Disclosed are a negative C-type compensation film and a method of preparing the same. The negative C-type compensation film includes a) a base layer, and b) a polymer layer comprising polyarylate prepared by a method comprising the step of copolymerizing divalent phenols, divalent aromatic carboxylic acid halides, and allyl bisphenol derivatives, the base layer and the polymer layer being sequentially layered. The compensation film is capable of being used for the negative C-type compensation film without a stretching process, significantly reduces the thickness of the compensation film, and has significantly improved interlayer adhesion force in a multilayer structure.

Polyarylate is typically an aromatic polyester composed of bisphenol A that is aromatic alcohol, terephthalate and isophthalate that is aromatic acid halides. The conventional polyarylate films have high degree of optical transmission, and are excellent in thermal and mechanical properties. However, the conventional polyarylate films are disadvantageous in that the melting temperature and viscosity is high, and the positive birefringence occurs in the surface direction during processing. As a result, in order to use polyarylates as optical films, many studies have been carried out on the method of controlling the birefringence in the surface direction.
Meanwhile, a display device using liquid crystal is disadvantageous in that a viewing angle is narrow due to intrinsic optical characteristics of a liquid crystal molecule and a polarizer. Particularly, in accordance with the recent trend toward enlargement of a liquid crystal display, the use of compensation films is required to assure a wide viewing angle. To enlarge a narrow viewing angle in the liquid crystal display, a material having a characteristic of delaying a phase difference of light is used. A delaying direction of the phase difference of light is classified into a surface direction and a thickness direction of the film. A material having birefringences to the directions is used in order to compensate the viewing angle. The phase difference of the compensation film is defined by the following equation (1):
                              R          th                =                              (                                          n                z                            -                                                                    n                    x                                    +                                      n                    y                                                  2                                      )                    ×          d                                    (        1        )
in the equation (1), Rth is a phase difference in thickness direction, nx and ny are refractive indexes of the film in surface direction, nz is a refractive index of the film in thickness direction, and d is a thickness of the film. If there is no birefringence of the film in surface direction (nx=ny), when nx is more than nz, Rth has a negative value and, when nx is smaller than nz, Rth has a positive value.
Polymer chains must be oriented perpendicularly to the film surface or in a surface direction so that the polymer film has birefringence. In the case of when it is difficult to completely satisfy the above-mentioned condition, at least specific portion of the polymer chains must be oriented. The degree of the orientation of the polymer chains depends on components constituting the polymer, the film thickness, a drying condition of a solvent, etc. For example, if the film thickness is reduced to a molecular level, since the orientation of the polymer is maximized on a surface of the film, it is possible to obtain very high birefringence. Since the liquid crystal molecules have the positive birefringence, the material having the negative birefringence must be used to compensate the positive birefringence. A representative polymer having the negative birefringence is polystyrene. Further, if the film is uniaxially or biaxially stretched, an optic axis is oriented in a surface direction of the film. Accordingly, it is possible to obtain some negative birefringence even if it is not sufficient.
Generally, it is known that the birefringence in surface direction is used to produce a A-type compensation film. The birefringence in surface direction is obtained by stretching the polymer film in the surface direction to orient the polymer chains in the surface direction. On the other hand, the birefringence in thickness direction that is used to produce a C-type compensation film is obtained by uniaxially or biaxially stretching a film that is subjected to extrusion or solution casting. For example, a phase difference film in thickness direction for assuring a wide viewing angle is prepared by uniaxially or biaxially stretching a cellulose- or polycarbonate-based polymer film or by applying the liquid crystal molecules on a polymer film base substrate. However, since the birefringence in thickness direction capable of being obtained using the stretching is very little and changes a refractive index in surface direction, it is difficult to control the phase difference with respect to all directions. Additionally, in the case of when the film is greatly stretched at low temperatures in order to obtain high birefringence, the thickness of the film is reduced. Accordingly, there are disadvantages in that it is difficult to obtain the desired phase difference and the birefringence is nonuniform.
Furthermore, in the case of when polyarylate is applied on a base substrate such as polycarbonate, adhesion force between the base substrate and polyarylate may be poor. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,100,367 and 6,174,966 describe a method of adding monomers, which are capable of providing an alkoxysilyl group, to polycarbonate or polyarylate during synthesis of polycarbonate or polyarylate so as to increase adhesion force to other base substrates. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,258,483 describes the use of polyarylates to which an epoxy group is added instead of an alkoxysilyl group.
Meanwhile, EP No. 1469328 discloses that a transparent optical film of polyimide is applied on a TAC (triacetyl cellulose) film to obtain uniform compensation and to remove irregularity causing rainbow-colored rays. JP-A-2001-194668 discloses a compensation film that is prepared by layering stretched polycarbonate films. However, the production requires a complicated layering process and also requires optic axes which are perpendicular to each other when two films are layered.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,043,413 discloses a method of preparing polyarylate having low birefringence in surface direction. In detail, in the above-mentioned US patent, polyarylate has low birefringence of 25.7×10−5 or less when the polyarylate is subjected to a solution casting process to produce a film, and then the film is stretched. However, the birefringence that is obtained using the stretching is the birefringence in surface direction, and is not useful for a C-type compensation film requiring the birefringence in thickness direction.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,303 discloses a method of uniaxially stretching a polyarylate film as a compensation film for a wide viewing angle and performing shrinkage in a direction perpendicular to the stretching direction so as to obtain the birefringence in thickness direction. A phase difference of liquid crystal is typically 100 to 400. In order to compensate the phase difference, it is necessary to assure a phase difference of 100 to 400 which has a value opposite to the former phase difference. However, the stretching is disadvantageous in that the film thickness is reduced and it is difficult to orient the polymers to great degree, thus there is a limit in assuring the desired phase difference.

