Implementations generate links between local merchants and community programs. Merchants provide incentives to customers in relation to community programs. Implementations also include online and offline customer transactions with merchants that make use of incentives. Implementation pertain to customers that view a broadcast of content that is interleaved with a merchant's advertisement and analytic reporting. Matches between transactions with a merchant and a customer that view a broadcast of content that is interleaved with the merchant's advertisement may be identified by the system, and a level of certainty that the match is accurate may be determined. These implementations can be operated by an alliance of entities that cooperate in order to facilitate, and benefit from, transactions between customers and merchants, where the customer is incented to conduct the transaction with the merchant by the merchant's agreement to make a donation to an entity of the customer's choice.

Merchants often use techniques to prompt consumers into making a particular purchase. These techniques are commonly in the form of monetary incentives, relying on the principle that a lower price will result in increased sales. Merchants may employ these techniques, for example, to help clear inventory before a new season's merchandise is released, to ease the release of a new product, to increase sales near the end of the fiscal year, to compete with a competitor over particular products, or to generally spur sales. Monetary incentives may come in the form of a "sale" (i.e., temporary reduction in price at the register), a discount coupon, a mail-in rebate (i.e., a refund of part or the entire purchase price by mail), or a store credit (i.e., credit that can be applied to another store purchase). These incentives usually only apply to a particular product and have a time component. For example, a sale may only apply to a particular brand of dishwasher purchased on a particular holiday weekend and a rebate may only be valid for computers purchased within two weeks before the start of classes at a university.
For some credit transactions, a merchant may also use a statement credit as a monetary incentive. A statement credit is an amount refunded back to a credit account and appears on the account holder's account statement. Using a statement credit as a monetary incentive involves two distinct transactions. In the first transaction, the merchant charges the full amount to a customer's credit account. In the second transaction, the amount of the monetary incentive is then refunded back to the customer's credit account as a statement credit.
Statement credit campaigns offer an advantage for merchants over other types of monetary incentive programs because a transaction handler, such as Visa Inc. or MasterCard Inc., largely handles the administration of the campaign. Once a statement credit campaign is arranged and initiated between a merchant and a transaction handler, the transaction handler tracks the statement credit, matches the statement credit to qualifying purchases, and credits the amount of the statement credit to the purchaser's account. The transaction handler then collects the aggregate amount of the statement credits made to multiple purchasers from the merchant.
Although consumers are typically incented to make purchases by a form of price reduction, non-monetary reasons also motivate consumers to make purchases with a merchant, for instance where the consumers believes that the merchant is a force for good and thus the consumers are non-monetarily incented to do business with the merchant who they deem worthy of such support. As such, it would be an advance in the art to provide a non-monetary incentive motivate a consumer to conduct a transaction with a merchant.
Referring now to FIGS. 1-2, there are depicted exemplary prior art environments for the use of technologies by which "Acquired Transactions Are Incented By Customer Directed Merchant Donations" hereinafter, the "Merchant Donor Technologies". The Merchant Donor Technologies are more particularly described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/834,984, filed on Jan. 15, 2013, titled Proximal customer transaction incented by donation of auto-boarded merchant, and in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/748,459 filed on Jan. 23, 2013, titled Authorized transaction incented by merchant donation, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference, a prior art environment is depicted for a global Acquired Account Payment Processing System 105 as shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows a community resident who is incentivized to transact by way of a merchant's offer 102 to a make a donation in exchange for the community resident purchasing goods and services 110 by the community resident's payment on an account 104 that was issued by an issuer 114 to the community resident. Note that, in some implementations, the merchant sets terms and conditions under which the merchant's donation will be made, while the community resident selects those affinities entities to which the merchant's donations are to be made.
The merchant, who may be operating a brick and mortar store in the community where the community resident resides, inputs data about the transaction on the community resident's account into a Point of Service terminal (POS) 106. The POS, for example, can be a cash register, a web-enabled mobile device (e.g., a tablet computing device), etc. The POS 106 transmits the input data, as part of an authorization request in an authorization cycle for the transaction, to an acquirer 110 for the merchant. Acquirer 110, who can be just one of many entities in the global Acquired Account Payment Processing System 105, sends the authorization request through a payment-processing network 112, as facilitated by one or more transaction handlers, for example Visa Net, to the issuer 112 who issued the account to the community resident. In response to the authorization request, the issuer 112 sends an authorization response at least of portion of which is ultimately sent for delivery back to the merchant's POS 106 by transmissions made in backward directions through the payment-processing network 112 via the merchant's acquirer 110.
If the transaction is authorized by issuer 114, an entity in the global Acquired Account Payment Processing System 105, such as the issuer 114, sends a message 116 containing particulars of the transaction to a Web Service 100 indicating that a transaction on the community resident's account was approved for being conducted by the community resident with the merchant whose offer to donate may have been previously selected by the community resident.
Optionally, the data input into POS 106 can include additional monies received from the customer by the merchant that are also to be donated, via the merchant, to a designated affinity entity 122 (e.g., a charity). In that case, message 116 would also contain these particulars.
Upon receipt of message 116, a donation to the affinity entity 122 by the user's selected merchant is calculated according terms and conditions specified by the merchant.
Web Service 100 retains the derived donation for subsequent audit purposes to insure compliance by each community merchant in its donation commitments to each of the one or more affinity entities or charities. The Web Service 100 may transmit a message containing notice of a donation, or the particularly derived donation, as shown at reference numerals 118-120 to respective logical addresses of the obligated merchant 106, one of more community resident/account holder designed affinity entities 122, and the community resident/account holder—and/or to respective agents thereof. The terms and conditions that obligate the merchant-offer or to make a donation may, but need not, include discounts, rebates, or other monetary or non-monetary incentives. As such, the community resident/account holder is incentivized to purchase from the merchant's store, inter alia, by the merchant's agreement to donate to one of more community resident/account holder designed affinity entities 122.
The affinity entity or charity, which may be selected at the discretion of the community resident/account holder, may be any entity to which the community resident has an affinity, regardless of where it is located or whom it serves. Alternatively, the affinity entity or charity may be limited to those organizations that provide a good and/or service to a community in which both community residences and merchants have an affinity—such as by their common geographic location, as by its geographic location being within a computed commuting time, by one more modes of transportation, that is below a predetermined time threshold. This affinity entity may provide food and clothing to underprivileged families in their common community. This affinity entity, for example, may provide teaching and demonstrations of entrepreneurial skills to community's unemployed or under employed. Another affinity entity may provide venues where sports education can be provided to local competing youth. Yet another affinity entity may provide care and feeding to abandoned domesticated animals, such as pets. The affinity entity may also cultivate desirable citizenship and public policy through offerings of education and entertainment services—whether in person, on-line, or both. Given the foregoing, the reader will understand that the affinity entity can be either a for-profit or a non-profit organization, and may optionally be required to provide a good or a service to a local community to which both merchants and customers in the same community have an affinity, by their common location, to advance and/or promote the community.
In some implementations, as disclosed in the Merchant Donor Technologies, each merchant will identify the affinity entity to whom the merchant-offer will make a donation. To identify the affinity entity, a customer identifier, as received by Web Service 100 in message 116, can be used to look up or access information from which can be derived a geographic address in a community where the customer resides. Alternatively, the customer's geographic address can be an address that is associated with an account issued by an issuer to the customer upon which the transaction with the merchant is being conducted. As a still further alternative, the customer's geographic address can be an address specified by the customer as being the address that is to be used for the purpose of determining the customer's community, whereby the customer can self-select their own community by specifying a geographic address in the customer's self-selected community. Similarly, a merchant identifier, also received by Web Service 100 in message 116, can be used to look up or access information from which can be derived a geographic address in a community where the merchant-offer has a brick and mortar store. Alternatively, the merchant's geographic address can be an address that is associated with a merchant acquirer account issued by the merchant's acquirer to the merchant that will receive proceeds from the transaction with the customer that is being conducted. As a still further alternative, the merchant's geographic address can be an address specified by the merchant as being the address that is to be used for the purpose of determining the merchant's community, whereby the merchant can self-select its own community by specifying a geographic address in the merchant's self-selected community. These respective geographic addresses of customer and merchant, whether self-selected or otherwise, when retrieved from one or more network accessible databases, can be compared, using processes, procedures, and methodologies enabled herein, by Web Service 100, from information in or derived from message 116, to determine whether the merchant and its customer have the same local community. By way of example, data in message 116 can include an identifier for the customer, and a database of merchants and their respective merchant-offers can include geographic location information. This geographic location information is matched against the geographic location information for the residence of the customer. Merchant and customer identifiers can be assigned to the merchant and its customer during or prior to any transaction, such as when each are registered with or otherwise sign up for participation with Web Service 100. This registration process can include the collection of physical and logical addresses for each or for their respective agents.
Once physical address information for the merchant-offer or and its customer are known, the local community of each of the merchant and its customer can be determined—in some implementations. Studies show that a significant portion of spending by a consumer is restricted to a region that is proximal to where the consumer resides. Accordingly, it is desirable for a merchant to attract those consumers who reside within the restricted region corresponding to the merchant's geographic location so that the customer can use a mode of transportation to travel from a geographic address of the customer's residence to the merchant's geographic location within a travel time that less than a threshold. As such, any such travel time that is less than the threshold might be understood to mean that the merchant-offer or and the customer who is traveling to the merchant-offer or are in the considered to be within the same community or the 'Merchant-Community'.
Alternatively, the local community determination can be made on any of other different methods, or combinations thereof. Once such method is a political or legal division, that is, the merchant's place of business is determined to be in the same political or legal division as that of its customer's residence, such as the same province, state, county, prefecture, city, city-state, borough, etc. Another such comparison can be whether the merchant's place of business has a governmentally issued postal code that is the same, or within a predetermined proximity, as that of its customer's residence.
Yet another such comparison can be whether the merchant's place of business and its customer's residence are physically proximate within a predetermined factor by any of a variety of measures or combinations thereof. For example, latitude and longitude coordinates might be known for both the merchant's place of business and the residence of its customer. These coordinates can be used to determine whether the linear distance there between is within a predetermined distance to ascertain whether or not the merchant and its customer share the same local community.
A calculated navigation time algorithm, using any of various different travel methods (e.g., walking, automobile, bicycle, mass transit, etc.), can be used to determine whether the time, using any of one or more modes of transportation, is within a predetermined time limit to ascertain whether or not the merchant and its customer share the same local community, 'neighborhood', or Merchant-Community. By way of example, the merchant and its customer might be determined to be within the same local community if the automobile drive time, as determined from one or more databases of contemporary cartographic road system information, to navigate from a geographic address attributed to the attributed to the customer and a geographic address attributed to the merchant is less than a predetermined time threshold (e.g., 17 minutes), with yet another threshold that may be used to weight the navigation time calculations with real time traffic conditions data.
