The invention describes a spring force terminal (1) for connecting electrical conductors (128), having a contact frame (3, 125), in which an electrical conductor (128) can be clamped against the contact frame (3, 125) by means of a clamping spring (7, 121) extending in the form of an arc over the contact frame (3, 125), and which is characterized in that the contact frame (3, 125) has two or more plug openings (9, 11, 124) and a retaining opening (13, 133), in that the clamping spring (7, 121) is held at a first free end in the retaining opening (13, 133) on the contact frame (3, 125), in that, at its second free end, the clamping spring (7, 121) is divided into a number of finger-like projections (23, 25, 122) which corresponds to the number of plug openings (9, 11, 124) by means of one or more slot-like cutouts (17), and in that each of the projections (23, 25, 122) is passed through in each case one of the plug openings (9, 11, 124), and a conductor (128) can be clamped tightly in each of the plug openings (9, 11, 124) by in each case one of the projections (23, 25, 122).

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a spring force terminal for connecting electrical conductors, having a contact frame, in which an electrical conductor can be clamped against the contact frame by means of a clamping spring extending in the form of an arc over the contact frame, in accordance with the preamble of claim 1, and to a service switching device having a spring force terminal.
2. Description of Related Art
Spring force terminals of the generic type are used, for example, as a connecting apparatus for electrical incoming and outgoing conductors in service switching devices in order to produce an electrical and mechanical connection between the conductors and the service switching device without the aid of a tool. Service switching devices may be, for example, circuit breakers having thermal and magnetic releases for ensuring overload and short-circuit protection in downstream circuits.
DE 198 17 927 C1 discloses such a generic spring force terminal. There, an electrical conductor is pushed into a rectangular cutout in a busbar, which has been inserted in a terminal housing, by means of a leaf spring against the upper edge of the cutout.
However, it is not possible for contact to be made in a simple and reliable manner with two or more conductors with such a spring force terminal.


A method, article of manufacture and apparatus for performing private retrieval of information from a database is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprising obtaining an index corresponding to information to be retrieved from the database and generating a query that does not reveal the index to the database. The query is an arithmetic function of the index and a secret value, wherein the arithmetic function includes a multiplication group specified by a modulus of a random value whose order is divisible by a prime power, such that the prime power is an order of the random value. The secret value is an arithmetic function of the index that comprises a factorization into prime numbers of the modulus. The method further comprises communicating the query to the database for execution of the arithmetic function against the entirety of the database.

Consider, the following scenario with two fictitious parties Alice and Bob. A party Bob owns a database D consisting of m data elements. A user Alice wishes to access this database, and establishes an agreement with Bob whereby she can achieve such access. However, for privacy reasons, Alice does not want Bob to know what items she is querying in the database. Naturally, one can imagine a number of scenarios in which database privacy is desired.
The problem area to address the above concerns is known in the art and referred to herein as Private Information Retrieval (PIR). When concerned with maintaining database privacy (for example, by preventing the user from learning any more information than it should), the problem area is sometimes referred in the art and herein as either Symmetric Private Information Retrieval (SPIR) or as Oblivious Transfer.
One trivial scheme for achieving the goal of privacy is for the database owner (in this case Bob) to send the entire database to Alice. If the database contains m bits, then the total communication complexity is O(m), where this notation for purposes herein means a·m+b, where a and b are numbers. Alice can make any query, and Bob will trivially have no information about Alice's query. Of course, this solution is completely impractical for even a moderately-sized database. Additionally, this type of scheme does not satisfy the need for maintaining database privacy.
Some schemes require total communication that is super logarithmic in the size of the database or in other words, O((log2m)d), where m is the number of items in the database and d is greater than 1. The best known theoretical lower bound for total communication in such a scenario is O(log2m).
Chor, Kushilevitz, Goldreich, and Sudan in Private Information Retrieval, Journal of the ACM, 45, 1998 (earlier version in FOCS 95) considered the information-theoretic case wherein the security analysis requires no computational assumptions. For this case, they show that if only a single database is used, then m bits must be communicated. On the other hand, if several replicas of identical databases are used (subject to the restriction that these databases do not communicate with each other), then one can achieve a scheme that does not require transmitting m bits. They determined that there is a 2-database private information retrieval scheme with communication complexity O(m1/3) subject to the restriction that the databases do not communicate with one another, and for any constant k≧2, there is a k-database private information retrieval scheme with communication complexity O(m1/k) subject to the restriction that the databases do not communicate with one another.
Ambainis in Upper Bound on the communication complexity of private information retrieval, in Proc. of the 24th ICALP, 1997, showed that for any constant k≧2, there is a k-database private information retrieval scheme with communication complexity
      O    (          m              1                              2                                                                          k                    -          1                      )    ,subject to the restriction that the databases do not communicate with one another, and for k=θ(log m), there is a θ(log m)-database private information retrieval scheme with communication complexity O(log2m−log log m), again subject to the restriction that the databases do not communicate with one another.
Chor and N. Gilboa, in Computationally Private Information Retrieval, Proceedings of 29th STOC, pp. 304-313, 1997, show that for every ε>0, there is a 2-database private information retrieval scheme with communication complexity O(mε). Their scheme requires the existence of pseudo-random generators. It is well known in the art that such generators can be constructed if one-way functions exist.
E. Kushilevitz and R. Ostrovsky, in Replication is not needed: single database, computationally private information retrieval, in Proceedings of FOC '97, pp. 364-373, used a computational intractability assumption to achieve a single database (i.e., k=1) private information retrieval scheme whose communication complexity is less than m. Under the well known Quadratic Residuocity assumption, they demonstrated that for any ε>0, there a single-database computational private information retrieval scheme whose communication complexity is O(mε). To construct such a scheme, they first demonstrated a basic scheme with communication complexity O((2√{square root over (m)}+1)−k) where k is a security parameter. Under the assumption that k=mc for some constant c, the resulting scheme achieves communication complexity
      O    (          m                        1                      2                                                                            +        c              )    .Next, Kushilevitz and Ostrovsky demonstrated that if one of the steps in this scheme could itself be replaced by a single-database computational private information retrieval protocol, then the resulting communication complexity would be lower. Using this idea, they proposed a recursive scheme whose communication complexity is
  O  (            m              1                  L          +          1                      ·          (                        m          L                +                  L          ·          k                    )        )where L is the number of levels of recursion. By making an assumption that the security parameter is k=mc for some constant c, and setting L+O(√{square root over (log m/log k)}), the communication complexity is nO(√{square root over (c)}).
Subsequently, Cachin, Micali, and Stadler in Computational Private Information Retrieval with Polylogarithmic Communication, in Proc. of Eurocrypt 1999, LNCS, pages 402-414. Springer-Verlag, 1999, showed how to construct a single-database computational private information retrieval scheme for which the communication complexity is polylogarithmic in the size of the database; i.e., O(logdm), where d is a constant greater than 1. For the recommended parameters in their scheme, d=6, which makes the actual total communication complexity O(log6m). The Cachin-Micali-Stadler scheme is based on two computational intractability assumptions. The first assumption is the Φ-hiding assumption, which states, roughly, that given a composite integer n and a small prime p, it is hard to determine whether p divides ø(n) with probability non-negligibly better than ½. The second assumption is the Φ-sampling assumption, which states, roughly, that it one can efficiently find a random composite n such that p divides Φ(n).
In order for the user to obtain the ith bit of an m-bit database, he must at least send some encoding of i. Thus, in any scheme O(log m) bits have to be communicated. However, there is still a gap between the Cachin-Micali-Stadler scheme (which has complexity O(log6 m), and the theoretical lower bound of O(log m).
Chang in Single-Database Private Information Retrieval with Logarithmic Communication, in Proc. of 9th Australasian Conference on Information Security and Privacy (ACISP 2004), Sydney, Australia, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Verlag, demonstrated the first single database computational private information retrieval scheme for which the server side communication complexity is O(log m). The scheme utilizes Paillier's cryptosystem as a building block and thus is secure as long as that cryptosystem is. The Paillier cryptosystem, in turn, can be shown to be secure assuming the composite residuosity assumption, which is an extension of the Quadratic-Residuosity assumption (which is the same assumption used in the Kushilevitz-Ostrovsky scheme described above). Roughly speaking, the composite residuosity assumption states that it is computationally intractable to decide whether a random element in (Z/n2Z)* has an nth root modulo n2. Chang's scheme is a special case of a scheme due to Julian Stern that demonstrated how to construct single database private information retrieval schemes from almost any semantically secure additive homomorphic encryption scheme, of which the Paillier cryptosystem is one such example. However, the user-side communication complexity of Chang's scheme is O(mε·log m), which means that the total communication complexity is O(mε·log m).
Thus, from the perspective of overall communication complexity, the Cachin-Micali-Stadler scheme is better. Nonetheless, there was still a significant gap between the O(log6m) complexity of this scheme and the theoretical lower bound of O(log m).