Negative C-type compensation film and method of preparing the same


A method, computer program product, system (including a circuit card), and integrated circuit for initializing a buffer pool, such that the buffer pool includes a plurality of data buffers available for use during a plurality of I/O transfers. In response to the initiation of a first I/O transfer concerning a first data portion being transferred from a first data source to a first data target, the first data portion is written to a first portion of the plurality of data buffers. The first data portion is transferred to the first data target, and the first portion of the plurality of data buffers is released back to the buffer pool for use during one or more subsequent I/O transfers.

Upon initiating an I/O (i.e., input/output) transfer, a software application or a device driver may allocate memory resources for use during the transfer. An example of such an allocation is the generation of a scatter-gather list (i.e., SGL) that includes address-length (i.e., A/L) buffer pairs.
Unfortunately, the structure and usage of e.g., SGLs tend to be rigid, resulting in inefficient use of memory resources. For example, often the minimum memory resource allocation unit is an SGL segment, which typically defines a plurality of A/L buffer pairs. Therefore, for even small I/O transfers, an entire SGL segment may be utilized. Accordingly, for small I/O transfers that require less than all of the memory buffers for an SGL segment (or for I/O transfers that do not end on an SGL segment boundary), a considerable amount of unused buffer space may be wasted.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, it is intended that the claimed subject matter be viewed broadly, and be defined only as set forth in the accompanying claims