A further alternative implementation will identify the population density of both the merchant's brick and mortar store and the customer's residence. If the population density exceeds a predetermined density, then the merchant and its customer might be determined to be within the same local community if the time to walk, bicycle or take public transportation between the merchant's brick and mortar store and the customer's residence, as determined from one or more databases of contemporary topographic, mass transit, and/or pedestrian cartographic system information, is less than a predetermined time threshold (e.g., 55 minutes). Such implementations may also access databases to consider real time traffic conditions. Rural, industrial, city, and suburban environments will have different population densities, and likely modes of transportation, that correspondingly may have an effect on a travel time from a customer's resident to a merchant's geographic location. A merchant may provide an incentive to customers living close by in exchange for traveling to, and transacting at, a merchant's store.
Still another such comparison can be whether the merchant's place of business and its customer's residence are proximate or are the same according to voting, electoral, or political districts. The district can be determined by an official method, an unofficial method, or a combination of methods. By way of example, measurements known within the political gerrymander sciences can be used, including but not limited to a minimum district to convex polygon ratio, shortest split line algorithm, minimum isoperimetric quotient, etc.
The local community corresponding to that of the merchant and its customer, and separations there between (if any), can be determined from any combination of linear distance, mode-specific navigational transportation travel time, political separation, postal designation, and/or hybrid algorithm that takes into considers geographic barrier features such as rivers, cliffs, and highways, cultural features such as boundaries of identified people groups (e.g., tribes, first nation people, etc.), land ownership such as subdivisions, housing projects, cooperatives, planned communities, military installations, governmental owned and leased properties, etc. Given the foregoing, an algorithm might find that the merchant and its customer are members of the same community, not members of the same community, or are both members of more than one of the same communities as determined by the algorithm.
Similar or different algorithms that are used to determine the respective local community of the merchant and its customer can also be used to determine the local community of an affinity entity such as that shown on FIG. 1 at reference numeral 122, or as that shown as an Affinity Entity (k) 398 in FIG. 2, and an Affinity Entity (f) 484 in FIG. 4, as discussed herein below.
In some implementations, if the local community of the merchant, its customer, and an affinity entity that has been selected by the customer or by other methods are the same, then the business rule selected by the merchant will determine the amount of the donation that the merchant will make to the selected affinity entity. In some implementations, the affinity entity to whom a merchant is to make a donation can only be selected by the customer, and not the merchant. In such implementations, the goals or purposes of an affinity entity will not cause tension between the goals or purposes of the merchant or the goals or purposes of customer in that the identity of the affinity entity is unknown to the merchant through its being selected anonymously by the customer. As such, the merchant need not be told or be given any notice, directly or indirectly, as to the identity of the affinity, entity or charity selected the customer with whom the merchant is conducting a transaction. Rather, the merchant might only be told or be given notice to make a single payment of, or period payments to, a single affinity entity who, as trustee or agent, will thereafter make respective disbursements for all registered merchants accordingly to those affinity entities that had been selected by those customers with whom those merchants had conducted transactions.
Various implementations can ensure that a merchant who, by force of reason or conscience, does not want to make a donation to a particular affinity entity or charity, need not do so directly, as any and all merchant donations are made blindly through other avenues or collection points that make all merchant donation disbursements to all affinity entities or charities. Accordingly, each merchant will have notice of its total periodic donations without knowing the identity of the intended recipients, thereby leaving the direction of donations fully within the discretion of the merchants' customers. Note that a limitation can optionally be placed upon the customer's choice of affinity entity or charity such that the choice must be made only among those affinity entities or charities that serve the local community of the merchant, its customer, or both. Such implementations may leave the currency amount of the merchant's donation fully within the discretion of the merchant. Yet another limitation can optionally be placed upon the customer's choice of affinity entity or charity such that the choice must be made only among those affinity entities or charities that are on a pre-designated list of those organizations that are pre-approved by a third party as being available for such selection according to an approval process.
Web Service 100 can use respective identifiers for the merchant and its customer (e.g., account holder) to access and retrieve geographic information for each, and then apply an algorithm to the retrieved geographic information to determine the respective local communities of the merchant and its customer, as discussed above. By way of example, the local community can be progressively granular in nature, such as: 1st the United States of America; 2nd the state of New York; 3rd the portion of New York called "Long Island"; 4th the county of Nassau within the state of New York; 5th a portion of the Nassau County called North Hempstead; and then 6th the specific geographic location of "Port Washington". This final level of geographic granularity indicates a community in which both merchant and customer are members, neighbors, residents, and/or the like.
The final level of geographic granularity can be used to perform a look-up against one or more databases to which Web Service 100 has access. This access and lookup is used by Web Service 100 to identify: (i) the affinity entity or charity for that community which, in this example, might be the Port Washington Food Bank located in Port Washington, N.Y., which charity might have been specified by the customer; and (ii) the respective identifier of the merchant's business rule (and/or the customer's business rule) that is to be used to make a calculation of the currency amount of the donation that the merchant is to make to the affinity entity or charity for that community. Business rule(s) is/are used with the currency amount of the customer's payment in order to calculate the currency amount of the donation that is to be made by the merchant to the affinity entity or charity for that community. Note that the donation can be directed to a plurality of affinity entities for the local community according to directions that had been previously specified by the customer. For example, the customer may have specified that each merchant donation is to be split evenly, or in specified portions totaling one hundred percent (100%), between five (5) local community affinity entities, for example: (i) a local youth sports team cooperative; (ii) a local charter junior high school; (iii) a local house of worship; (iv) a local political party; and (v) a local for-profit college specializing business entrepreneurialism.
Referring now to FIG. 1, the community resident can take the merchant's conditional offer 102 to the local merchant's brick and mortar store POS 106. After showing the offer 102 to the merchant at the POS 106, the community resident conducts a transaction on an account 104 issued by an issuer to the community resident to pay of the transaction and buy goods and/services 110 received by the community resident.
Note that terms and conditions of the transaction may differ from that of the offer presented by the community resident at the local merchant's brick and mortar store. As such, the merchant's offer to donate might not be specific to a particular good or service, but can be specific as to the entire transaction between the merchant and its customer. By way of example as to this type of offer specificity, the offer may obligate the merchant to make a donation of a certain percentage of the entire currency amount of transaction, or the offer may obligate the merchant to make a donation only if the transaction is conducted at a certain time of day or on a particular day of the week, or only if the currency amount of the transaction exceeds a predetermined amount, or a combination of the foregoing. Other conditions are also permissible.
Although some terms of the offer may differ from some terms of subsequent transactions between the merchant and its customer, nevertheless, the merchant's offer to make a donation to an affinity entity (e.g., a local charity) fundamentally provides an incentive that causes, at least in part, the local community resident to navigate to the local merchant's brick and mortar store, come into the store, shop, and ultimately conduct a transaction that will bring revenue to the local merchant and its community. Advantageously, the absence of specificity in the offer as to a particular good or service allows many implementations to operate without modification to the merchant's input of data about the transaction at the POS 106, without modifications to the POS 106 itself or procedures for its operation, and without modifications to software executing on POS 106.
Optionally, a community resident (e.g., customer) may accept the merchant's offer 102 in advance of going to the POS 106. Such advance acceptance may take place electronically, such as in response to the community resident's electronic receipt of offer 102. Such an electronic acceptance to offer 102 can be by way of a transmission of information from the community resident to the merchant. The transmitted information can include: (i) an identifier for the registered customer who intends to accept the merchant's offer 102; (ii) the calculated distance and/or time for the customer to navigate, using a known mode of transportation, from a geographic location associated with the customer (e.g., home location, work location, vacation location, etc.) to the merchant's brick and mortar store of the POS 106, for instance, by walking, bicycling, automobile and/or mass transit; (iii) the terms and conditions of the offer including any expiration thereof; (iv) optionally any other information already conveyed to the customer, such as a statement about the donation that the merchant will make to the Affinity Entity(ies) 122 when the customer conducts a timely transaction with merchant; and (v) other unexpired offers or advertisements that may or may not have been conveyed to the customer, terms and conditions of such other offer(s), etc.
Referring now to FIG. 2, an exemplary prior art process 200 is depicted of a particular financial transaction system, such as may be described as an open loop system, in which an account holder (p) 208 conducts a financial transaction with a Merchant (m) 210. By way of example, the Account Holder (p) 208's financial transaction with the Merchant (in) 210 may have been incentivized by the Merchant (m) 210's agreement to make a donation to an Affinity Entity (k) 295 in the local community as defined by the Merchant (m) 210 through an ad incentive which, optionally, can be communicated to Account Holder (p) 208, whether requested or not.
In FIG. 2, by way of explanation for the nomenclature of reference numerals used and described in the specification, a lower case letter in parenthesis is intended to mean an integer variable having a value from 1 to the capital case of the lower case letter, which value can be large (i.e., approaching infinity). Thus '(b)' is intended to mean that the integer 'b' can have a value from 1 to B, and '(c)' is intended to mean that the integer 'c' can have a value from 1 to C, etc. As such, drawing elements 204-210 and 278-294, and 298 in FIG. 2 are illustrated with a block, but indicate one or more elements can be present. For example, Issuer (j) 204 is one of a possible plurality of issuers, where j may range from 1 to a large integer 'J'.
Account Holder (p) 208 presents an account bearing payment device to a Merchant (m) 210 as tender for a financial transaction such as a purchase of goods and services. As part of the transaction, the Account Holder (p)'s 208 payment device can be a credit card, debit card, prepaid card, cellular telephone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), etc. Those of skill in the art will recognize that other financial transactions and instruments other than credit cards may also be used, including, but not limited to, a prepaid card, a gift card, a debit card, a token equivalent of an account as communicated via cellular telephony, near field communications, and the like. For purposes of illustration and explanation, however, reference will be made to a credit card.
The payment device can be manually keyed into a POS or can be read by a reader operated by the Merchant (m) 210, whereupon account information is read from the payment device and a request for authorization is transmitted to the Merchant (m) 210's Acquirer (i) 206. Each Acquirer (i) 206 is a financial organization that processes credit card transactions for businesses, for example merchants, and is licensed as a member of a Transaction Handler 202 such as a credit card association (i.e., Visa Inc., MasterCard, etc.) As such, each Acquirer (i) 206 establishes a financial relationship with one or more Merchants (n) 210.
The Acquirer (i) 206 transmits the account information to the Transaction Handler 202, who in turn routes the authorization request to the account holder's issuing bank, or Issuer (j) 204. The Issuer (j) 204 returns information via an authorization response to the Transaction Handler 202 who returns the information to the Merchant (m) 210 through the Acquirer (i) 206. The Merchant (m) 210, now knowing whether the Account Holder (p) 208's credit card account is valid and supports a sufficient credit balance, may complete the transaction and the Account holder (p) 208 in turn receives goods and/or services in exchange. Most credit card associations instruct merchants that, after receiving an affirmative authorization response, the detailed credit card account information obtained by a point of service terminal (e.g., such as via a magnetic stripe scanner) must be deleted.