Method and apparatus for communication efficient private information retrieval and oblivious transfer


The present invention can solve the problem that an existing organic light-emitting diode pixel circuit has a single function or a complicated structure. An organic light-emitting diode pixel circuit of the present invention includes: a touch fingerprint detection module configured to detect whether a touch occurs or not and whether the touch is caused by a convex portion of a fingerprint or a concave portion of the fingerprint, and send a result of the detection to a read line, under the control of a first scanning signal and a second scanning signal; and a compensation display module including an organic light-emitting diode and at least one driving transistor, and configured to eliminate a shift of a threshold voltage of the driving transistor and drive the organic light-emitting diode to display under the control of at least the first scanning signal, the second scanning signal, and a data signal.

An organic light-emitting diode display panel displays by relying on light emitted from an organic light-emitting diode. Each pixel unit (i.e., sub-pixel) of the organic light-emitting diode display panel has an organic light-emitting diode pixel circuit therein. The most basic structure of the organic light-emitting diode pixel circuit, as shown in FIG. 1, is consisted of a switch transistor T, a driving transistor D, a storage capacitor C, and an organic light-emitting diode OLED (i.e., 2T1C), and operates under the drive of a scanning signal Scan, a data signal Data, and a supply voltage Vdd, wherein, the driving transistor D is in a saturation state. Thus, an electric current passing through the driving transistor D (i.e., a working current Ioled passing through the organic light-emitting diode) satisfies the following equation:Ioled=K(Vgs−Vth)2
Wherein, K is a coefficient, Vgs is a gate-source voltage of the driving transistor D, and Vth is a threshold voltage of the driving transistor D. In a case where a source voltage is given, a gate voltage of the driving transistor D is equal to a driving voltage Vdata provided by the data signal Data for causing the organic light-emitting diode to display, while the brightness of the organic light-emitting diode OLED (i.e., content displayed by the organic light-emitting diode OLED) is determined by the working current Ioled thereof. As a result, the brightness of the organic light-emitting diode OLED, i.e., the content displayed by the organic light-emitting diode OLED, can be controlled by adjusting the driving voltage Vdata.
However, the inventor has found that there are at least the following problems in the prior art.
Firstly, the threshold voltage Vth of the driving transistor will change gradually (i.e., the threshold voltage shifts) as time goes on, resulting in that the working current Ioled changes unpredictably in a case where the driving voltage Vdata remains unchanged, and the display effect is affected.
In order to solve the above problem, in an existing method, a compensating circuit is added into the organic light-emitting diode pixel circuit so as to eliminate the shift of the threshold voltage. However, the compensating circuit generally includes a large number of capacitors, thin film transistors, and the like, resulting in a complicated structure and high cost of the organic light-emitting diode pixel circuit.
Meanwhile, a fingerprint recognition function is one of the common functions of an electronic device at present, and is of great significance for enhancing the security of the electronic device, expanding the application range thereof, increasing the added value thereof, and the like. However, most of the existing organic light-emitting diode display panels are not provided with fingerprint recognition capability and have a single function; or they are provide with fingerprint recognition capability, but a separate fingerprint recognition circuit (e.g. a laser fingerprint recognition circuit) is required to be added, resulting in a complicated structure and increased cost, and affected display function of the organic light-emitting diode display panel.

Organic light-emitting diode pixel circuit and driving method thereof

BEIJING BOE OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


A method of forming a pad and a fuse in a semiconductor device. A copper layer located in both a fuse region and a pad region is formed in a dielectric layer. A first insulating layer is formed on the dielectric layer to cover the copper layer and selectively etched to expose the copper layer in the fuse region. An aluminum fuse is formed on the first insulating layer in the fuse region and connected to the exposed copper layer. A second insulating layer is formed on both the aluminum fuse and the first insulating layer and selectively etched together with the first insulating layer to expose the underlying copper layer in the pad region. An aluminum pad is formed on the second insulating layer in the pad region and connected to the exposed copper layer in the pad region. At least one third insulating layer is formed on both the aluminum pad and the second insulating layer and selectively etched to expose the aluminum pad only.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) fabrication technology and, more particularly, to a method of forming a pad and a fuse in a semiconductor IC device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Semiconductor IC devices have metal pads, also referred to as bonding pads, etc., formed underneath and exposed to their exterior surfaces. The metal pads allow electrical access to and from internal device circuitry. In addition, most semiconductor IC devices, such as memory chips, have metal fuses formed underneath and exposed to their exterior surfaces. When there is a defect cell in the device, the metal fuses are used to replace the defect cell by using a spare cell.
FIGS. 1A and 1B show, in cross-sectional views, a conventional method of forming a pad and a fuse in a semiconductor device.
Referring to FIG. 1A, a copper layer 10 is formed in a dielectric layer 11 and connected to an underlying layer 12 such as metal lines. The copper layer 10 is covered with an insulating layer 13 in a fuse region 14 and exposed in a pad region 15. An aluminum pad 16 is formed on and connected to the exposed copper layer 10 in the pad region 15. Then, a passivation layer 17 is deposited on both the insulating layer 13 and the aluminum pad 16.
Referring to FIG. 1B, a suitable photoresist pattern 18 is formed on the passivation layer 17 and used as an etch mask for opening the aluminum pad 16. That is, in order to open the aluminum pad 16, the passivation layer 17 on the aluminum pad 16 is etched through the photoresist pattern 18.
The passivation layer 17 is traditionally made of silicon nitride, which may cause unfavorably scattered reflection of a laser beam when laser cutting is performed to the copper layer 10 in the fuse region 14. Therefore, a part of the passivation layer 17 in the fuse region 14 should be also etched to leave only the insulating layer 13 made of silicon oxide.
In the pad region 15, the passivation layer 17 is typically over-etched to obtain a reliable process margin. For example, when the passivation layer 17 is etched to a first thickness T1 in the pad region 15, the aluminum pad 16 is also partially etched to a second thickness T2. During such over-etching process, in the fuse region 14 both the passivation layer 17 and the insulating layer 13 are often etched together to a third thickness T3.
As a result, the copper layer 10 in the fuse region 14 may be exposed to the outside. In general, copper is very susceptible to contamination and may act as a pollution source due to high diffusible property. So the exposed copper layer 10 may become causes of drops in yield and reliability of the devices.

Method of forming pad and fuse in semiconductor device


The present invention provides a crash stop which is capable of adjusting shock absorptivity by employing the same elastic material and where the mounting and demounting operations are easy. A metal pin has a recess in its intermediate portion. An elastic body has three blade portions. In a crash stop, the metal pin is press fitted into the pin inserting hole of the elastic body, and the portion between the support portion and the knob portion of the metal pin is covered with the elastic body. In the boundary between the intermediate portion of the metal pin and the elastic body, a cavity is formed. The support portion is fitted into the crash stop support hole of the base so that it can be freely pulled out and inserted. At this time, the upper end of the blade portion contacts the inner side surface of the crash stop inserting hole of the upper yoke and is contracted, and by the frictional force generated between the crash stop inserting hole and the upper end of the blade portion, the crash stop is locked. The abutting shock of the stopper arm of an actuator is absorbed with cooperation of the elastic body and the cavity.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk drive, particularly a magnetic-disk drive and a crash stop which regulates a range of rotation of the actuator of the magnetic-disk drive. More particularly, the invention relates to a crash stop which is capable of adjusting the setting of shock absorptivity with the same elastic material and where the mounting-demounting operation is easy.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, a magnetic-disk drive includes a magnetic disk which is a data storage medium and an actuator which moves a magnetic head along the surface of the magnetic disk. The actuator is equipped with a carriage which is rotatably fitted on a rotational shaft and a voice coil motor (VCM) which drives this carriage. The carriage is provided with a head arm, on the front end of which the magnetic head is mounted. Also, the carriage is provided with a stopper arm on the carriage surface opposite to the head arm across the rotational shaft. This stopper arm has the voice coil of the VCM mounted thereon. The VCM has the aforementioned voice coil, lower and upper yokes disposed above and under the stopper arm, and a magnetic circuit formed by permanent magnets. The VCM drives the carriage, thereby rotating the head arm. This causes the magnetic head mounted on the front end of the head arm to move over a predetermined position on the disk surface to record data on the magnetic disk or read out recorded data from the magnetic disk.
A magnetic-disk drive such as that described above is provided with a crash stop for prescribing the range of rotation of the actuator. The crash stop is abutted by the stopper arm, thereby prescribing the aforementioned range of rotation. The crash stop is typically comprised of an inner crash stop that prescribes the innermost circumference to which the magnetic head can move on the magnetic disk surface and an outer crash stop that prescribes the outermost circumference to which the magnetic head can move. The inner and outer crash stops, therefore, are provided on both ends of the range of rotation of the stopper arm.
Examples of crash stops found in the art include those having an elastic body such as rubber, or alternatively those comprised of a metal pin such as a stainless steel pin. The crash stop comprising an elastic body has the disadvantages that it lacks the mounting stability and the range of rotation of the actuator will fluctuate due to a displacement in the portion that the stopper arm abuts. In the crash stop comprising a metal pin, the range of rotation of the actuator does not fluctuate but absorption of shock is insufficient, and thus when the actuator runs recklessly and crashes on the crash stop there is the possibility that it will damage a disk surface.
Additionally, there are found crash stops having both the shock absorptivity of an elastic body and the mounting stability of a metal pin, which are comprised of a structure where a metal pin is covered with an elastic body. The shock absorptivity of this crash stop, however, generally becomes smaller than that of a crash stop comprising an elastic body alone. This crash stop is attached to the bottom portion (referred to as the base) of an enclosure or an upper yoke or a lower yoke, for example, by screws.
It is not easy to adjust or vary the shock absorptivity of the conventional crash stop comprising a metal pin covered with an elastic body. Particularly, in the case where design change is performed from a crash stop comprising an elastic body alone to a crash stop comprising a metal pin and an elastic body, if the elastic material used in the crash stop comprising an elastic body alone is employed as it is, there will arise a need to enhance the shock absorptivity, because the shock absorptivity will be worse than that of the crash stop with an elastic body alone. As a countermeasure for this, it is conceivable to change the elastic body to an even softer, elastic body or to thicken the elastic body. However, the elastic materials that can be used are often limited to materials that have been used so far, to avoid the having to test whether new elastic materials are suitable to the interior of the disk drive. For this reason, in many cases, materials with desired shock absorptivity cannot be used. Also, if the thickness of an elastic body is varied, the mounting position of the crash stop must be changed according to that variation, or the diameter of the metal pin must be varied, and consequently, other components will be obliged to be redesigned.
During the disk drive assembly process, after magnetic disks are incorporated into the enclosure, then the carriage is fitted on the rotational arm, and after the magnetic head is moved over the surface of the magnetic disk by rotation of the carriage, or furthermore, after the upper yoke is incorporated, the crash stop is mounted. This is because the mounting and demounting of the carriage will not be able to be performed, if the crash stop is first mounted.
In addition, because the mounting of the crash stop is performed in the end of the assembling process of the magnetic-disk drive and the crash stop needs to be first demounted when the magnetic head or carriage is repaired, other disposed components will be hindrances and there will arise the problem that the mounting-demounting operation will be troublesome.
It therefore can be seen that there is a need in the prior art to provide a crash stop which is capable of adjusting shock absorptivity with the same elastic material and where the mounting-demounting operation is easy.