Dynamic memory buffer allocation method and system


An arrangement for and a method of automatically selecting substrate alignment marks on a substrate in a lithographic apparatus or overlay metrology targets in an overlay metrology apparatus. The apparatus has a processor and a memory connected to the processor. The memory stores locations of one or more sets of substrate alignment marks or overlay metrology targets available for selection and selection rules to select suitable substrate alignment marks or overlay metrology targets from this at least one set. The selection rules are based on experimental or theoretical knowledge about which substrate alignment mark or overlay metrology targets locations are optimal in dependence on one or more selection criteria.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to alignment systems and more particularly their uses in lithographic apparatus or overlay measurement apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A lithographic apparatus is a machine that applies a desired pattern onto a target portion of a substrate. Lithographic apparatus can be used, for example, in the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). In that circumstance, a patterning device, which is alternatively referred to as a mask or a reticle, may be used to generate a circuit pattern corresponding to an individual layer of the IC, and this pattern can be imaged onto a target portion (e.g., comprising part of, one or several dies) on a substrate (e.g., a silicon wafer) that has a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist). In general, a single substrate will contain a network of adjacent target portions that are successively exposed. Known lithographic apparatus include so-called steppers, in which each target portion is irradiated by exposing an entire pattern onto the target portion in one go, and so-called scanners, in which each target portion is irradiated by scanning the pattern through the projection beam in a given direction (the "scanning"-direction) while synchronously scanning the substrate parallel or anti-parallel to this direction.
In a manufacturing process using such a lithographic projection apparatus, in an imaging step, the pattern is imaged onto the substrate that is at least partially covered by a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist). Prior to this imaging step, the substrate may undergo various procedures, such as priming, resist coating and a soft bake. After exposure, the substrate may be subjected to other procedures, such as a post-exposure bake (PEB), development, a hard bake and measurement/inspection of the imaged features. This array of procedures is used as a basis to pattern an individual layer of a device, e.g., an IC. Such a patterned layer may then undergo various processes such as etching, ion-implantation (doping), metallization, oxidation, chemo-mechanical polishing, etc., all intended to finish off an individual layer. If several layers are required, then the whole procedure, or a variant thereof, will have to be repeated for each new layer. Eventually, an array of devices will be present on the substrate (wafer). These devices are then separated from one another by a technique such as dicing or sawing, whence the individual devices can be mounted on a carrier, connected to pins, etc. Further information regarding such processes can be obtained, for example, from the book "Microchip Fabrication: A Practical Guide to Semiconductor Processing," Third Edition, by Peter van Zant, McGraw Hill Publishing Co., 1997, ISBN 0-07-067250-4, incorporated herein by reference.
For the above mentioned manufacturing process and especially during the imaging step it is necessary to position the substrate and the mask on respective object tables with a high accuracy with regard to each other. For this purpose alignment marks are provided on the substrate and in the mask. An alignment system such as described for example in WO 98/39689 or U.S. Pat. No. 4,778,275 incorporated herein by reference, can be used to align a mark in the mask with respect to a corresponding mark on the substrate. If a mark on a substrate is not correctly aligned to the corresponding reference point in the mask this alignment error will cause an error in the super-positioning of two images exposed on successive layers on the substrate. This error in the super-positioning of two images is generally called an overlay error. If a large overlay error occurs, the substrate or a device finally cut out of the substrate may be rejected during a quality inspection. The overlay error is determined in an overlay measurement apparatus by measuring the shift of overlay metrology targets. One part of each target is printed in a first layer. Another part of each target is printed in a second layer or in an adjacent image in the first layer. The overlay error at a specific location of the substrate is equal to the shift between the two printed parts of the target.
One of the first steps that is accomplished when a new substrate is to be manufactured in a lithographic projection apparatus is that alignment marks are exposed on the first layer of resist on the substrate. These marks will be used for aligning the subsequent images to be exposed in subsequent layers of resist on the substrate. The deposition of additional layers and the processing necessary to finish off these subsequent layers may affect the alignment mark such that the alignment mark appears to be shifted in the plane of the substrate. This may cause overlay errors between layers on the substrate. One trend in the industry to reduce such overlay errors is to expose more alignment marks in higher resist layers on the substrate, that are aligned themselves with the alignment marks in the first resist layer. These alignment marks in higher resist layers are, then, used for alignment purposes in these higher resist layers and above.
In each resist layer there may be many such alignment marks, e.g., 100 or even more. Not all these alignment marks will be used since not all of them are, e.g., suitable to be used or using them all will take too much time without improving the accuracy of the measurement significantly. Therefore, two or more suitable alignment marks have to be selected from the set of marks in each resist layer. In the past, e.g., 2 mark pairs (a mark pair is a combination of an X mark and a Y mark located substantially close together, that can be used to determine both X and Y position) per resist layer were used for alignment purposes. Nowadays, the industry is moving to measuring more alignment marks on the substrate to get more accurate information about the actual position of the substrate on the wafer stage and about it's actual shape. In a dual stage machine, e.g., 16 mark pairs may be used without overall throughput impact. This information will be used during exposure to achieve best overlay to the layer in which the marks are exposed.
A still further trend in the industry is that alignment marks are used which are exposed in scribelines between product dies. These alignment marks are exposed with the product and the overlay metrology targets in one lithography step.
Consequence of these two trends is that alignment marks are present in a periodic X,Y pattern on the substrate at fixed positions with respect to a centre of all images. Operators or process engineers of the lithographic apparatus have the task to select a sub-set out off all these alignment marks present on the substrate, which sub-set meets certain predetermined criteria. However, these operators are confronted with several problems:
They need to have a method to select alignment marks exposed at the same location of a physical image on the substrate over multiple layers. This does not mean that they want to align on the same mark over these multiple layers. As explained above, nowadays, most operators expose a new mark after some process steps with a small offset in the scribeline close to a previous mark in a lower resist layer on which they have aligned.
They need to select a set of mark pairs (X-mark and Y-mark=1 pair) which will give them the best overlay out of all marks available on the substrate. Depending on an underlying wafer deformation model some mark distribution models are possible.
A special problem is Wafer Capture. In the phase of Wafer Capture, the rotation of the substrate is not well known and the X and Y mark (which are in different scribelines) which form a X-Y mark pair need to be as close as possible, while the mark pairs themselves should be apart as far as possible.
Moreover, a generic problem for operators is that they need to optimize a selected mark-layout for best overlay and also for maximum productivity. This means that the time needed to measure all marks need to be as short as possible in order to reduce loss of throughput. Thus, operators should optimize a selected alignment mark layout on the substrate and have to have all the knowledge to find the optimum set for 1) overlay, 2) productivity and 3) robustness (i.e., reliability).