To reconcile the financial transactions and provide for remuneration, information about the transaction is provided by the Merchant (m) 210 to Acquirer (i) 206, who in turn routes the transaction data to the Transaction Handler 202 who then provides the transaction data to the appropriate Issuer (j) 204. The Issuer (j) 204 then provides funding for the transaction to the Transaction Handler 202 through a settlement bank. The funds are then forwarded to the Merchant's (n) 210 Acquirer (i) 206 who in turn pays the Merchant (m) 210 for the transaction less a merchant discount, if applicable. The Issuer (j) 204 then bills the Account holder (p) 208, and the Account holder (p) 208 pays the Issuer 204 with possible interest or fees.
Also shown in FIG. 2 are one or more Affinity Entities (k) 298 and a Donation Audit Web Service 214 that implement processes by which donations to the one or more Affinity Entities (k) 298 from various donors, for instance, any Issuer (j) 204, an Merchant (m) 210, any Acquirer (i) 206, and the Transaction Handler 202. Donation Audit Web Service 214 implements processes for the auditing of donations to the one or more Affinity Entities (k) 298. The Donation Audit Web Service 214 has access to information resources within the following databases: Account Holder databases 278; Merchant databases 280; Transaction databases 282; Affinity Entity Donations Payable databases 286; Affinity Entity Donations Paid databases 288; Affinity Entity databases 290, Issuer Bank databases 292, and Acquirer Bank databases 294.
As shown in FIG. 2, Databases 278-294 can be connected by one or more private or public networks, virtual private networks, the Internet, or by other means known to those skilled in the art. Moreover, not every entity seen in FIG. 2 at reference numerals 208, 210, 214 and 298 must necessarily have real time, uninterrupted access to any or all of the Databases 278-294. Each such Database 278-294 can assign, read, write, and query permissions as appropriate to the various entities. For example, a Merchant (m) 210 may have read access to the one or more Transactions Databases 282.
Each Transactions Database (a) 282 can be designed to store some or all of the transaction data originating at the Merchants (n) 210 that use a payment device for each transaction conducted between an Account holder (p) 208 and the Merchant (m) 210. The transaction data can include information associated with the account of an Account holder (p) 208, date, time, and an identifier sufficient to determine a physical geographic location where the transaction took place, among other more specific information including the amount of the transaction. The database can be searched using account information, date and time (or within proximity thereof), or by any other field stored in the database.
The Transactions Database (a) 282 is also designed to store information about each Merchant (m) 210, where the information can include a unique identification of each Merchant (m) 210, an identifier for each point of sale device in use by the Merchant (m) 210, and a physical geographic location of each store of the Merchant (m) 210.
Also included in the Transactions Database (a) 282 is account information for payment devices associated with Account holder (p) 208, such as part or all of an account number, unique encryption key, account information, and account name of an account holder who is registered to participate in a system in which donations can be made to each Affinity Entity (k) 298 as per rules stored in Merchant Database (b) 280. After registering to participate in the donation system, an Account holder (p) 208 initiates a qualifying purchase transaction with a Merchant (m) 210 by presenting a payment device (not shown) to the Merchant (m) 210. The payment device is typically presented at the Point Of Service terminal (POS) at which data thereon is read. Certain transaction information is transmitted from the POS (e.g., card track data) in route to the Merchant's (n) 210 Acquirer (i) 206. The transaction information can include account information, account name, transaction balance, transaction time, transaction date, and transaction location. Sensitive information includes information such account number and account holder name that identify and associate a particular account with a particular account holder. This transaction information may be transmitted via a less secure communication medium. In addition, a transmission of transaction data may occur with weak or no encryption between two or more points from the point of origin, such as the point of sale device at the Merchant (m) 210, and the ultimate destination, such as the Acquirer (i) 206. These points can include, without limitation, from the reader at the POS, the POS at the Merchant (m) 210 and a network router or computer that is connected to a network but is housed and maintained by the Merchant (m) 210 and between the Merchant (m) 210 and the Acquirer (i) 206. The communication channel could be Ethernet, wireless internet, satellite, infrared transmission, or other known communication protocols. Some or all of the transmission may also be stored for record keeping, archival or data mining purposes with little or no encryption. For example, the Merchant (m) 210 may store transaction data, including certain account information in the Merchant's (n) 210 accounts on file database for reuse later.
During a transaction conducted by Merchant (m) 206 on an account issued by Issuer (j) 204 to Account Holder (p) 208, information relating to the qualifying purchase is retrieved from the POS at Merchant (m) 206. The transaction information is comprised of account information together with other information about the transaction itself: time, date, location, value, etc. Certain parts of the transaction information are considered sensitive information including, without limitation, account number, credit card verification number, and account name.
For the Account Holder (p) 208 to donate to each Affinity Entity (k) 298 as may have been previously specified, the Account Holder (p) 208's Issuer (j) 204 can pay the Affinity Entity (k) 286 and apply a debit in that currency amount on the Account Holder (p) 208's periodic revolving credit statement. The Account Holder (p) 208, upon receipt of the statement, can thereafter make a total payment to the Issuer (j) 204 of the currency amount of the donation that appears as a debit on the statement along with the other credit charges that also appear on the Account Holder (p) 208's statement.
Both the Account Holder (p) 208 and the Merchant (m) 210 can change or disable a donation commitment at any time by accessing a server that serves web pages where respective user interfaces are provided. Thus, charitable donation commitments can be enabled or disabled using near real-time user interfaces. By way of example, and not by way of limitation, such servers can be hosted by the Donation Audit Web Service 214 seen in FIG. 2.
In various implementations, Donation Audit Web Service 214 seen in FIG. 2 receives information that confirms such a timely transaction between the customer and the merchant by way of receiving information derived from an authorization response for the transaction. As more fully described elsewhere herein with respect to FIG. 2, the information in the authorization response is typically generated by an Issuer (j) 204 who issued an account to the Account Holder (p) 208 (e.g., the customer or mobile device user) on which the timely transaction with the Merchant (m) 210 was conducted. A positive authorization response reflects the Issuer (j) 204's approval of the transaction on the account issued to Account Holder (p) 208. Stated otherwise, and as shown in FIG. 2 and discussion herein below, Donation Audit Web Service 214 receives the information derived from an authorization response from an acquired account payment processing system (i.e., see Ref. Num. 105 in FIG. 1), where each of the Issuer (j) 204, the Account Holder (p) 208, and the Merchant (m) 210 operate in the acquired account payment processing system.
Once confirmation has been received by Donation Audit Web Service 214 that a timely transaction has taken place been the merchant who made the offer and the customer who selected and confirmed that offer, a calculation is made of an amount of a donation that is to be made by the merchant-offer or according to terms of the offer.
In summary, prior art process 200 permits the Account Holder (p) 208 to transact with community Merchants 210 by way of incentives from the community Merchants 210 that they will donate to the Account Holder (p) 208's favorite charity (e.g., Affinity Entity 298), though the charity may not be the Merchant (m) 210's favorite charity, or even a desirable charity, in that community. Nevertheless, the Merchant (m) 210 has received the benefit of customers' foot traffic inside the merchant's local brick and mortar store, as well as the benefit of transactions with some of those customer who enter the merchant's brick and mortar store, where each such benefit is realized by the merchant's offer to make a donation to the customer's favorite charity(ies) if a timely transaction occurs subsequent to the merchant's offer.
In the context of the foregoing, broadcasters want to increase advertising revenue by broadcasting content that is interleaved with merchant advertisements. The advertising revenue from merchants would be likely to increase if the merchants were assured that their advertising content was broadcast so as to be viewed by potential customers who would be most likely to respond to the viewing of the advertisements by conducting transactions with the merchants. However, establishing the link between the merchant's advertising spend and resulting transactions with customers has been difficult to determine with a high degree of certainty.
To enable broadcasters to broadcast hyperlocal targeted advertisements over specific geographic areas, broadcasters use broadcast modes and duplex schemes through dynamic network topologies exploiting programmable (NFV/SDN) radio functions that can be activated, deactivated, and modified on demand depending on the specific needs of the service, and in response to consumer demand, using both licensed and unlicensed spectrum inside and outside the broadcast band. To so, technical contributions have been made to the emerging Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 standard. The ATSC 3.0 standard is based on a new Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) physical layer and IP as transport and an extensible OFDM framework. However, this emerging ATSC 3.0 standard is constrained to target traditional services. such as 4K UHDTV. as efficient use of spectrum.
While personalization of communication, including hyperlocal targeted advertisements, will lead to a reduced demand for legacy broadcast as is conventionally deployed, e.g. linear TV, there is a need for efficient distribution of information from one source to many destinations. There is also a need for these services to distribute content as is conventional (typically only downlink), but also to provide a feedback channel (uplink) for interactive services or acknowledgement information. Several broadcast-like use cases may be proposed for future 5G networks.
There is a need for a broadcast-like use case for TV Everywhere implementations, also known as authenticated streaming or authenticated video on-demand. In such TV Everywhere implementations, access to streaming video content from a television channel requires users to authenticate themselves as current subscribers to the channel, via an account provided by their participating pay television provider, in order to access the content. Under the TV Everywhere business model, broadcasters offer their customers the ability to access content broadcast on their channels through internet-based services and mobile apps executed by web-enabled mobile computing devices that function as a television receiver (e.g., smart phone, tablet, phablet, lap top, etc.)—either live or on-demand, as part of their subscription to the service. TV Everywhere provides the broadcast media consumer with the ability to receive a television broadcast everywhere in real time as an event occurs (e.g., live, near real time action in a football game or a soccer match). The broadcast media consumers that are located in a specific vicinity should simultaneously receive appropriate news and information regardless of the device they are using or their network connection. Also, local services are desirable that will be active at a cell level with a reach of, for example, 1 to 20 KM. Typical scenarios include services to broadcast advertisements that can be viewed only in a specific geographic area. There is also a need for broadcast-like services with a regional reach, for example, such as broadcast advertisements that can be viewed only within 1 to 100 KM. Unlike legacy broadcast services, there is a need for such broadcast-like services to provide of a feedback channel that can be used to track the delivery of the broadcast advertisements that were viewed to all or selected broadcast media consumers located in a specific vicinity (e.g., within 1 to 100 km), or to receive a survey result from a broadcast viewer who transacted with a merchant after viewing the merchant's broadcast advertisement. Thus, there is a need for improvements to existing television broadcast networks so that they are enabled for hyperlocal geo-targeting of advertisements to viewers located in a vicinity.
There is a need for systems and methods that enable a merchant having a brick and mortar store in a vicinity to measure the likelihood that a transaction with a resident of the vicinity was the result of the merchant's advertisement having been broadcast over a broadcast medium such as cable and/or satellite TV. There is a need for systems and methods that enable a merchant having a brick and mortar store in a vicinity to measure the likelihood that a transaction with a resident of the vicinity was the result of the merchant's advertisement having been broadcast over a broadcast medium such as cable and/or satellite TV, where the merchant's advertisement was broadcast over a television broadcast network enabled for hyperlocal geo-targeting of merchant's advertisements to viewers located in a vicinity.
Given the above and other numerous problems imposed upon available sales and marketing resources available to small and medium sized business merchants in designing, implementing, and maintaining consumer incentive programs, it would be an advance in the relevant arts to provide an alliance of entities that cooperate to facilitate incentives offered, by way of broadcast advertisements, by merchants and their allies to encourage purchases by consumers who are most likely to make purchases, where the merchants and their allies send messages to consumers who are most likely to conduct transactions for which the merchants will make donations, and where systems are automatically populated with data sufficient to allow merchants and their allies to encourage consumers that are most likely to make purchases to conduct transactions on accounts issued to them by issuers in exchange for the merchants making donations to entities with whom the merchants and/or the consumers have an affinity.
Implementations will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which like elements bear like reference numerals.