Crash stop and disk drive employing the crash stop

International Business Machines Corporation


A polypeptide is disclosed that binds tumor-associated antigens (TAA) on the surface of cancer cells and a NKG2D receptor. The NKG2D receptor is expressed on the surfaces of killer cells such as natural killer cells, T cells, natural killer T cells, and gamma delta T cells. In some cases, the TAA is CS-1 or EGFRvIII. Also disclosed are polynucleotides encoding the disclosed polypeptides, vectors comprising the disclosed polynucleotides, and host cells comprising the disclosed vectors. Also disclosed are bivalent antibodies comprising the disclosed polypeptides. Also disclosed are pharmaceutical compositions comprising the disclosed antibodies. Also disclosed are methods of treating cancer in a subject using the disclosed bi-specific antibodies.

In 2014, there were 1.6 million new cases of cancer diagnosed and 585,720 deaths reported. Current treatment mainly relies on chemotherapy, radiation, surgery and bone marrow transplantation. However, these can be associated with severe side effects, and in some cases the cancer does not respond to the treatments. Thus, new therapeutics are urgently needed. Cancer immunotherapies are promising because they are highly specific and effective in inducing tumor lytic activity from lymphocytes. Fusion proteins such as bi-specific T-cell engagers or bi-specific killer cell engagers (BiTE and BiKE) are cancer immunotherapies that form links between a tumor cell and a T-cell (or natural killer cell, respectively). A BiTE or BiKE protein has two single-chain variable fragments (scFvs) of different antibodies, one of which binds a tumor-specific molecule and the other of which binds a receptor on the surface of the lymphocyte. BiTE and BiKE therapies are expected to have a 100-10,000 fold higher efficacy in tumor cell lysis relative to conventional antibody therapy. However, BiTE therapies specifically target the CD3 receptor on T-cell surfaces, while MIKE therapies target a receptor on the surface of natural killer cells. Currently, no bi specific engager proteins are designed to cross-trigger all killer immune cells, including CD8+ T cells, NK cells, NKT cells, and γδT cells, etc.

Bivalent antibody directed against NKG2D and tumor associated antigens


A computer communicates with a referral server according to a web service definition to select and audit performance of an internet service. The computer sends and receives messages requesting internet services available in a geographic region and the message includes an identifier where the computer is located. Other received messages indicating available services including, top-level-domains, currency, and languages available in the geographic region. For example, for domain name services, messages include top-level domains, and for other services, messages include currency, languages, etc. Messages include a list of providers available in the geographic region, and for each provider in the list, a provider name, a description of provider services, or a provider URL. The computer sends other messages that audited selected provider performance including, a provider selected to provide an internet service, an indication of successful transaction, an indication of successful configuration, or an indication of failure.

Consider a customer who would like to purchase goods or services. For example, consider a customer who would like to purchase and configure a new domain name for a business server. Without successful initial and on-going attention to these tasks, various services such as email, mobility, and web services may not function.
Often, the small business turns to a technical consultant to purchase and configure the Internet presence from third party vendors. The resulting services do not always meet the small business's needs and the small business may overpay for unnecessary services.
Consider a small business that wants to purchase a new domain name. Suppose the small business is in the entertainment industry, and would prefer to purchase a .tv domain name. Like many small businesses, let us also assume that this small business has an internet protocol (IP) address dynamically assigned by the domain name server (DNS) provider. For this small business to obtain a working Internet presence, the small business must locate a domain name, a dynamic DNS vendor, and an Internet connectivity vendor who can provide the desired bandwidth at the location of the small business' server. The small business may find that one vendor can provide all of these services or that multiple vendors are required to meet these needs.
Once one or more vendors are located, the business owner narrows down the services he needs to buy from the one or more vendors. This can be challenging since vendors offer a wide variety of services such as various top-level-domains (TLD), various bandwidths, and various DNS services, and many of these services are communicated by vendors at the level of understanding of a technical consultant.
After the business owner selects vendors and services, the business owner must properly configure the DNS server with the purchased domain registration so multiple DNS records point to the small business server. Finally, the small business monitors the on-going status of the configured Internet presence and monitors renewal of the purchased services. Maintaining an Internet presence is technically difficult and time consuming and requires initial and on-going configuration.
In another example, consider a customer who wants to purchase goods or services over the Internet that require specific technical decisions or knowledge about a customer's computing environment. Existing Internet browsing proceeds by searching and reviewing search results. The browsing experience proceeds link by link, focused by explicit user search terms intended to identify goods and services that a customer desires. Often, purchasing halts when a customer has limited time or when a customer encounters a difficult technical question about their computing environment.

Message based network transmission for selection and auditing of internet services


A method of tracking an identification device includes storing data about the identification device in a register, the data to be stored including data relating to a forwarding location to which requests for information about the identification device should be forwarded. The identification device is attached to an item to be monitored. The method includes accessing the register when the identification device has been read and a request for information has been received. Details of the forwarding location are obtained from the register. The request is forwarded to the forwarding location and the requested information about the identification device is sent from the forwarding location to a requester of the information.

The use of identification devices, such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, is becoming increasingly prevalent for monitoring the transportation and storage of goods and items. Some retailers are now beginning to insist on the use of such devices for monitoring the movement of goods including perishable goods.
With present systems, in order to obtain information about an RFID tag that has been read, it is necessary to access an electronic product code (EPC) Information Service. Assuming the location of that Information Service is not known a priori then it is discovered by using an EPC Object Naming Service to gain the address of the Information Service. A problem with this approach is that if the Object Naming Service fails there is no way of obtaining the address of the Information Service. Also, someone has to pay the cost of maintaining the centralized Object Naming Service.
In order for the EPC Information Service to work efficiently, the result of the address lookup should be cached locally. However, a problem with such an arrangement is that it is only possible if the address of the Information Service is static and is consistent across a number of individual tags.

Method and system for tracking identification devices

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


Disclosed is a heat exchanger comprising a boiling passage and cooling passage defined by opposite sides of metal walls. Layers of brazing material between the metal walls and a spacer member bond components of the heat exchanger together. An enhanced boiling layer (EBL) comprising metal particles bonded to each other and to a boiling side of the metal wall provides nucleate boiling pores to improve heat transfer. The EBL has a melting temperature that is higher than the melting temperature of the brazing material. Also disclosed is a process for assembling the heat exchanger.