Alignment system and method and device manufactured thereby


A receiver of a communication system includes means for receiving repetition-coded data. The receiver also includes means for generating symbol information from the received repetition-coded data. The receiver also includes means for storing symbol information over a predetermined period and means for making tentative symbol decisions by combining the stored symbol information.

As partly discussed in the authoritative book Holma, Toskala: WCDMA for UMTS, Radio Access for Third Generation Mobile Communications, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2000, CDMA systems are interference-limited from both the receiver performance and system capacity points of view. The interference-limited nature of CDMA systems results from the receiver design: reception is typically based on a spreading code matched filter (MF) or a correlator. Since the received spreading codes are usually not completely orthogonal, multiple access interference (MAI) is present in the receiver.
Sub-optimal multi-user receivers have been developed for fighting multiple access interference. Multi-user receivers can be categorised in several ways: one is to classify the receivers to two main classes: linear equaliser and subtractive interference cancellation (IC) receivers. Linear equalisers, for example zero-forcing (ZF), de-correlating detectors or minimum mean square error (MMSE) detectors, are linear filters suppressing multiple access interference. The principle of an IC receiver is that the multiple access interference component is estimated, and then subtracted from the received signal for making decisions more reliable. Multiple access interference cancellation can be carried out in parallel for all users by using parallel interference cancellation (PIC) receivers, or in a serial fashion, by using serial interference cancellation (SIC) receivers.
In PIC receivers, detection is based on using tentative data decisions; de-spread bits are used to improve the performance of reception. The quality of tentative decisions is essential, because if a wrong tentative decision is made, interference in a received signal increases instead of decreasing.
The problem is that the performance of this kind of receivers is not optimal if repetition coding is used in a transmitter because the error rate of de-spread bits increases due to a lower effective coding rate (ECR).
There are prior art methods for increasing the reliability of tentative decisions. In one method, the received information block is decoded and decoded bits are used in estimating interference. The problem is that the decoding process is time-consuming and therefore causes delay.
In another solution re-transmitted data-blocks are utilised in making tentative decisions (automatic repeat request (ARQ) and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)). Again, the problem is time delay: re-transmission is also a time-consuming process.


A drop-in barrel is provided that utilizes an extended locking recess and a spring clip retained within the locking recess to reduce the engagement tolerance between the slide and barrel of a recoil pistol, thereby achieving the performance necessary for competitive shooting.