Linking a transaction between a merchant and a resident of the same vicinity to the resident viewing the merchant broadcast advertisement


An analog built-in self-test (BIST) methodology based on the IEEE 1149.4 mixed signal test bus standard. The on-chip generated triangular stimuli are transmitted to the analog circuit under test (CUT) through the analog test buses, and their test responses are quantized by the dual comparators. The quantized results are then fed into a pair of counters to record the sampled counts for comparison in the decision circuit. A pass/fail indication is then generated in the decision circuit to indicate success or failure of the CUT after the BIST operation is complete.

The IEEE 1149.4 mixed signal test bus standard [Reference 1], approved by the IEEE in 1999, mainly focuses on analog interconnect testing at board level. It experiences difficulties in providing high-frequency functional testing due to its insufficient bandwidth caused by the parasitic effects of the long multi-drop analog bus [Reference 2] as shown in FIG. 1. Nevertheless, it provides a common platform for further development.
IEEE Std. 1149.4 relies on two analog buses, AB1/AT1 and AB2/AT2, to transfer test stimuli and responses. The most significant side effect for using multi-drop buses is the limited bandwidth. Sunter et al. [Reference 3] improves the frequency response by redesigning analog boundary module (ABM) and test bus interface circuit (TBIC). With which, the signal frequency can be as high as 10 MHz. Su et al. [Reference 2] takes a digital signal processing (DSP) approach to eliminate the parasitic effects via the de-convolution. Acevedo et al. [Reference 4] proposed a VDDQ built-in self-test (BIST) architecture to compare the quiescent voltage of the circuit nodes with a pre-stored voltage to determine the pass/fail of the circuit. Su et al. [Reference 5] uses the dual comparators in TBIC to quantize the quiescent voltage and statistical method to obtain the DC offset voltage. Su et al. and Sunter et al. [References 2,3] focus on frequency response improvement, and Acevedo et al. and Su et al. [References 4,5] work on the quiescent voltage measurement. None of them can handle the dynamic test issue in BIST.

IEEE Std. 1149.4 compatible analog BIST methodology


A device including a magnetoresistive sensor; a top shield; and a bottom shield, wherein the magnetoresistive sensor is positioned between the top shield and the bottom shield, and wherein at least one of the bottom shield and the top shield include NiFeX, wherein X is chosen from Nb, Mo, Ta, or W.

Magnetic transducers can include a reader stack positioned between a bottom and top shields. During fabrication of such devices, the materials of the shields have to be subjected to the same processes as the reader stack. Advances in the reader stack can often require different processing techniques, including annealing at higher temperatures. Shields that can be annealed at higher temperatures may therefore be desired.

Magnetic devices having shields including a nickel alloy


The invention is a ground target that simulates the heat support structure of a moving object, particularly a vehicle such as a tank. It has adjustable heat transmitter at least partially covering a support structure whose three-dimensional shape resembles that of the object to be represented. The heat transmitter has modular elements which are attached to an intermediate solid structure. The modular elements are plate-shaped diffusors with at least one heater associated with the inside surface of each diffusor. The target can be used for simulation tests with or without actual engagement with training ammunition by training vehicles.