Two designs of heat exchanger are presently in general use for reboiler-condensers in cryogenic, refinery and chemical applications. One type of heat exchanger in current use is a vertical shell and tube heat exchanger. To achieve a sufficiently high degree of heat transfer at relatively low temperature differences with this design, enhanced boiling layers (EBL) are used. An EBL typically has a structure comprising a multitude of pores that provide boiling nucleation sites to facilitate boiling. An EBL is applied to the inside of the tubes, and longitudinal flutes are provided on the outside of the tubes to facilitate heat transfer.
Enhanced boiling layers were first proposed for heat exchangers in U.S. Pat. No. 3,384,154. This patent discloses mixing metal powder in a plastic binder in solvent and applying the slurry to a base metal surface. The coated metal is subjected to a reducing atmosphere and heated to a temperature for sufficient time so that the metal particles sinter together and to the base metal surface. U.S. Pat. No. 3,457,990 discloses an enhanced boiling surface with reentrant grooves mechanically or chemically formed therein.
Other methods of applying EBLs have been disclosed. GB 2 034 355 discloses applying an organic foam layer to a metal heat transfer member and plating the foam with metal such as copper first by electroless, then by electrodeposition. U.S. Pat. No. 4,258,783 discloses mechanically forming indentations in a heat transfer surface and then electrodepositing metal on the pitted surface. GB 2 062 207 discloses applying metal particles to a metal base by powder flame spraying. EP 303 493 discloses spraying a mixture of metal and plastic material onto a base metal by flame or plasma spraying. U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,497 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,267 disclose heat treating an aluminum alloy plate to produce a precipitate followed by chemically etching away the precipitate to leave a pitted surface. EP 112 782 discloses applying a mixture of brazing alloy and spherical particles to a metallic wall and heating the coated wall to melt the brazing material.
A common heat exchanger used in cryogenic, refinery and chemical applications is the plate-fin brazed aluminum heat exchanger fabricated by disposing corrugated aluminum sheets between aluminum parting sheets or walls to form a plurality of fluid passages. The sheets are either clad with an aluminum brazing layer or a layer of brazing foil is inserted between the surfaces to be bonded. When heated to a predetermined temperature for a predetermined period of time, the brazing foil or cladding melts and forms a metallurgical bond with the adjacent sheets. The resulting heat exchanger contains numerous passages consisting of alternate layers of closely spaced fins. A typical arrangement of alternate layers of passages each containing fins with a density of 6 to 10 fins/cm (15 to 25 fins/inch), and a fin height of 0.5 to 1 cm (0.2 to 0.4 inch). In a common application, a first series of alternating passages carry vapor for condensing, while a second series of alternating passages carry a liquid for boiling. Typical brazed aluminum heat exchangers must be able to withstand 2068 to 2758 kPa (300 to 400 psia).
Patents proposing replacing fins with an enhanced boiling layer in the boiling passages of a brazed heat exchanger include U.S. Pat. No. 5,868,199; U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,431 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,433. These patents propose to stack aluminum sheets each with an EBL applied on one side to define boiling channels and with fins on the other side of the aluminum sheets to define condensing channels. Layers of brazing material are disposed between bonding surfaces in the stack, and the stack is subjected to heating over a period of time to obtain a brazed heat exchange core. Such brazed aluminum heat exchangers described in these patents have not been commercialized because EBLs are typically brazed at 565° to 593° C. (1050° to 1100° F.) while the subsequent brazing of the metal components together occur at around 593° to 621° C. (1100° to 1150° F.). Maintaining the integrity and effectiveness of the EBL, particularly the porous structure provided by the mutually bonded metal particles, during the second hotter heat treatment to effect brazing has been difficult. This difficulty accounts for the lack of commercially available brazed heat exchangers with EBL in the boiling passages.

Method for making brazed heat exchanger and apparatus


The present invention relates to a circuit board mounting panel for electrical appliance, comprising: a base panel disposing a first printed circuit board and a second printed circuit board thereon; a first shield cover disposed on the base panel and mounting the first printed circuit board therein and formed with an opening part in a vertical direction to a surface of the first printed circuit board; and a second shield cover mounting the second printed circuit board therein and inserted into the first shield cover through the opening part and coupled to the base panel. Thus, the present invention provides an improved structure of a shield cover for a circuit board mounting panel for an electrical appliance, thereby minimizing a idle mold that may be produced while developing a circuitry or a PCB.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit board mounting panel for an electrical appliance, and more particularly, to a circuit board mounting panel for an electrical appliance comprising a shield cover mounting a printed circuit board.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, printed circuit boards (PCB) have been used for driving a variety of electrical appliances. FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a circuit board mounting panel 20 installed on a conventional display device 10. Referring to FIG. 1, on the circuit board mounting panel 20 are disposed a plurality of printed circuit boards (not shown) generating an image driving signal and an image driving power etc. Further, on the circuit board mounting panel 20 are disposed a plurality of shield covers 11, 12, 13, 14 for protecting the PCBs from outside environment. The shield covers 11, 12, 13, 14 not only protect the PCBs, but also can cut off effluence of an electric-magnetic interference (EMI) generated from the PCBs. Therefore, a mold for the shield covers 11, 12, 13, 14 should be appropriately designed to accommodate the PCBs mounted in the shield covers.
However, the sizes of the PCBs often change as the circuit develops. Consequently, the mold used to manufacture the shield covers 11, 12, 13, 14 housing the PCBs should be re-designed and re-made, thereby rendering the original mold idle and/or useless. Further, use of the shield covers 11, 12, 13, 14 during early development of the circuit is often necessary because EMI shielding is needed to properly design the circuit.

Circuit board mounting panel for electrical appliance


Gated organic light-emitting diodes or vertical light emitting transistors are disclosed based on the modulation of charge carrier injection from electrodes into light-emitting materials by applying external gate potential. This gate modulation were achieved in two disclosed methods: 1) a porous electrode allowing mobile ions to stabilize electrochemically doped semiconducting materials that can form ohmic contact with electrodes: 2) an electrode with gate-tunable work function such as Al:LiF composite electrodes.

Organic electronics such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic solar cells, and organic field effect transistors have recently become attractive due to their advantages in light-weight, flexibility, low-cost production and solution process feasibility. Developments in materials, device architectures, and device processing have led to the integration of OLEDs into lighting and display consumer markets. However, despite these developments, OLEDs still suffer from inefficient system architectures and fabrication challenges.
For example, prior art methods for operating OLEDs use one or more external transistors to control the current density input of the OLED; then the current density input can directly drive the OLED. Prior art methods allow the current through the OLED, by controlling the external transistor, e.g., by turning a thin film transistor (TFT) on or off, which then controls the current density of the OLED. In addition, according to prior art methods for fabricating OLED device, first one or more TFTs are built and then the OLED devices are built directly on the TFT(s).

Electron injection based vertical light emitting transistors and methods of making


The semiconductor device according to the present invention comprises an output MOS transistor M0, an MOS transistor M3 connected between a gate G1 of the output MOS transistor M0 and a ground voltage GND, a parasitic transistor Tr1 which is formed in parallel with the MOS transistor M3 with the substrate terminal of the MOS transistor M3 as a base, and a parasitic transistor control circuit for controlling the conducting status of the parasitic transistor Tr1 based on the power supply voltage Vcc.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and more particularly to a semiconductor device having an over current protection circuit for protecting output transistors from an over current.
2. Description of the Related Art
In automobiles and home electric equipment, power devices (also called power ICs or power semiconductors), for controlling heavy current and high voltages, are being used. Power devices have the function of protecting output transistors from an over current, since an abnormal heavy current (over current) which flows into the output transistors due to such a failure as a load short circuit may breakdown the output transistors.
FIG. 14 and FIG. 15 are circuit diagrams depicting a configuration of a conventional power device. This conventional power device 101 is a switch for controlling the current which flows through the load 102, and this switch uses an MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor, hereafter called MOS transistor). Since the switch is installed at a power supply (battery) side rather than a load, this is called a high side switch.
As FIG. 14 and FIG. 15 show, the conventional power device 101 comprises an output MOS transistor M110 for controlling the current of the load 102, a charge pump 103 for generating the gate voltage for turning ON the output MOS transistor M110, and the over current protection circuit 104 for protecting the output MOS transistor M110 from over current. The over current protection circuit 104 further comprises a detection circuit 105 for detecting an over current, and an MOS transistor M111 for discharging the gate charges of the output MOS transistor M110 when the detection circuit 105 detects an over current.
The battery to be the power supply is connected to the Vcc terminal (power supply terminal), the ground voltage GND is connected to the GND terminal (ground terminal), and the load 102 is connected to the OUT terminal.
For example, the output of the charge pump 103 is turned ON/OFF by a control signal from the outside, and the output MOS transistor M110 is turned ON/OFF by the output signal of the charge pump 103. When an over current is detected, the detection circuit 105 discharges the gate charges of the output MOS transistor M110 by turning ON the MOS transistor M111, and turns OFF the output MOS transistor M110, so as to prevent the output MOS transistor M110 from breakdown by an over current.
The power device 101 in FIG. 14 and the power device 101 in FIG. 15 are examples where the connection destination of the source of the MOS transistor M111 is different. The source of the MOS transistor M111 in FIG. 14 is connected to the GND terminal (ground terminal), and the source of the MOS transistor M111 in FIG. 15 is connected to the OUT terminal (output terminal). When the load is shorted, the OUT terminal is grounded to the ground voltage GND, so the power devices in FIG. 14 and FIG. 15 perform the same operation.
FIG. 16 is a timing chart when the load is shorted in a conventional power device. A short of the load means that the OUT terminal is grounded to the ground voltage GND, without passing through the load, by such a reason as a stripped insulating coating and a loose connector. If the load is shorted, the power supply voltage Vcc at the Vcc terminal drops to a level close to 0V of the ground voltage GND. This is because when the wire between the battery and the power device is long, the impedance of this wire becomes much higher than the ON resistance (several m—several tens mΩ) of the output MOS transistor, and if the load is shorted, most of the voltage of the battery is consumed by the wire.
Also the current is no longer consumed by the load, so the output current IOUT becomes abnormally heavy. Due to the over current, the output MOS transistor M110 heats up, and if the over current continues in this state, the output MOS transistor M110 breaks down by this heat. Therefore the output MOS transistor M110 must be turned OFF as quickly as possible.
However if the power supply voltage Vcc is extremely low, such as 0V, the over current protection circuit 104 cannot operate normally. For example, if the power supply voltage Vcc is the operating voltage of the detection circuit 105 or less, the over current cannot be detected, and if the power supply voltage Vcc is the threshold value of the MOS transistor M111 or less, the MOS transistor M111 does not turn ON, so the gate charges of the output MOS transistor M110 cannot be discharged. Therefore the output MOS transistor M110 cannot be turned OFF and the output MOS transistor M110 breaks down.
As a conventional semiconductor device having a circuit similar to FIG. 14 and FIG. 15, the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-160746 is known.
As described above, in the case of a conventional semiconductor device, such as a power device, the output transistor cannot be turned OFF, and the output transistor breaks down if the power supply voltage is extremely low when an over current is generated.