Recoil operated pistols include a slide which receives a barrel. The barrel has locking recesses comprising semicircular grooves which are formed around its circumference and engage locking lugs within the slide. Typically, recoil operated pistols utilize "drop-in" barrel assemblies, which, for any specific model of pistol, are of uniform (standard) size. The tolerances provided between a standard drop-in barrel and slide are sufficient for many shooting applications. However, for more precise gun performance, such as that required for competitive shooting, more precise (i.e., lower) tolerances between the slide and barrel are necessary. Consequently, guns used in competition most often utilize fitted barrels--i.e., barrels which are machined and stoned by a gunsmith to achieve the proper low-tolerance fit within the slide. Fitting a barrel to a slide in this manner is a time-consuming and, thus, costly procedure.
To date, the industry has failed to afford a reliable and economical means of reducing the tolerances between a slide and barrel of a recoil operated pistol. It would be desirable to have a barrel which may be easily adapted to reduce the tolerances between a slide and barrel so as to be suitable for competitive shooting.

Drop-in barrel for recoil operated pistols


Temperature sensitive transcriptional bioswitches and related genetic circuits and in particular bandpass and/or multiplex genetic circuits, vectors, cells, compositions methods and systems are described.

Recent advances in synthetic biology are driving the development of genetically engineered cells for use in various applications wherein control of activation and deactivation one or more functions of the engineered cell is desired.
For example, a critical capability of cells engineered for use as therapeutic and diagnostic agents to treat human diseases, is the ability to control activation of the therapeutic or diagnostic functions of the engineered cells at anatomical and disease sites such as the gastrointestinal tract or tumors.
Despite development of molecular switches to control cells function, challenges remain for developing high-performance and/or tunable bioswitches to control gene expression in engineered cells in a wide range of applications including biomedical and industrial applications.

Thermal bioswitches and related genetic circuits, vectors, cells, compositions, methods and systems


A system (30) for providing electrical-power to remote communities (34) widely distributed over an extended geographical area (38) includes a generating station (32) located proximate each of the communities, each generating station supplying only that community to which it is proximate. The generating stations are in electronic communication with a central computer (40). Each generating station includes a plurality of generators (54-56). Each of the generators is controlled by a microprocessor based controller (64). Each controller is arranged to operate the generating station cooperatively with the other controllers associated with other generators in the station, and to assume a supervisory role in doing so by a mutual arbitration procedure among the controllers. Each controller is also arranged to monitor important generator operating parameters and to communicate these parameters to the central computer. Any controller may be reprogrammed by instructions communicated from the central computer, and functions of any controller may be overridden by instructions communicated from the central computer. The controllers include novel signal processing circuits (90 and 85) and logic for improved voltage and frequency regulation. The controllers also include novel circuits (92) and logic for monitoring generator fuel consumption and calculating generator fuel-efficiency therefrom.

There are remote areas of the world which, however remote they may be, support many small communities. These are typically widely distributed over a large area and are not interconnected by a system of paved highways or a distribution system for utilities such as water and power. In such a small community, utilities must be self provided by residents or businesses or may be derived from a small centralized utility system located in or close to the community. Electricity generators in such a community may be of several different types including water, wind and diesel-engine driven generators.
Diesel-engine driven generators are most common, yet such generators often present a most difficult maintenance problem, requiring intricate adjustments to maintain them at a reasonable operating efficiency or running reliably. Further, an electrical generation station generally relies on two or more generators. These generators may be of different capacity to deal with differing load requirements, which may vary hourly, daily, or seasonally. Typically, at least one back-up generator is required to maintain power in the event that a primary generator is stopped, for example, through failure, or in order to perform maintenance on the generator.
One significant problem is predicting fuel requirements and maintaining a fuel supply sufficient that power supply continues without interruption. This may result in excessive amounts of fuel being stored. Storing large amounts of fuel requires correspondingly large, long-term commitment of funds, with attendant interest costs. Storing and transporting large amounts of fuel may also be environmentally hazardous, particularly in remote regions which experience extreme weather conditions, for example, Alaska. Storing large amounts of fuel may mean that a community is not able to take advantage of any advantageous fuel price fluctuations.
Another significant problem is maintaining a sufficient quality, consistency, and continuity of power. As many of the above discussed small communities now rely on electronic computers, computer-controlled devices, and digital communications, it is important that a power source be available which provides a consistent narrow range of voltage and frequency, as such electronic devices may be sensitive to even relatively small power fluctuations.
In most circumstances, a small remote community will not have rapid access to skilled technical help which may be required to properly maintain one generator, let alone a system of electrical generators. Transporting such help to a remote location significantly adds to the cost of the help. Maintaining resident skilled personnel in a community is also expensive, particularly if maintenance is only required intermittently.
Microcomputer controlled devices have been devised, which are capable of automatically providing basic generator controls such as voltage and speed (frequency) control. Devices have also been devised which can provide automatic switching to a stand-by generator in the event of sudden impending failure of a primary generator, or switching of a load from one generator to another in the event of a load fluctuation. As the power requirements of small remote communities increase there is an increasing need for means to provide power to such communities via local generating stations which are capable of a high level of autonomous control and self-maintenance, but which may be monitored and controlled, alone or as part of a group, from a remote location.