The invention relates to a ground target for simulating the heat silhouette of an object, particularly that of a vehicle such as a tank.
In this area, heat targets heated by the Joule effect are known. U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,032 describes a three-dimensional target made of electrically insulating, fire-resistant material, covered in certain spots by a heating coating in order to simulate the heat signature of the tank.
Also, French Patent 2716962 describes a three-dimensional simulation decoy, particularly for a tank, which has a support structure made of assemblable metal elements on which is disposed a camouflage cover and heating means are placed at certain spots in order to simulate the heat signature of the tank.
Moreover, European Patent 156070 describes a device with adjustable heat transmitting means covering at least partially a three-dimensional support structure similar to the shape of the vehicle to be simulated, the heat transmitting means being comprised of modular elements disposed on an intermediate solid structure, the modular elements being plate-shaped diffusors, with at least one heater being associated with the inside surface of each diffusor.
These targets have a number of drawbacks. The first is that either the observer has to move or the target has to be manipulated in a cumbersome manner to allow the target to be observed from several observation angles. Moreover, in the case of the three-dimensional targets of the prior art, infrared radiation reflections are produced between each of the various facets of the target, complicating precise simulation of the infrared signature of the object to be simulated.
Further the heat targets reproduce only a uniform heat silhouette by contrast and do not allow variations over a broad temperature range to be achieved.

Ground target for simulating the heat silhouette of a vehicle such as a tank

Etat Francais represente par de Delegue General pour l'Armement


An apparatus and method for packaging an integrated circuit having a semiconductor die with electronic circuitry disposed thereon includes lead frames for mounting thereon solder balls of a ball grid array packaging structure. In one embodiment, the semiconductor die is coupled to conductors of the lead frame via gold wires attached to both the semiconductor die and the lead frame. The lead frame is encapsulated in plastic with apertures disposed therein for exposing upper and lower portions of conductors of the lead frame. The apertures are filled with solder balls to contact both the upper and lower portions of the lead frame conductors. Solder balls on the top of one integrated circuit package may be connected to mating solder balls on the bottom of another integrated circuit package, and so on, thereby achieving multiple stacking of integrated circuit packages.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to packaging of semiconductor integrated circuits, and more particularly to apparatus and method including the use of lead frames in place of substrates for mounting solder balls of ball grid array packages.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ball grid array packaging of semiconductor integrated circuits uses an array of solder balls on the bottom of the package as leads for connection of the semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) to external components. An array of solder balls on the bottom surface of the package results in higher density packaging and are easier to use since they can be more widely separated.
Currently, ball grid array packages are constructed with the semiconductor die mounted on one face of a substrate, and the solder balls mounted on the opposite face of the substrate. Circuitry on the substrate provides the necessary interconnection between the die and solder balls. Substrates are currently made of either ceramic, printed circuit board (PCB) lamninate, or flexible, plastic tape.
Ceramic substrates in ball grid array packaging typically suffer from reliability problems when mounted to PCB mother boards due to a thermal expansion mismatch of the ceramic and the PCB. Also, for either ceramic, PCB laminate, or tape substrates, only one surface has solder balls, so the packages cannot be conveniently stacked. Thus, current ball grid array packaging does not provide for increased package mounting density and less board space usage which results from stacking packages.

Apparatus and method for stackable molded lead frame ball grid array packaging of integrated circuits


During tuner manufacture, the unique power parameters as a function of frequency and channel are stored on a memory unique to each tuner. When the tuner is subsequently incorporated into another device, such as a modem, the stored power parameters are made available to the subsequent device, thereby overriding the need for subsequent calibration tests to be run. The stored parameters aid in remote testing of the communication device and also allow for individual channel by channel setting of TOP levels.

A tuner is a frequency translation device which translates incoming RF signals from one frequency to a typically lower frequency. The information content of the received RF signal is normally modulated is some fashion on a carrier wave and the tuner serves to demodulate the RF carrier in order to extract the original data stream. Tuners are used in practically every wireless transmitting/receiving device, particularly in the consumer product market.
For example, TV tuners are found in set top boxes, televisions, VCRs, as well as cable modems and other wide bandwidth access devices. These tuners take in a particular high frequency signal, translate and filter the signal, to a lower frequency signal, which is typically a fixed frequency for a particular application. The output of the tuner at the second frequency (called an intermediate frequency) is then available for further processing.
For most consumer applications, the price of the tuner is one of the driving motivations. The price drives the acceptance for use in the consumer market and tuner manufacturers must balance the price/performance model. With price in mind, there are many different topologies to achieve the functionality required by the tuner. Certain shortcuts or compromises must be made in terms of the hardware realization of the tuner in order to achieve competitive prices/performances.
In the field of cable modems, there are two basic broad categories of tuners in current use. One of those is what's commonly referred to as a double conversion tuner, which has two frequency translations. Between these two frequency translations that is a fixed, (typically higher) frequency where the filtering is achieved. The input of these devices is typically very wide band.
The other approach is what's commonly called a single conversion tuner. Single conversion tuners have tracking filters at the input that track the frequency of the signal, thereby reducing the total signal power on the input of the tuner. Single conversion tuners have one frequency translation direct from the incoming RF to a fixed frequency where filtering occurs. Traditionally, single conversion tuners are used in terrestrial devices, such as televisions, VCR receivers, etc. Through economies of scale due to the large number of these tuners, they tend to be the lower cost alternatives.
The single conversion tuner, however, because it does have tracking filters, requires a different architecture than does the double conversion tuner. One of these architectures is that the entire frequency band, which is very wide covering roughly from 50 to almost 900 megahertz, must be split into several bands in order to achieve the necessary tracking filter functionality. Since tuners are used as a "front end" to other devices it is important to calibrate the gain of the tuner to subsequent circuitry for proper performance. Thus, it is necessary to know the "typical" gain for a tuner to achieve proper overall system operation.
One drawback of single conversion tuners is that the gain of the tuner, that is the gain from the input signal to the output signal of the tuner as a whole, varies significantly over frequency, temperature and other aspects. The gain varies not only within the tuner across frequencies, (mainly because different circuits handle different bands) but also the characteristic and absolute gain of a particular frequency varies from tuner to tuner. Current tuners are typically set to provide a gain variation across all receive frequencies of a maximum of 8 dbs. As discussed, this presents a problem in that the gain is not repeatable from tuner to tuner nor within bands of the same tuner. Therefore, to extrapolate what a given gain will be at a given frequency of the tuner is difficult without actually measuring the gain of that device. Therefore, when tuners are selected at random and when a given frequency is selected it is difficult to know what the gain of that tuner will be, except that it will lie within the specified 8 db of gain range.
Due to the switching between bands of a tuner, there is discontinuity in gain between the higher end of one band and the lower end of the next band. One method of working around this problem is to have the demodulator which follows the tuner device extract the digital information from the frequency translated signal by a closed loop system. This means that although the absolute gain of the tuner over frequency may vary up to 8 db, the closed loop function of the demodulator will control the system such that as far as the demodulator input sees, the power is constant. These applications are acceptable for approximately 95% of current users.
The new DOCSIS Specification (DOCSIS1.1) has a number of modifications, many of which deal with software modifications that are irrelevant to the tuner functionality. However, there is one addition or modification to this specification which does have significant impact on the tuner, and that is a requirement allowing cable companies or others, to communicate with the modem end user device and poll this device to determine the incoming signal level to that modem. This power measurement capability will allow the cable company to troubleshoot their network since they could, in theory, find the power level at each end user on their cable plant, and in such a fashion, determine information regarding the quality of their signal, as well as any problems or interruptions in that signal.
Specifications for this ability to measure the power are in terms of an absolute gain variation. In other words, it is desired to determine the input power level within the variation of, for example, plus or minus 2 db. In addition, it is desired to be able to step change the power levels to within a certain specified resolution. For example, for a step increase of 1 db of power, the end user device should be able to report a modification in gain of 1 db plus or minus ½ db. These requirements are contrary to the gain variation of current tuners, since, as discussed above, tuners typically have a gain variation of 8 db.
In order to achieve accurate downstream power measurement the cable operator must perform (or have performed by the modem vendor) a very detailed, multi-point power calibration for each tuner/demodulator combination. Because of the fact that the measurement of power from the operator can be performed at any time and at any input power frequency, the closed loop gain variation controlled by the demodulator and which controls the gain of the tuner may be at any arbitrary setting. This requires that the end unit cable modem be able to report the input power level within the specified accuracy regardless of the input power, as long as that is within the specified range.
Due to the gain variations across frequency, and also the non-linear behavior of the gain control AGC function, it is necessary to derive a matrix of data gain versus frequency and gain versus AGC control voltage, and store this in non-volatile memory existing within the end user's device. Currently, the end user measures the input power through reading of a register within the demodulator that is mounted on their cable modem. One drawback of this approach is that the reading of this downstream power measurement is very slow—the order of three minutes per device. Each device must be separately calibrated and the data stored therein. Once the data is stored, a simple table lookup procedure based upon frequency can be used to provide correction for power measurement determinations.
In typical RF receivers, there are two variable gain stages. The first is the RF amplifier, sometimes referred to as a Low Noise Amplifier, and the second is the IF (intermediate frequency) amplifier. To maximize the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR), it is desirable for the RF amplifier to operate at maximum gain. However, if the input signal becomes large, it may overload the circuits downstream of the RF amp. Thus, there is some input signal level where it becomes necessary to roll off the gain of the RF amp. This point is called the TOP. In general, engineers defining receiver AGC characteristics call for the RF amp to operate at full gain for weaker signals and account for increasing signal strength by first reducing the gain of the IF amp. Once the IF amp is operating at a minimum gain setting, then the gain of the RF amp is reduced. Because of the variation of gain versus frequency and AGC setting in the RF amp one TOP setting for all channels does not result in the best overall performance.
One solution is to reduce the necessity of performing multi-point calibration by reducing the amount of allowed gain variation across the frequency range in the tuner itself. However, due to the fact that single conversion tuners are typically manually adjusted through the alignment of coils within the tuner and the fact that multiple operators align tuners at a given time, and given the number of degrees of freedom available within a tuner in order to achieve correct tracking and alignment, it is not feasible within a high production environment to achieve the necessary tolerance.