A protective safety shoe insert includes a seamless puncture-resistant insole substantially conforming in shape to a sole of the shoe. The insole comprises a flexible steel plate coinciding with an area of greatest flexure of the insole and a layer of a puncture-resistant material secured to the ends of the plate. The insole is injection molded with an integral safety toe, an integral arch support, and an optional integral heel protector. A metatarsal guard is secured to the safety toe to add impact protection for the metatarsal area of the foot.

Conventional safety boots and safety shoes are comprised of a puncture-resistant insole which provides protection against sharp objects injuring the bottom of the foot, and a separate safety toe which provides impact protection for the toes.
The conventional puncture-resistant insole typically comprises a semi-rigid stainless steel plate, approximately 0.5 mm thick. However, due to the difficulty of bonding the stainless steel plate to the safety boot or safety shoe, the plate is usually incorporated into an insole assembly or a midsole assembly. Since the steel plate in such assemblies must be smaller than the insole of the shoe, the conventional puncture-resistant insole does not provide full protection for the underside of the foot. In addition, as the steel plate extends over a large area of the entire insole/midsole assembly, safety footwear fabricated with steel plates are excessively heavy and insufficiently flexible to allow the wearer to walk comfortably.
The conventional safety toe is typically fabricated from hardened steel. Although such safety toes provide adequate impact protection for the toes, they are excessively heavy and suffer from the disadvantage that they are perceived to contribute to cold feet. Furthermore, as steel is difficult to bond to, it has been difficult to secure the safety toe to the puncture-resistant insole in a manner which provides seamless protection for the toes and the underside of the foot.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,583 to Aleven teaches a safety insole which attempts to overcome some of these deficiencies. Aleven teaches a safety insole comprising a high impact-resistant plastic injection layer injection molded between an upper liner and lower insole board. Prior to injection molding, a stainless steel plate is inserted between the liner and the insole board at the forepart of the insole. The impact-resistant plastic layer is then injected molded between the liner and the insole board. The plastic layer overlaps the top and bottom faces of the plate and is anchored to the plastic layer through locking holes located at the rear margin of the plate.
The protective insole taught by Aleven is light in weight since a substantial portion of the steel plate in the conventional protective insole is replaced with lightweight plastic. However, numerous deficiencies are inherent in the Aleven insole. First, as the plastic only bonds with the rear margin of the stainless steel plate, the resulting flex zone may be too narrow to allow the wearer to walk comfortably. Second, as flexing is localized over a very narrow zone, at the region of greatest flexure, the bond between the plastic and the steel plate may separate prematurely, thereby exposing the bottom of the foot to the possibility of injury from sharp objects. Finally, Aleven teaches nothing about providing seamless protection for the toes and the underside of the foot.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a comfortable protective insert which is lightweight and durable, and which offers seamless protection for the toes and the underside of the foot.

Puncture-resistant and impact-resistant safety shoe insert


An application thread executes concurrently with a garbage collection (GC) thread traversing a call stack of the application thread. Frames of the call stack that have been processed by the GC thread assume a global state associated with the GC thread. The application thread may attempt to return to a target frame that has not yet assumed the global state. The application thread hits a frame barrier, preventing return to the target frame. The application thread determines a frame state of the target frame. The application thread selects appropriate operations for bringing the target frame to the global state based on the frame state. The selected operations are performed to bring the target frame to the global state. The application thread returns to the target frame.

A compiler converts source code, which is written according to a specification directed to the convenience of the programmer, to machine code (also referred to as "native code" or "object code"). Machine code is executable directly by a physical machine environment. Additionally or alternatively, a compiler converts source code to an intermediate representation (also referred to as "virtual machine code/instructions"), such as bytecode, which is executable by a virtual machine that is capable of running on top of a variety of physical machine environments. The virtual machine instructions are executable by the virtual machine in a more direct and efficient manner than the source code. Converting source code to virtual machine instructions includes mapping source code functionality, according to the specification, to virtual machine functionality, which utilizes underlying resources (such as data structures) of the virtual machine. Often, functionality that is presented in simple terms via source code by the programmer is converted into more complex steps that map more directly to the instruction set supported by the underlying hardware on which the virtual machine resides.
A virtual machine executes an application and/or program by executing an intermediate representation of the source code, such as bytecode. An interpreter of the virtual machine converts the intermediate representation into machine code. As the application is executed, certain memory (also referred to as "heap memory") is allocated for objects created by the program. A garbage collection system may be used to automatically reclaim memory locations occupied by objects that are no longer being used by the application. Garbage collection systems free the programmer from having to explicitly specify which objects to deallocate. However, applications often need to pause while waiting for garbage collection operations to complete. One way to reduce these pause times is to use a garbage collector that supports concurrent garbage collection operations in at least some phases of a garbage collection cycle. Applications need only pause during non-concurrent garbage collection operations but may run concurrently (including continuing to allocate new objects if necessary) during concurrent garbage collection operations.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.

Implementing state-based frame barriers to process colorless roots during concurrent execution


Imaging systems may be provided with image sensors for capturing images. An image sensor may include storage and processing circuitry having a conformal image buffer to be used in performing various types of image transformations on captured input images. The storage and processing circuitry may perform the image transformations, in part, by storing a portion of a captured input image in the conformal image buffer. A conformal image buffer may include a buffer for storing input image pixel values specific to various types of image transformations and memory for storing a pixel buffer lookup table. The pixel buffer lookup table may be used by the storage and processing circuitry to determine which input image pixel values should be stored in the conformal image buffer for each type of image transformation and to provide random read access to the stored input image pixel values in the conformal image buffer.

This relates generally to imaging systems, and more particularly, to imaging systems with conformal image buffers.
Electronic devices such as cellular telephones, cameras, and computers often include imaging systems that include digital image sensors for capturing images. Image sensors may be formed having a two-dimensional array of image pixels that convert incident photons (light) into electrical signals. Electronic devices often include displays for displaying captured image data.
In some devices, the imaging system may include a lens that provides a distorted image of a scene to the image sensor. For example, an imaging system with a wide angle lens may provide image of the scene that is warped near the edges of the imaging system's field-of-view. A user of this type of device may desire to display a de-warped version of the distorted image on the display.
In a conventional imaging system, each captured image is stored in an image buffer. Selected portions of the image data are then read from the image buffer when constructing a de-warped output image for display. Other portions of the stored image data are often not used in the output image. Providing sufficient storage for storing an entire input image can therefore be inefficient in compact imaging systems.
It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide improved imaging systems.

Imaging systems with conformal image buffers

Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC


An apparatus and method is provided for protecting data in a non-volatile memory by using an encryption and decryption that encrypts and decrypts the address and the data stored in the non-volatile memory using a code read only memory that stores encryption and decryption keys that are addressed by a related central processing unit at the same time data is being written or read from the non-volatile memory by the central processing unit.

The present invention relates to a circuit arrangement for electronic data processing                having at least one non-volatile memory module for storing data to be protected against unauthorized access by means of en-/decryption;        having at least one memory module interface logic circuit assigned to the memory module        for addressing the memory module,        for writing the data to the memory module and        for reading the data from the memory module;        having at least one code Read Only Memory (ROM) module for storing at lease one ROM code; and        having at least one code ROM module interface logic circuit assigned to the code ROM module        for addressing the code ROM module and        for reading the ROM code from the code ROM module.
The present invention further relates to a method of en-/decrypting data to be protected against unauthorized access in at least one non-volatile memory module.