Control system and circuits for distributed electrical power generating stations

Alaska Science and Technology Foundation


Documents and other items can be delivered electronically from sender to recipient with a level of trustedness approaching or exceeding that provided by a personal document courier. A trusted electronic go-between can validate, witness and/or archive transactions while, in some cases, actively participating in or directing the transaction. Printed or imaged documents can be marked using handwritten signature images, seal images, electronic fingerprinting, watermarking, and/or steganography. Electronic commercial transactions and transmissions take place in a reliable, “trusted” virtual distribution environment that provides significant efficiency and cost savings benefits to users in addition to providing an extremely high degree of confidence and trustedness. The systems and techniques have many uses including but not limited to secure document delivery, execution of legal documents, and electronic data interchange (EDI).

There is a great need for convenient, cost effective techniques to securely handle and deliver documents and other items. Existing methods such as express and personal couriers, registered mail, facsimile and electronic mail fulfill some of these needs but these techniques each have their problems and are deficient in important ways.
Trusted Personal Couriers
Perhaps the ultimate in secure document handling is the personal trusted courier. Many of us have seen spy films showing a trusted courier delivering documents containing state secrets. In such scenarios, the document sender places the document or other item into a lockable attaché case. The sender seals and locks the case with a key or combination that only he and the recipient have. The courier handcuffs the case to his or her wrist, boards an airplane and flies to the required destination—all the while carefully guarding the attaché case and its contents. Upon arriving at the destination, the courier personally delivers the case to the intended recipient. The recipient unlocks the case and retrieves its contents, all the while having a high degree of assurance that the contents have been kept secret.
The confidentiality, security and reliability provided by a personal trusted document courier has never really been matched by any other form of document delivery. Even though we sometimes might want or need the services of a personal trusted document courier, it is likely that practical reasons (such as cost and availability) require us to use less trusted forms of delivery for even our most important and confidential documents or other items. Moreover, even the trusted courier technique does not provide a reliable means of later providing how and when the information was used by the recipient and/or subsequently handled by others to whom the recipient may pass the information and what information was actually sent. This approach also cannot provide the degree of interactivity between the sender and the recipient possible in a world of near instantaneous communications, including seamlessly supporting processes related to rights management, and document creation and dissemination.
As discussed below, existing alternatives to the trusted courier are more practical and less expensive, and some offer advantages such as instantaneous communications and interactivity—but all suffer from various disadvantages.
Express Courier Services
Federal Express and other express courier services provide rapid (for example, overnight) delivery services at a relatively high degree of trustedness.
In the typical case, the sender places the items to be delivered into a special, tear resistant sealed envelope, and fills out an "air bill" that lists the sender's name, address and telephone number, and the intended recipient's name, address and telephone number. The "air bill" also lists options such as, for example, the type of delivery service required (i.e., delivery next business morning, next business afternoon, or second business day), whether the sender requires Federal Express to obtain the recipient's signature, the payment method, and a unique "tracking number" used to uniquely identify the package.
Once the package is complete and ready to send, the sender may provide it to Federal Express through a number of different methods:                the sender may take the package to a Federal Express office and personally hand it to a clerk,        the sender may drop the completed envelope in any one of many pervasive Federal Express drop off boxes, and someone will come and collect the envelopes from the boxes sometime before the end of the business day and deliver them to a Federal Express office, or        the sender can call Federal Express and arrange for a delivery person to come and pick up the package.
Federal Express maintains a fleet of aircraft that shuttle most packages to a central sorting and routing facility for subsequent dispatch to various destinations across the United States and the world. A fleet of delivery trucks deliver the packages from local airports to each recipient. At the sender's option, a delivery person may obtain a recipient's signature at the time she delivers the package—providing documentation that may later be used to prove the package was in fact received by the intended recipient or someone at his or her home or office.