System and method for communicating stored power measurement parameters between devices in a communications system


A phase-shifting mask suppresses increase of the minimum pattern-element size due to optical proximity effect. The mask a first pattern region formed on a transparent substrate, including a first blocking part for forming at least one first pattern element. The mask further includes a second pattern region on the substrate, including second blocking parts forming second pattern elements arranged periodically. The first pattern region includes first phase- and transparent parts. The second pattern region includes second phase-shifting and transparent parts. The intensity of exposing light through the first pattern region is set to be approximately equal to that of the light through the second pattern region. A third blocking part surrounds the first phase-shifting and transparent parts. A fourth blocking part surrounds the second phase-shifting and transparent parts.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exposure mask used for the photolithography process as one of the semiconductor device fabrication processes. More particularly, the invention relates to a Levenson-type phase-shifting mask that suppresses effectively the optical proximity effect to thereby improve the resolution, and a method of forming a pattern using the mask.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, high-speed operation and large-scale integration of semiconductor devices have been progressing further. According to this tendency, it has been required to further miniaturize the patterns of layers that form the devices.
More recently, the design rule has been decreased to approximately half of the wavelength of exposure light (i.e., exposure wavelength). Thus, it is extremely difficult to form small patterns with the size of approximately half of the exposure wavelength by using ordinary exposure methods. To cope with this, various types of "super-resolving technique" have been developed and discussed.
One of the known "super-resolving techniques" is the "phase-shifting mask". This mask is an exposure mask having a patterned phase-shifting layer selectively formed on the transparent parts (e.g., openings) of the transparent substrate. The patterned phase-shifting layer eliminates the effect of diffraction of exposure light passing through adjoining transparent parts, thereby raising the resolution of the mask.
The "Levenson-type" phase-shifting mask provides much enhancement of the resolution, which is disclosed, for example, in the Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 62-50811 published in 1987. With the "Levenson-type phase-shifting mask", a patterned phase shifting layer is alternately formed on adjoining transparent parts of the transparent substrate. This is to make the light beams passing through the transparent parts opposite in phase to each other, thereby suppressing the interference between these two beams. In this way, the mask enhances its resolution.
The "Levenson-type" phase-shifting mask is very effective to enhancement of the resolution and the depth of focus for periodically-arranged pattern elements. This mask can resolve extremely miniaturized patterns with the size of approximately half of the exposure wavelength or less. Therefore, it has been thought that this type of mask is most hopeful as the technique that realizes formation of patterns with the size of approximately half of the exposure wavelength or less.
FIG. 3 shows an example of circuit or element patterns (hereinafter, which are referred as circuit/element patterns) to be formed. In FIG. 3, the circuit/element pattern 110 is used to pattern a conductive film formed on a gate dielectric film, thereby forming the gate electrodes of Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) and the wiring lines connected thereto. The pattern 110 is made of any photoresist film.
The circuit/element pattern 110 includes an isolated pattern section 113 with an isolated, L-shaped pattern element 113a and a periodic pattern section 114 with closely-arranged, linear pattern elements 114a. The isolated pattern section 113 includes the L-shaped pattern element 113a only, in which no other pattern elements are located near the element 113a. The periodic pattern section 114 includes the linear pattern elements 114a that are arranged in parallel at equal spaces or intervals, which is termed the Line and Space (L/S) pattern.
Actually, the circuit/element pattern 110 of FIG. 3 includes various types of other pattern elements than the elements 113a and 114a. However, they are omitted in FIG. 3 for the sake of simplification of explanation.
FIG. 1 shows a prior-art Levenson-type phase-shifting mask used to form the circuit/element pattern 110 of FIG. 3. FIG. 2 shows a prior-art ordinary (i.e., non-phase-shifting) mask (not the Levenson-type) used to form the same pattern 110.
The prior-art phase-shifting mask 120 of FIG. 1 is of the positive type. The mask 120 comprises an L-shaped blocking or light-shielding part 122a for forming the pattern element 113a of the pattern section 113 of the pattern 110 in FIG. 3 and six linear blocking parts 122b for forming the pattern elements 114a of the pattern section 114 of the same pattern 110. The mask 120 further comprises a rectangular phase-shifting part 123a formed closely to the blocking part 122a and three strip-shaped phase-shifting parts 123b arranged alternately in the spaces between the blocking parts 122b. The remaining area of the mask 120 is a transparent part 124.
In FIG. 1, a character "0" is attached to the transparent part 124, because no phase shift occurs in the exposure light passing through the part 124. A character "π" is attached to the phase-shifting parts 123a and 123b, because phase shift of "π (180°)" occurs in the exposure light passing through the parts 123a and 123b.
The blocking part 122a has the same shape as the pattern element 113a of the circuit/element pattern 110. Each of the blocking parts 122b has the same shape as a corresponding one of the pattern elements 114a of the pattern 110.
The prior-art non-phase-shifting mask 130 is of the positive type, like the phase-shifting mask 120. The mask 130 comprises a rectangular blocking part 132 that covers the blocking parts 122a and 122b of the mask 120 and the phase-shifting parts 123a and 123b thereof. The remaining area of the mask 130 is a transparent part 134. The blocking part 132 has a following relationship with the blocking parts 122a and 122b and the phase-shifting parts 123a and 123b of the phase-shifting mask 120.
Specifically, if the non-phase-shifting mask 130 is entirely overlapped with the phase-shifting mask 120, the upper edge 132a of the blocking part 132 of the mask 130 approximately accords with the upper edges 122aa and 122ba of the blocking parts 122a and 122b of the mask 120. In this state, the upper edges 123aa and 123ba of the phase-shifting parts 123a and 123b of the mask 120 are shifted upward from the upper edge 132a of the blocking part 132 in FIGS. 1 and 2, and overlapped with the transparent part 134.
Next, a method of forming the circuit-element pattern 110 of FIG. 3 using the phase-shifting mask 120 and the non-phase-shifting mask 130 with the double exposure method is explained below.
In the first exposure step, a photoresist film (not shown), which has been formed on an object 112 for pattern formation (e.g., a polysilicon film formed on the gate dielectric film), is irradiated by specific exposure light using the phase-shifting mask 120 of FIG. 1. At this time, a latent image having the same shape as the L-shaped blocking part 122a and the linear blocking parts 122b is formed in the photoresist film thus exposed.
In the first exposure step, an undesired latent image is formed in the photoresist film thus exposed, which is due to the "0-π phase edges" formed at the locations corresponding to the edges 123aa and 123ba of the phase-shifting parts 123a and 123b.
In the second exposure step, to eliminate the "0-π phase edges", the photoresist film is irradiated with the same exposure light as used in the first exposure step again using the non-phase-shifting mask 130 of FIG. 2.
Thereafter, the photoresist film including the latent image is developed with a known developing solution, thereby removing the unnecessary, irradiated parts of the photoresist film. Thus, the latent image is elicited, in other words, the photoresist film is patterned as desired. As a result, the circuit/element pattern 110 of FIG. 3 is formed on the object 112 for pattern formation.
With the pattern formation method using the above-described phase-shifting mask 120 and the non-phase-shifting mask 130, however, the following problem will occur.
Specifically, the intensity distribution of the exposure light that passes through the area of the mask 120 where the blocking parts 122b and the phase-shifting parts 123b are periodically arranged is very different from the intensity distribution of the exposure light that passes through the area of the mask 120 where the blocking part 122a and the phase-shifting part 123a are formed. It is thought that this is due to the "optical proximity effect". As a result, there arises a problem that the minimum size of discriminable or formable pattern elements increases.
FIG. 4 shows the intensity change of the exposing light passing through the phase-shifting mask 120 as a function of the position, where the light intensity is shown with relative values. In FIG. 4, each of the periodically-arranged blocking parts 122b has a width of 0.1 μm, each of the periodically-arranged phase-shifting parts 123b has a width of 0.2 μm, the isolated blocking part 122a has a width of 0.1 μm, and the isolated phase-shifting part 122b has a width of 1.6 μm. The lateral axis of FIG. 4 denotes the distance from the center line of the blocking part 122a or 122b in a perpendicular direction thereto. The position "0" is located on the line.
As seen from FIG. 4, both the exposing light passing through the area corresponding to the isolated blocking part 122a and the isolated phase-shifting part 123a and the exposing light passing through the periodically-arranged blocking part 122b and the periodically-arranged phase-shifting part 123b have increasing intensities with the increasing distance from the center line of the part 122a. However, the increasing rate of the light intensity for the isolated parts 122a and 123a is less than that for the periodically-arranged parts 122b and 123b. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5, if the inter-element distance (i.e., the distance between adjoining pattern elements) is larger than 0.5 μm (i.e., the pattern element approaches its isolation state), the minimum, formable pattern-element size for the photoresist film increases abruptly.