Circuit arrangement with non-volatile memory module and method of en-/decrypting data in the non-volatile memory module


A zig-zag folding apparatus includes a slitter blade which forms one or more longitudinally extending slits completely through a comparatively wide web of paper thus forming two or more individual, narrower sections of paper. A spreader device, located downstream from the slitter blade, is effective to produce a longitudinally extending gap or space between the individual paper sections where the slits were formed, and these separated paper sections are each transferred to an individual folding mechanism to form individual stacks of zig-zag folded sheets.

High speed printing machines have been developed in recent years for printing data on computer paper, business forms and the like. The paper supplied to such printers is provided in webs of indeterminate length formed with longitudinally spaced, transversely oriented perforations. The paper is fed at high speeds from the web to the printer which prints the desired information on the individual sheets formed between adjacent perforations, and then discharges the printed sheets for further handling. In order to convert the continuous length of paper from the printer into a form which can be handled and shipped, the paper must be folded along its perforations as it is discharged from the printer.
One type of folding apparatus intended for use with high speed printers is a spiral zig-zag folder. Spiral zig-zag folders include a series of rollers which receive the paper from the printer and guide it to a reciprocating swing chute mechanism. The swing chute is driven forwardly and rearwardly relative to the frame of the folder through a distance or throw which is proportional to the distance between the longitudinally spaced transverse perforations in the paper. At both the forward and rearward limit of the throw of the swing chute, a set of beaters or knock-down fingers engages the paper in the area of its perforations and forces it into contact with one or more rotating spirals. The spirals resemble a screw having threads which are spaced progressively closer to one another from top to bottom. The paper is forced by the knock-down fingers into the top portion of the spirals, where the threads are spaced furthest apart, and as the spirals rotate the paper is transferred to progressively narrower threads thus forming a fold or crease along a perforation between adjacent, individual sheets of the paper. The sheets are then discharged from the spirals forming a zig-zag folded stack.
In addition to operating at high speeds, present day printers are also capable of accommodating different webs of paper each having a different spacing between the transverse perforations, or a different width. While the majority of business forms and computer paper are 81/2 inches in width, it is recognized that some forms must be narrower or wider depending upon the requirements of a particular customer. Additionally, it may be much more efficient to feed a web of wider paper through the printer, and then cut it in half or thirds prior to folding, instead of sending narrower webs of paper through the printer, one after the other, in order to obtain the desired quantity of business forms, computer sheets or the like.
Prior methods and apparatus of slitting and then stacking relatively wide webs of paper have a number of deficiencies. Such apparatus generally include a slitter mechanism located immediately downstream from the printer which forms one or more longitudinal slits extending partially through the paper web. The comparatively wide paper web is partially slit in half or in thirds, for example, thus forming two or more separable, longitudinally extending sections of paper. The partially slit paper web is then transferred to a folding apparatus of the type described above, e.g. including knock-down fingers and spirals, which zig-zag folds the paper into a single stack of individual sheets. Because the web of paper is only partially cut or slit longitudinally by the slitter, the operator must manually separate the single folded stack of individual sheets into two or more separate stacks, usually by moving his or her hand along each partially formed slit between the longitudinally extending sections of paper. This is not only a physically difficult hand operation which can injure the operator, but it also can produce ragged edges along the sides of each stacked section of paper where a slit is formed.
The reason prior art apparatus of the type described above do not completely cut or slit the wide paper web upstream from the folder is that difficulties have been encountered in handling, i.e. transferring and folding, two or more completely separated, relatively narrow sections of paper formed from the wider paper web. It has proven difficult to properly support and convey two or more separated sections of relatively narrow paper from the slitter to knock-down fingers and spirals, and such individual, narrow sections of paper tend to interfere with one another in the course of being folded. As a result, and as noted above, prior art methods and apparatus form only a partial slit in the wide web of paper so that the individual, longitudinally extending sections are not separated from one another in the course of being transferred from the slitter to the folding devices and/or during the folding operation itself. Although this facilitates the folding operation, the further step of separating the partially slit stacks from one another after folding remains a problem.

Method of and apparatus for cutting a web and folding the resulting ribbons


A transmit-only Bluetooth-compatible apparatus is described comprising: a protocol stack compatible with the Bluetooth protocol standard, the protocol stack including selected portions of the Bluetooth protocol used only for transmitting data; and a transceiver communicatively coupled to the protocol stack and configured to physically transmit the data.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to voice and data communication systems, and more particularly to wireless transmission protocols.
2. Description of the Related Art
Bluetooth is a short-range radio standard intended to replace the cables connecting portable and fixed electronic devices. The standard, which operates in the unlicensed Industrial-Scientific-Medical ("ISM") band at 2.4 GHz, focuses on robustness, low complexity, low power, and low cost. A frequency-agile or frequency "hop" protocol is applied to provide security and limit interference, and a shaped, binary FM modulation is used to minimize transceiver complexity. A symbol rate of 1 Ms/s, is maintained with a slotted channel having a nominal slot length of 0.625 msec.
For full duplex transmission, a Time-Division Duplex ("TDD") scheme is implemented. Under a TDD scheme the same channel is broken into time slots, with specified time slots used for transmitting and others for receiving. Information is exchanged through data packets which typically cover a single slot, but which may be extended to cover up to five slots, depending on the application. Additional features of the Bluetooth standard are described in Jaap Haartsen, Bluetooth—The Universal Radio Interface for ad hoc, Wireless Connectivity, ERICSSON REVIEW No. 3, (1998).
Referring to FIG. 1, the "Bluetooth" specification is comprised of several different protocol layers including a radio frequency ("RF") layer 160, a baseband layer ("BB") 150, a link control layer ("LC") 140, a link manager layer ("LM") 130, a logical link control and adaptation protocol layer ("L2CAP"), and a serial line emulation layer ("RFCOM"). The functionality of each of these layers (as well as additional Bluetooth protocol layers) is described in detail in Bluetooth Protocol Architecture, Version 1.0 (Aug. 25, 1999) ("Bluetooth Protocol Architecture"), which can be found at "http://www.bluetooth.com."
Because Bluetooth is defined as a bidirectional protocol, devices are typically required to have both a receiver and a transmitter in order to comply with the Bluetooth standard (i.e., the Bluetooth protocol assumes bi-directional signaling for all devices in a Bluetooth network, referred to as a "piconet"). However, a number of potential Bluetooth devices (e.g., keyboards, mice, microphones, speakers, ear pieces, . . . , etc) are not bidirectional in nature. The applications these devices support exist only as data sources or as data sinks. For example, wireless input devices such as a wireless keyboards are typically only required to transmit data. Similarly, wireless output devices such as wireless audio ear pieces or wireless video monitors are typically only required to receive data. Accordingly, from an application standpoint, these devices only require unidirectional communication.
What is needed is a system and method for providing unidirectional communication between wireless devices when bidirectional communication is unnecessary. What is also needed is a system and method for synchronizing data transmission between wireless devices when unidirectional communication is implemented. What is also needed is a system and method which will work seamlessly with the Bluetooth protocol.

Transmit-only and receive-only Bluetooth apparatus and method

Abstract: Also described is a receive-only Bluetooth-compatible apparatus comprising: a protocol stack compatible with the Bluetooth protocol standard, the protocol stack including selected portions of the Bluetooth protocol used only for receiving data; and a transceiver communicatively coupled to the protocol stack and configured to physically receive the data.

Abstract: Also described is a method comprising: generating a transmit-only Bluetooth protocol stack by removing elements of a standard Bluetooth protocol stack related to receiving data; and configuring the transmit-only Bluetooth protocol stack in a transmit-only wireless device for transmitting data.


A method for forming a stabilized metal silicide film, e.g., contact (source/drain or gate), that does not substantially agglomerate during subsequent thermal treatments, is provided. In the present invention, ions that are capable of attaching to defects within the Si-containing layer are implanted into the Si-containing layer prior to formation of metal silicide. The implanted ions stabilize the film, because the implants were found to substantially prevent agglomeration or at least delay agglomeration to much higher temperatures than in cases in which no implants were used.