Federal Express uses automated computer tracking and package handling equipment to route individual packages to their destinations. Delivery information is put into the tracking computer to allow customers and service people to automatically retrieve information about when and to whom particular packages were actually delivered, or where the package happens to be at the moment.
Federal Express and other similar document delivery services have been highly successful because they cost-effectively ensure reliable delivery of original documents and other items. Nevertheless, they do have some significant disadvantages and limitations. For example:                They are much more expensive than other delivery mechanisms at least in part because of the high labor, transportation, and infrastructure (many offices, planes, etc.) costs involved.        They do not provide the very high degree of confidentiality desired for certain confidential business or other documents.        They generally can only reliably verify that the package was delivered to the intended recipient (or his or her home or place of business)—and not that the intended recipient opened the package or read or saw or used the document.        The one (or two) day delay they introduce may be too great for time sensitive or time pressing items.
These problems are exacerbated when several individuals and/or organizations in different geographical locations are all parties to a transaction—a complex, multiparty contract, for example—and all must sign or otherwise process and/or execute one or more related documents.
Registered Mail
A relatively more secure delivery technique is registered mail. Registered mail correspondents can have a high degree of confidence that their packages will arrive at their required destinations—but may not like the time delays and additional expense associated with this special form of mail handling.
To use registered mail, the sender places her document or other items into a sealed envelope or package and takes her package to the nearest Post Office. For security, the Post Office may prohibit the use of resealable tape and mailing labels, and instead require the package to be sealed with paper tape and the address to be written directly on the package. These safeguards help to ensure that any attempts to tamper with the package or its contents will be detected.
The Post Office securely transports the registered mail package to the recipient, requiring each postal employee who accepts custody of the package along its journey to sign and time stamp a custody record. The postal carrier at the recipient's end personally delivers the package to the recipient—who also has to sign for it and may be asked to produce proof of identification. The custody record establishes a chain of custody, listing every person who has had custody of the package on its journey from sender to recipient.
As discussed above, registered mail is relatively secure and confidential but delivery takes a long time and is very labor and infrastructure intensive.
Facsimile
Facsimile is an electronic-based technology that provides virtually instantaneous document delivery. A facsimile machine typically includes a document scanner, a document printer, and electronic circuits that convert document images to and from a form in which they can be sent over a telephone line. Facsimile requires each of the sender and the intended recipient to have a facsimile machine. The sender typically places the document to be sent into a document feeder attached to a facsimile machine. The sender then typically keys in the telephone number of the intended recipient's facsimile machine and presses a "start" button. The sender's facsimile machine automatically dials and establishes contact with the recipient's facsimile machine.
Once a good connection is established, the sender's facsimile machine begins to optically scan the document one page at a time and convert it into digital information bits. The sender's facsimile machine converts the digital bits into a form that can be transmitted over a telephone line, and sends the bits to the intended recipient's facsimile machine. The sender's facsimile machine may also send as part of the document, a "header" on the top of each page stating the sender's identity, the page number of the transmission, and the transmission time. However, these headers can be changed at will by the sender and therefore cannot be trusted.
Since the recipient's facsimile machine receives the transmitted information at the same time the sender's facsimile machine is sending it, delivery is virtually instantaneous. However, sending a document to an unattended facsimile machine in an insecure location may result in the document falling into the wrong hands. Another common scenario is that the facsimile machine operator, through human error, dials the wrong telephone number and ends up delivering a confidential document to the wrong person (for example, the local grocery store down the street, or in some unfortunate cases, the opposing side of a negotiation, legal proceeding or other pitched battle). Thousands of faxes are lost every day in a "black hole"—never arriving at their desired destinations but possibly arriving at completely different destinations instead.                