Phase-shifting mask and method of forming pattern using the same


The improved single stage power converter circuit topology substantially reduces EMI that is conducted to the AC line, reduces input AC current inrush, improves output ripples by the use of an auxiliary supply near zero crossings of the line AC voltage, provides Power Factors greater than 0.95, provides Total Harmonic Distortions less than 15%, and maintains constant power, including constant power in a non-linear output load. Further, this circuit topology provides output open and short circuit protections by reducing current stress in power components. This topology can also make the power source to appear as a fast-acting variable impedance source, an ideal source for powering an output load that has negative resistance characteristics such as gas discharge lamps.

It is a problem in the field of power conversion that a 50/60 Hz AC power source is typically used in switched mode inverters and converters to provide the input power. The resultant power converter must then deal with both the efficiency of the power conversion operation and the quality of the output voltage, due to the noise generated by converting the 50/60 Hz AC power in the power conversion operation.
In operation, after rectification of the input AC voltage, the power converter conventionally smoothes out the rectified DC sinusoid peaks by using large value electrolytic capacitors. This causes an enormous AC current inrush to the initially uncharged electrolytic capacitors when the power converter is first turned on. In addition, in high power applications, the power converters that use a 50/60 Hz AC power source must comply with regulatory requirements that specify high Power Factor (PF), low Total Harmonic Distortions (THD), and maximum Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) limits. Furthermore, power converter performance is primarily measured in terms of the circuit's ability to regulate power, ripple contents, long-term reliability, and conversion efficiency. Size, weight, and cost are also bottom line determining factors for commercialization of the device.
The power converters can use conventional boost circuit topology to provide high Power Factor, low Total Harmonic Distortion, and output DC power regulation. However, these are achieved in exchange for additional circuitry and power loss, which causes higher cost, increased device size, and in many instances low power conversion efficiency. In addition, high frequency noise is generated by power component switching actions within the power converter.
Therefore, it is difficult to satisfy these competing requirements to produce a power converter that is efficient, reliable, cost effective, and also maintains a constant output to the load without producing an unacceptable level of EMI.

Single stage resonant power converter with auxiliary power source


Disclosed is a water-type dispersion composition comprising a polymer dispersed in an aqueous medium, the polymer being produced from a polyorganosiloxane and a vinyl polymer. The water-type dispersion composition has excellent storage stability, adhesion, alkali resistance, organic drug resistance, weather resistance, water resistance, hot water resistance, and pollution recuperative characteristics and is capable of forming a transparent and extremely hard film.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a water-type dispersion composition, and, especially to a water-type dispersion composition which has excellent storage stability, adhesion, alkali resistance, organic chemical resistance, weather resistance, hot water resistance, pollution recuperative characteristics, and the like and which is capable of forming a transparent and extremely hard film. The present invention also relates to a process for preparing this water-type dispersion composition.
2. Description of the Background Art
Coating agents are conventionally used in various field and the fields of application of these coating agents are steadily expanding. With this expansion, the characteristics required for these coating agents have advanced. There have been recent demands for coating agents which exhibit highly balanced performances in adhesion, chemical resistance, moisture resistance, weather resistance, hot water resistance, pollution recuperative characteristics, and the like and which are capable of forming an extremely hard film.
As coating agents partially satisfying such a demand, a composition including a partial condensation product of organosilane, colloidal silica dispersion liquid, and silicon-modified acrylic resin is disclosed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 135465/1985). Also, a composition including a partial condensation product of organosilane, chelate compound of zirconium alkoxide, and a vinyl resin containing a hydrolytic silyl group is proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid No. 1769/1989).
However, these coating agents are all solvent types. Recently, there has been a strong demand for eliminating the use of solvents in view of low environmental pollution, resource saving, safety, sanitation, and the like. Therefore, use of these solvent-type coating agents is being eliminated in preference of aqueous coating agents.
Extensive studies have been conducted to develop reaction-type resin emulsions among these aqueous coating agents since these reaction-type resin emulsions are expected to improve performance such as water resistance, chemical resistance, and the like. Among these reaction-type resin emulsions, resin emulsions including a hydrolytic silyl group are proposed. A reaction-type resin emulsion including a vinyl polymer containing a hydrolytic silyl group and an amineimide group is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open 26035/1995 as an example of such a resin emulsion including a hydrolytic silyl group. Also, an aqueous paint composition comprising a water dispersion composition of a vinyl polymer having an alkoxysilyl group and a water-type dispersion composition of a tin compound is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 91510/1995.
However, these resin emulsions containing a hydrolytic silyl group have inferior storage stability. If this emulsion is stored for a long period of time, there is the drawback that it gels and a paint film obtained from the emulsion after long time storage differs in characteristics from a paint film obtained from the emulsion directly after production and hence a stable quality cannot be maintained, causing problems in practice. Also, even when the storage stability is relatively high, these resin emulsions exhibit inferior balance in total performance including adhesion, chemical resistance, moisture resistance, weather resistance, hot water resistance, pollution recuperation characteristics, and the like.
The present invention has been achieved in view of these problems. It is an object of the present invention to provide a water-type dispersion composition which has extremely excellent storage stability, excellent balance in performance such as adhesion, alkali resistance, organic chemical resistance, moisture resistance, weather resistance, hot water resistance, pollution recuperation characteristics, and the like, allows a transparent and extremely hard paint film to be formed, and is useful as a coating agent.


Provided are a solid-state imaging apparatus, a method for manufacturing a solid-state imaging apparatus, and an electronic apparatus equipped with a solid-state imaging apparatus that can reduce the size of a semiconductor chip in such a way that one semiconductor substrate having a logic circuit controls two sensors. Provided is a solid-state imaging apparatus including a first sensor, a first semiconductor substrate having a memory, a second semiconductor substrate having a logic circuit, and a second sensor, in which the first sensor, the first semiconductor substrate, the second semiconductor substrate, and the second sensor are arranged in this order.

In recent years, digital cameras have become more and more popular. Along with this, the demand for solid-state imaging apparatuses (image sensors), which are a central component of digital cameras, has been increasing more and more. For example, in solid-state imaging apparatuses such as complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors, a reduction in size and thickness of the solid-state imaging apparatus has been studied as digital cameras have higher functionality and more functions.
Here, for example, a semiconductor image sensor module in which a first semiconductor chip including a CMOS image sensor and a second semiconductor chip including an analog digital (A/D) converter array are stacked is proposed (see Patent Document 1).
Furthermore, for example, there is proposed an imaging element including a silicon substrate on which a photoelectric conversion element is formed and a wiring layer formed on a front surface side of the silicon substrate, in which the photoelectric conversion element photoelectrically converts light incident from the front surface side through the wiring layer and photoelectrically converts light incident from the back surface side of the silicon substrate without passing through the wiring layer (see Patent Document 2).

Solid-state imaging apparatus, method for manufacturing solid-state imaging apparatus, and electronic equipment equipped with solid-state imaging apparatus

SONY SEMICONDUCTOR SOLUTIONS CORPORATION


A method for forming separate narrow lines is described. A target layer is formed over a substrate. Base patterns are formed over the target layer. Target line patterns and connection patterns between the ends of the target line patterns are formed as spacers on the sidewalls of the base patterns. The base patterns are removed. The target line patterns and the connection patterns are transferred to the target layer to form target lines and connection segments between the ends of the target lines. At least a portion of each connection segment is removed to disconnect the target lines while other area of the substrate is subjected to a patterned removal treatment.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to an integrated circuit (IC) process, and particularly to a method for forming separate narrow lines, a method for fabricating a memory structure based on the former method, and a memory structure fabricated based on the methods.
2. Description of Related Art
The resolution in a photolithography process depends on the wavelength of the exposure light, the numerical aperture (NA) of the optical system and the design of the photomask, and therefore has a certain limit. When the resolution required by target patterns exceeds the lithographic resolution, for example, in a case of forming the gate line array of a high-density memory like a high-density flash memory, a pitch reduction method is needed, which may be based on the spacer forming technique.
For example, separate narrow lines beyond the lithographic resolution may be formed using the so-called self-aligned double patterning (SADP) technique. After a target layer is formed, base line patterns are defined over the same by lithography. Spacers of a smaller width/pitch are formed on the sidewalls of the base line patterns as target line patterns and connection patterns therebetween, and then the base line patterns are removed. Each connection pattern is partially or entirely removed using a specific lithographically defined mask layer to disconnect the target line patterns, and then the disconnected target line patterns are transferred.
Accordingly, the method is tedious as requiring two lithographic processes.