Current CMOS technology uses silicides as contacts to the source/drain (S/D) regions of the devices that are fabricated upon a Si-containing substrate. Examples of silicides with low resistivity and contact resistance that are currently being used as S/D contacts are the C54 phase of TiSi2, CoSi2, and NiSi. All three of these silicides are integrated using a self-aligned silicide process (i.e., a salicide process). This process consists of a blanket deposition of the metal (Ti, Co, or Ni) with a cap layer (such as TiN, Ti or W), annealing at a first lower temperature to form a first silicide phase (i.e., the C49 phase of TiSi, CoSi, or NiSi), selectively wet etching the cap layer and unreacted metal that is not in contact with silicon, and annealing at a second higher temperature to form the low resistance metal silicide phase (the C54 phase of TiSi2 or CoSi2). For the low resistance NiSi, the second anneal is typically not needed.
The advantage of these particular silicides is that they all may be implemented with the self-aligned process avoiding additional lithographic steps. One advantage of Ni silicides is that Ni monosilicide contacts are thinner than conventional Ti or Co silicide contacts. A disadvantage of Ni silicide contacts is that the higher resistivity nickel disilicide phase is produced during high temperature processing steps, rather than the preferred lower resistivity nickel monosilicide, NiSi, phase. The formation of the nickel disilicide phase is nucleation controlled. A disadvantage of forming nickel disilicides is that it consumes twice the amount of Si than the preferred NiSi phase. Moreover, nickel disilicides produce a rougher silicide/Si wafer interface and also have a higher sheet resistivity than the preferred NiSi.
Another disadvantage of NiSi contacts is that they tend to agglomerate readily at standard CMOS processing temperatures. The term "agglomerate" is used herein to denote that a very thin film of NiSi tends to gather into a mass or cluster at temperatures on the order of about 400° C. or higher. The agglomeration problem is not limited to Ni silicides. It typically occurs for various thin films other than NiSi and is worst for low melting point materials. Pt silicide is one example of another silicide that tends to agglomerate readily.
Preventing agglomeration is a key to getting the NiSi process to yield adequately. Attempts have been made in the prior art to develop methods for preventing the agglomeration of NiSi. Most of these prior art approaches use a binary or ternary Ni alloy. The alloy may be contained within the metal layer itself, or it can be formed atop the metal layer such that during annealing diffusion and intermixing of alloy, metal and Si occurs. These alloys, however, require much addition work to define the alloy concentrations and to develop adequate post silicide formation etches.
In addition to the use of Ni alloys, there have been some fairly recent publications that have shown that BF2 implants to form pFET regions can enhance NiSi formation compared with the nFET regions in which BF2 was not implanted. See, for example, A. S. Wong, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 81, 5138(2002); S. K. Donthu, et al., Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. 716, 465 (2002); and C. Lavoie, et al., Microelectronic Engineering 70 (2003) 144–157. While these three publications show an improvement in the NiSi in BF2 implanted regions they do not disclose the purposeful implantation of F or other like ions into both n and p regions to stabilize NiSi formation and prevent agglomeration of NiSi. Implantation of BF2 requires activation anneal for the B. Moreover, BF2 implantation does not fix the agglomeration problem on nFETs.
In view of the above, there is a need for providing a new and improved method to fabricate metal silicide films, e.g., NiSi films, that show little or no agglomeration upon further heat treatments.

Stabilization of Ni monosilicide thin films in CMOS devices using implantation of ions before silicidation

International Business Machines Corporation


Systems, methods, and software are disclosed herein for triaging test results of a failed code validation. Test results are received indicative of a failed code validation performed in a client device. Failure data is generated from the test results indicating one or more failure modes which occurred during the failed code validation. A follow-up action associated with each of the one or more failure modes is then determined by comparing each of the one or more failure modes to previously identified failure modes. Instructions are communicated to the client device based on the determined follow-up action associated with each of the one or more failure modes.

Modern electronic devices such as computers, tablets, mobile phones, wearable devices and the like have become a common part of modern life. Many users of electronic devices routinely utilize various types of software applications for business and personal activities. Examples of software applications can include word processors, spreadsheet applications, e-mail clients, notetaking software, presentation applications, games, computational software, and others. These software applications can also be used to perform calculations, produce charts, organize data, receive and send e-mails, communicate in real-time with others, and the like. The software applications can range from simple software to very complex software.
The development of complex software is often performed by teams of software developers. Tests are typically run against a controlled environment when software code has been added or modified. These tests provide feedback on whether the output of the code is as expected and repeatable. If the test passes, the test indicates that there are no issues with the code. If the test passes, the test indicates that the code contains bugs.
In many cases, tests may fail for undetermined reasons which may not be related to the code configuration, such as a delayed virtual machine, poor network connection, a timeout, a security validation failure, etc. These nondeterministic tests (also referred to as flaky tests) generally require extensive developer resources to investigate and triage the failures which have occurred during the test. Furthermore, a test failure generally includes multiple different failure modes which require different responses. For example, one failure mode might be the result of a poor network connection which merely requires a retry of the test. However, another failure mode might be the result of a hard failure which should never be retried.
Prior solutions to this problem include maintaining basic data on whether a test has a basic nondeterministic status, i.e., flaky status. However, this solution does not provide any feedback on what the different failure modes were. Each of these failure modes may have a root cause. However, the test is not determined to be nondeterministic until developers manually parse the code and determine that there were no issues with the code when the test failed. Unfortunately, prior solutions require many resources to merely determine that the test was nondeterministic without any additional information on what the various failure modes were, let alone how to respond to the various failure modes.
Furthermore, the prior solutions treated all test cases having the same name identically. This can be highly inefficient when running testcases with the same name in various environment. For example, a testcase run on an Operating System (OS) generally has different failure modes than a testcase with the same name run on a Central Processing Unit (CPU) architecture. Unfortunately, prior solutions did not treat these failure modes as distinct for testcases having the same name but run in different environments. This limits an ability of the application to enhance a developer's experience when investigating and responding to failed code tests.

Test result triage for a failed code validation


Balanced unleaded fuel compositions exhibiting: a pump octane rating of greater than 93; a T50 (maximum) of 104.4° C. (220° F.) and a T90 (maximum) of 165.6° C. (330° F.), as required under the CARB Phase 3 model; and, producing a higher average torque and/or higher average power output than commercially available fuels stated to meet the CARB Phase 3 model.

It is advantageous for unleaded fuel compositions to meet the CARB Phase 3 model. 13 CCR §§2657-2273 (last updated January, 2010) esp. 13 CCR §2265. Among other things, the CARB Phase 3 model specifies a temperature at which 50 vol. % of the unleaded fuel composition vaporizes, a "T50 (maximum)", of 104.4° C. (220° F.), and a temperature at which 90 vol. % of the unleaded fuel composition vaporizes, a "T90 (maximum)" of 165.6° C. (330° F.) (both measured using ASTM D-86-10a (1999)).
It is also advantageous for the pump octane rating of the fuel to be high enough to prevent knocking. Gasolines sold at service stations typically have a pump octane rating of from about 87 to about 93. Fuels exhibiting such pump octane numbers are satisfactory for most automotive engines. For high performance engines, and for racing engines in particular, fuels having even higher pump octane ratings are needed.
The production of fuels of progressively higher pump octane ratings is progressively more difficult to achieve. In particular, fuels exhibiting a pump octane rating at or above 100 are highly desired and the most difficult to produce. This is particularly true for unleaded fuels.
Unfortunately, commercially available unleaded fuels that meet the CARB Phase 3 model and exhibit a pump octane rating of 93 or more tend to exhibit lower average torque output values and lower average power output values than may be desirable for high performance fuels.
A need exists for high octane unleaded fuel compositions that meet the CARB Phase 3 model and that have higher average torque outputs and/or higher average power outputs.


A method of testing a video against an aggregate query includes automatically receiving an aggregate query defining participant(s) and condition(s) on the participant(s). Candidate object(s) are detected in the frames of the video. A first lattice is constructed for each participant, the first-lattice nodes corresponding to the candidate object(s). A second lattice is constructed for each condition. An aggregate lattice is constructed using the respective first lattice(s) and the respective second lattice(s). Each aggregate-lattice node includes a scoring factor combining a first-lattice node factor and a second-lattice node factor. respective aggregate score(s) are determined of one or more path(s) through the aggregate lattice, each path including a respective plurality of the nodes in the aggregate lattice, to determine whether the video corresponds to the aggregate query. A method of providing a description of a video is also described and includes generating a candidate description with participant(s) and condition(s) selected from a linguistic model; constructing component lattices for the participant(s) or condition(s), producing an aggregate lattice having nodes combining component-lattice factors, and determining a score for the video with respect to the candidate description by determining an aggregate score for a path through the aggregate lattice. If the aggregate score does not satisfy a termination condition, participant(s) or condition(s) from the linguistic model are added to the condition, and the process is repeated. A method of testing a video against an aggregate query by mathematically optimizing a unified cost function is also described.

