Si structure.
"Amorphous/porous heterojunction on thin microcrystalline silicon" to Rubino, et al., Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 266-269 (2000) 1044-1048, describes the use of a porous layer in a LED device. An amorphous Silicon/porous silicon on microcrystalline silicon structure is disclosed. The porous Si layer is used for photoluminescence (LED), and has a thickness of 400 nm to 1500 nm.