Method for forming separate narrow lines, method for fabricating memory structure, and product thereof


One embodiment the invention includes a method of determining an orientation of a sensor. The method includes measuring a local magnetic field vector and a local gravity vector and using those measurements to determine the orientation of the sensor. Embodiments can include measuring the magnetic field vector and the local gravity vector using quaternion coordinates. Another embodiment includes measuring a local magnetic field vector, a local gravity vector, and the angular velocity of the sensor. These three vectors are processed to determine the orientation of the sensor. In one embodiment the three vectors can all be measured in quaternion coordinates. Another method embodiment includes determining a local gravity vector by providing a acceleration detector, moving the detector from a start point to an end point over a time period, and summing acceleration measurements over the time period. The local gravity vector is calculated using the summed acceleration measurements.

Embodiments of the present invention are directed towards methods and devices for tracking the orientation (posture) of human bodies. In particular such orientation information can be inserted into a synthetic (computer generated) environment where the motion of the tracked body can become part of the synthetic environment. Previous motion tracking systems of the type known in the art have a number of limitations that substantially limit their usefulness.
Currently available motion tracking technologies are limited by their reliance on a generated signal and/or the need to have the tracked body remain in sight of fixed stations positioned around a working volume. In either case there is a requirement to maintain some type of link over a distance. Regardless of the type of signal used, it can be generally referred to as a "source." Usually, the effective range over which the link may be maintained is limited. Moreover, data update rates may be limited by the physical characteristics of the source used. Additionally, interference with, or distortion of, the source can result in erroneous orientation measurements. If the link is broken, a complete loss of track will result.
One type of tracking system known in the art is the so-called mechanical tracking system. Such systems use an artificial exo-skeleton, which is worn by the user of a synthetic environment (typically, a computer-created simulated environment). Sensors (e.g., goniometers) within the skeletal linkages of the exo-skeleton have a general correspondence to the actual joints of the user. Joint angle data is fed into kinematic algorithms that are used to determine body posture and limb position. However, since the exo-skeleton is worn by the user, other systems must be used to ascertain the position of the user within the simulated environment. Such systems are fraught with numerous drawbacks. For one, aligning the goniometers with the joints of a human body is difficult, especially with multiple degree of freedom (DOF) joints. Additionally, the joints of the exo-skeleton cannot perfectly replicate the range of motion of the joints of a human body. Thus, such technologies can provide only a rough approximation of actual body movement. Another limitation stems from the fact that human bodies are of different sizes and dimensions. As a result, the exo-skeleton must be recalibrated for each user. Yet another limitation is imposed by the encumbrance of the exo-skeleton itself. The weight and awkward configuration of the exo-skeleton prevent a human user from interacting with his environment in a natural manner. As a result, it is unlikely that the user will become immersed in the synthetic environment in the desired manner.
Another widely used system is a magnetic tracking system. In such systems a large magnetic field is generated and calibrated. The user has many small sensors mounted at various points on his body. The sensors are sensitive to the generated magnetic field. Thus, changes in position and orientation of the users body with respect to the generated magnetic field can be detected by the magnetic sensors. Some of drawbacks of such systems include very short range and difficulty in calibrating the generated magnetic field. The short range stems from the fact that magnetic fields decrease in power inversely with the square of the distance from the generating source. This restricts the use of such systems to areas about the size of a small room. In order to use a larger working area, user movement must be modified or scaled in some manner. As a result, the magnitude and frequency of position and orientation errors increase rapidly. Additionally, the presence of ferromagnetic material (like the metal in belt buckles or weapons) distorts the generated magnetic fields. Additionally, the magnetic sensors pick up noise from other magnetic fields generated in or near the environment. Unfortunately, these distorting magnetic fields are commonplace, being easily generated by a plethora of devices, including computer monitors, fluorescent lighting, powered electrical wiring in the walls, as well as many other sources. Additionally, other sources of magnetic field error exist. Only with the aid of extremely detailed look-up tables can even moderately accurate measurements be obtained. Thus, magnetic tracking based on a generated magnetic field is subject to positional and orientation inaccuracies which are highly variable and unpredictable.
Another system for detecting position and orientation of a body uses so-called optical sensing. Optical sensing, in general, covers a large and varying collection of technologies. All of these technologies depend on the sensing of some type of light to provide position and orientation information. Consequently, all of these technologies are subject to inaccuracies whenever a required light path is blocked. Additionally, these technologies suffer from interference from other light sources. All of these optical sensing systems require specially prepared environments having the necessary emitters and sensors. This prevents widespread usage and presents a significant and expensive limitation.
Yet another approach is a tracking system using acoustic trackers. Like the previously described magnetic trackers, such systems are limited in range due to the inherent limitations of sound propagation. Additionally, the physics of sound limit accuracy, information update rate, and the overall range of an acoustic tracking system. Moreover, due to the relatively directional nature of sound, clear lines of sight must be maintained in order to obtain accurate readings. Additionally, due to the relatively slow speed of sound, there are latency problems with such acoustic sensor systems. As is evident from the foregoing discussion, conventional approaches for the tracking of body orientation have some serious limitations.

Method and apparatus for motion tracking of an articulated rigid body

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy


The invention relates to a noise reduction device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a device that is suitable for use with a drive chain, for reducing noise and vibration resulting from the chain contacting its surrounding environment (rattle noise). The present invention has particular but not exclusive application in reducing noise in chains installed as part of powered door assemblies. In one form, the invention provides a noise reduction device suitable for use with a chain comprising a plurality of connected links, the device adapted for attachment to a link, such that when attached, the member is fixed to and movable with the link and presents one or more surfaces to an environment surrounding the chain, the or each surface provided with damping means to reduce noise associated with the chain contacting the surrounding environment.

In this specification, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date part of common general knowledge, or known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which this specification is concerned.
A typical known powered door assembly is illustrated in FIG. 1, which shows a sectional garage door 10 comprising an articulated series of linked panels (in this example, four) arranged to be guided by edge rollers running in lateral guiding and support tracks 12, between a closed vertical position (as shown) and an open, overhead horizontal position.
Remote-controlled operator device 14 comprises an electronically controlled electric motor drive to operate door 10 by way of door arm 16, hingedly connected to door 10. Operator 14 drives door arm 16 by means of a drive spocket engaging with a chain 100 which moves a drive trolley 18 along an overhead longitudinal track 20. Track 20 is mounted by way of a header 22 to the wall above the garage door opening, and an idler sprocket (not shown) is mounted at the header end 22 of track 20. Trolley 18 can therefore be moved in both directions thereby to open and close door 10. An emergency release handle 24 is provided, attached by way of a cord to trolley 18 to allow selective disengagement of the trolley from the chain, in order to manually operate the door in the event of power failure, etc. Chain 100 thus forms a closed loop mounted for travel in a horizontal plane, as shown in FIG. 1A, which illustrates the use of a C-section track or channel 20 partially enclosing the chain and configured to support and guide trolley 18.
Chain 100 is supported by the drive and idler sprocket with which it engages, and a degree of sag in the chain is unavoidable. Consequently, and particularly during acceleration and deceleration, chain 100 has a tendency to come into contact with the walls 30 of the longitudinal track 20. Both track 20 and chain 100 are metallic and therefore a significant amount of noise and vibration can be generated when contact occurs. In alternative assemblies, employing a central longitudinal metal rail (in place of a partially closed track) along which the trolley runs, the chain can come into contact with the sides of the rail, also giving rise to noise and vibration problems.
Such chain noise can be unacceptable in some residential installations, particularly if close to adjoining bedrooms, living rooms, etc. Door manufacturers have in the past accordingly attempted to minimise the occurrence of noise in a number of ways. Toothed rubber drive belts can be used in place of metal chains, which are significantly quieter in operation. However, such belts are generally considerably more expensive than chains, and this solution is therefore not appropriate in all situations.
US patent application Ser. No. 2007/0283627 proposes the use of vibration damping pads for use between a garage wall adjacent the garage door and a track support, which can assist in reducing the transfer of vibration and noise to the building itself However, this approach does not tackle the problem of the generation of noise.
Some manufacturers and installers have in the past applied adhesive noise reduction pads at regularly spaced positions along the inner walls of the track. The pads can assist in minimising the risk of metal-to-metal contact and thus reducing the noise generated. However, this solution has also not been wholly successful, as such pads can be worn down or worn off over time. Moreover, it can be difficult to access the interior wall of the rail to install or replace the pads, particularly when the chain is in place.
The present invention sets out to achieve an improved, or at least an alternative, solution to this problem.

Automatic Technology (Australia) Pty. Ltd.


A grip strap is removably attachable to a grip of a firearm using a plunger mounted in the grip and biased by a mainspring which also biases a hammer strut of the firearm.

Most interchangeable grip straps require the use of fasteners in the form of screws, pins or types of pivoting or sliding removable fasteners to retain the grip strap to the firearm frame. Advantage would be realized if retention of the grip strap could be realized without the use of additional fasteners. This would allow the grip of a firearm to be easily modified by the removal and attachment of grip straps of different sizes to accommodate different sized hands.