People learn language through exposure to a rich perceptual context. Language is grounded by mapping words, phrases, and sentences to meaning representations referring to the world.
It has been shown that even with referential uncertainty and noise, a system based on cross-situational learning can robustly acquire a lexicon, mapping words to word-level meanings from sentences paired with sentence-level meanings. However, it did so only for symbolic representations of word- and sentence-level meanings that were not perceptually grounded. An ideal system would not require detailed word-level labelings to acquire word meanings from video but rather could learn language in a largely unsupervised fashion, just as a child does, from video paired with sentences.
There has been research on grounded language learning. It has been shown to pair training sentences with vectors of real-valued features extracted from synthesized images which depict 2D blocks-world scenes, to learn a specific set of features for adjectives, nouns, and adjuncts.
It has been shown to pair training images containing multiple objects with spoken name candidates for the objects to find the correspondence between lexical items and visual features.
It has been shown to pair narrated sentences with symbolic representations of their meanings, automatically extracted from video, to learn object names, spatial-relation terms, and event names as a mapping from the grammatical structure of a sentence to the semantic structure of the associated meaning representation.
It has been described to learn the language of sportscasting by determining the mapping between game commentaries and the meaning representations output by a rule-based simulation of the game.
It has been presented that Montague-grammar representations of word meanings can be learned together with a combinatory categorial grammar (CCG) from child-directed sentences paired with first-order formulas that represent their meaning.
Although most of these methods succeed in learning word meanings from sentential descriptions they do so only for symbolic or simple visual input (often synthesized); they fail to bridge the gap between language and computer vision, i.e., they do not attempt to extract meaning representations from complex visual scenes. On the other hand, there has been research on training object and event models from large corpora of complex images and video in the computer-vision community. However, most such work requires training data that labels individual concepts with individual words (i.e., objects delineated via bounding boxes in images as nouns and events that occur in short video clips as verbs).
Reference is made to: U.S. Pat. No. 5,835,667 to Wactlar et al., issued Nov. 10, 1998; U.S. Pat. No. 6,445,834 to Rising, III, issued Sep. 3, 2002; U.S. Pat. No. 6,845,485 to Shastri et al., issued Jan. 18, 2005; U.S. Pat. No. 8,489,987 to Erol et al., issued Jul. 16, 2013; US2007/0209025 by Jing et al., published Sep. 6, 2007; and US2009/0254515 by Terheggen et al., published Oct. 8, 2009, the disclosure of each of which is incorporated herein by reference. Reference is also made to "Improving Video Activity Recognition using Object Recognition and Text Mining" by Tanvi S. Motwani and Raymond J. Mooney, in the Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI-2012), August 2012.
The attached drawings are for purposes of illustration and are not necessarily to scale.


The present invention provides an optical pick-up device capable of suppressing the inclination of a lens actuator in the jitter direction caused by the variation of the ambient temperature thereof to stably record or reproduce information to or from an optical disk. In the optical pick-up device, a supporting member 106 for fixing one end of each of suspension members 105 is arranged on a rear side of a suspension holder 2 fixed to a yoke base 103, and an object lens 102 is displaced by servo-controlling a lens holder 101 for holding the other ends of the suspension members in an electromagnetic driving manner to adjust the irradiation position of a beam spot on an optical disk. The suspension holder 2 is formed of a plurality of members having different coefficients of linear expansion, and the members having a higher coefficient of linear expansion are arranged on the rear side of the suspension holder 2. Therefore, the supporting member 106 is displaced by the linear expansion of the members having a higher coefficient of linear expansion according to the variation of temperature, thereby suppressing inclination of a lens actuator L.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical pick-up device for recording or reproducing information to or from an optical disk that is provided in an optical disk device for driving optical discs (for example, CD-R/RW and DVD-R/-RW/RAM/+R/+RW) as recording media for recording a large amount of information by information processing apparatuses, such as various computer systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
An optical pick-up device in an optical disk device for driving optical disks is constructed by a combination of various components of an optical system to form a beam spot on a recording surface of an optical disk. FIG. 6 is a view schematically illustrating the general structure of a conventional optical pick-up device. In FIG. 6, reference character A denotes an actuator assembly of the optical pick-up device, reference character B denotes a semiconductor laser hologram unit for DVD, and reference character C denotes a semiconductor laser hologram unit for CD. An optical beam irradiated from the semiconductor laser hologram unit B or the semiconductor laser hologram unit C follows the light path to an object lens 102 of an actuator assembly A via optical components included in a mirror system and a lens system and then forms a beam spot on a recording surface of an optical disk.
As shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, in the actuator assembly A, one side ends of six suspension members 105 are fixed to both longitudinal end portions of a lens holder 101 for holding the object lens 102 at top, middle, and bottom positions in pairs, and the other side ends of the suspension members 105 are fixed to a supporting member 106 arranged on the rear side of a suspension holder 104 fixed to a yoke base 103. In this way, since the lens holder 101 is elastically supported by the suspension members 105 in a cantilever manner, the lens holder 101 can rock vertically and horizontally. In addition, the supporting member 106 is generally composed of a printed circuit board (PCB) having low rigidity and has a floating structure for suppressing, for example, secondary resonance generated when the lens holder is driven in the focus direction and the tracking direction. The PCB, serving as the supporting member 106, is connected to a control circuit (not shown) through a flexible printed circuit (FPC) 107 and a joining terminal 108.
A lens actuator L is constructed such that the lens holder 101 is provided with a focus driving coil 109 and a tracking driving coil 110, and the entire of the lens holder 101 is servo-controlled in the focus direction (the Y-axial direction indicated by an arrow) and the tracking direction (the X-axial direction indicated an arrow) by an electromagnetic driving manner using the interaction between the coils 109 and 110 and the magnetic field of permanent magnets 111a, 111b, 112a, and 112b fixed to the yoke base 103. In addition, the focus driving coil 109 is divided into two parts so as to additionally function as a driving coil for tilt servo control for adjusting the inclination of the lens holder 101 in the radial direction. In this case, the inclination of the lens holder 101 in the radial direction is adjusted by controlling the balance of a driving current to be supplied to the focus driving coils 109a and 109b. The technique of suppressing the inclination of the lens holder by adjusting the current passing through two focus driving coils is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-312327 (Patent Document 1).
The ends of the focus driving coil 109 and the tracking driving coil 110 are electrically connected to the six suspension members 105, respectively, and the other ends of the six suspension members 105 are held by a gel-type buffering material 113 filled in the suspension holder 104. In addition, the other ends thereof are soldered on a circuit board of the supporting member 106. Further, the six suspension members 105 are connected to both longitudinal end portions of the lens holder 101 at top, middle, and bottom positions in three pairs. For example, two top suspension members are connected to the focus driving coil 109a, two middle suspension members are connected to the focus driving coil 109b, and two bottom suspension members are connected to the tracking driving coil 110. In addition, a driving current is supplied through the suspension members 105 connected to the respective driving coils, based on the control information obtained from an optical disk.
As shown in FIG. 10, in the actuator assembly A having the above-mentioned cantilever supporting structure by the suspension members 105, the lens holder 101 is maintained in a horizontal state at normal temperature by the gel-type buffering material 113 filled in the suspension holder 104 and the supporting members 106. As a result, the beam spot of an optical beam concentrated on a recording surface 114a of an optical disk 114 is formed in an optimum circular shape.
In an optical disk device for recording information on an optical disk, the output level of an optical beam irradiated from the semiconductor laser hologram unit B or the semiconductor laser hologram unit C is generally composed of three kinds of levels, that is, a reproduction level, a removal level, and a recording level, and the respective output levels of the optical beam satisfy the following relationship: reproduction level<removal level<recording level.
When reproducing the information recorded on the optical disk 114, an optical beam of the reproduction level is irradiated from the semiconductor laser hologram unit B or the semiconductor laser hologram unit C and is then concentrated on the recording surface 114a of the optical disk. Since the optical beam of the reproduction level has the lowest output level, the optical beam does not much affect the ambient temperature of the actuator assembly A. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 10, the horizontal state of the lens holder 101 is maintained, and thus operating conditions thereof are stabilized.
However, when recording information on the optical disk 114, since an optical beam of the recording level having the highest output level is irradiated from the semiconductor laser hologram unit B or the semiconductor laser hologram unit C and is then concentrated on the recording surface 114a of the optical disk, the heat value of the semiconductor laser hologram unit B or the semiconductor laser hologram unit C increases, and the amount of heat generated from an LSI of an optical disk drive increases, which results in a burst increase in the ambient temperature of the actuator assembly A. The ambient temperature of the actuator assembly A when information is recorded on the optical disk 114 may rise up to ° Centigrade (140° Fahrenheit). When such a condition is maintained, the elasticity of the supporting member 106 having the floating structure and the holding force of the gel-type buffering material 113 are lowered by heat. Therefore, a floating portion of the supporting member 106 is bent by the weight of the lens holder 101 as shown in FIG. 9, which causes the lens actuator L to be inclined in the direction of gravitation (the jitter direction) as shown in FIG. 11. When the lens actuator L is inclined in the jitter direction, the beam spot of an optical beam concentrated on the recording surface 114a of the optical disk 114 has an elliptic shape, so that coma aberration occurs. As a result, the recording efficiency or reproducing efficiency of information deteriorates. Particularly, in an optical disk device for recording information DVD-type optical disks having high recording density, it is probable that the recording or reproduction of information will not be performed by the slight inclination of the lens actuator L caused by the variation of temperature.
Further, a method of controlling the inclination of the lens actuator in the jitter direction using the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 can be considered. However, in this method, additional driving coils and magnets for controlling the inclination of the lens actuator in the jitter direction are needed, and these driving coils and magnets are incorporated into the optical disk device as shown in FIG. 7. That is, a separate control system for controlling the inclination in the jitter direction must be constructed, which results in an increase in the size of the optical pick-up device and a complexity of structure thereof.