Some secure facsimile machines such as those used by government and military organizations, or by companies needing a significantly higher level of security provide an extra security/authentication step to ensure that the intended recipient is physically present at the receiving facsimile machine before the sender's machine will transmit the document. In addition, it is possible to use encryption to prevent the facsimile transmitted information from being understood by electronic eavesdroppers. However, such specially equipped facsimile machines tend to be very expensive and are not generally available for common commercial facsimile traffic. Moreover, facsimile machines typically can send and receive documents only—and therefore are not very versatile. They do not, for example, handle digital items such as audio, video, multimedia, and executables, yet these are increasingly part and parcel of communications for commerce and other purposes. Thus, despite its many advantages, facsimile transmissions do not provide the very high degree of trustedness and confidence required by extremely confidential documents, nor do they provide the degree of flexibility required by modern digital communications. As with Express Courier Services and Registered Mail, faxing can only indicate that the package was delivered to the intended recipient (or his or her home or place of business)—and not that the intended recipient opened the package or read or saw or used the document.Electronic Mail
More and more, people are using electronic mail to send documents, messages, and/or other digital items. The "Internet explosion" has connected millions of new users to the Internet. Whereas Internet electronic mail was previously restricted primarily to the academic world, most corporations and computer-savvy individuals can now correspond regularly over the Internet.
Currently, Internet electronic mail provides great advantages in terms of timeliness (nearly instantaneous delivery) and flexibility (any type of digital information can be sent), but suffers from an inherent lack of security and trustedness. Internet messages must typically pass through a number of different computers to get from sender to recipient, regardless of whether these computers are located within a single company on an "Intranet" for example, or on Internet attached computers belonging to a multitude of organizations. Unfortunately, any one of those computers can potentially intercept the message and/or keep a copy of it. Moreover, even though some of these systems have limited "return receipt" capabilities, the message carrying the receipt suffers from the same security and reliability problems as the original message.
Cryptography (a special mathematical-based technique for keeping messages secret and authenticating messages) is now beginning to be used to prevent eavesdroppers from reading intercepted messages, but the widespread use of such cryptography techniques alone will not solve electronic mail's inherent lack of trustedness. These electronic mail messages, documents and other items (e.g., executable computer programs or program fragments) that might have been sent with them as "attachments," remain vulnerable to tampering and other unauthorized operations and uses once decrypted and while delivery may be reported, actual use can not be demonstrated. Some people have tried to develop "privacy enhanced" electronic mail, but prior systems have only provided limited improvements in reliability, efficiency and/or security.
The Present Inventions Solve These and Other Problems
As discussed above, a wide variety of techniques are currently being used to provide secure, trusted confidential delivery of documents and other items. Unfortunately, none of these previously existing mechanisms provide truly trusted, virtually instantaneous delivery on a cost-effective, convenient basis and none provide rights management and auditing through persistent, secure, digital information protection.
In contrast, the present inventions provide the trustedness, confidentiality and security of a personal trusted courier on a virtually instantaneous and highly cost-effective basis. They provide techniques, systems and methods that can bring to any form of electronic communications (including, but not limited to Internet and internal company electronic mail) an extremely high degree of trustedness, confidence and security approaching or exceeding that provided by a trusted personal courier. They also provide a wide variety of benefits that flow from rights management and secure chain of handling and control.
The present inventions preferred embodiment make use of a digital Virtual Distribution Environment (VDE) as a major portion of its operating foundation, providing unique, powerful capabilities instrumental to the development of secure, distributed transaction-based electronic commerce and digital content handling, distribution, processing, and usage management. This Virtual Distribution Environment technology can flexibly enable a wide variety of new business models and business practices while also supporting existing business models and practices.
The Virtual Distribution Environment provides comprehensive overall systems, and wide arrays of methods, techniques, structures and arrangements, that enable secure, efficient electronic commerce and rights management on the Internet and other information superhighways and on internal corporate networks such as "Intranets". The present inventions use (and in some cases, build upon and enhances) this fundamental Virtual Distribution Environment technology to provide still additional flexibility, capabilities, features and advantages. The present invention, in its preferred embodiment, is intended to be used in combination a broad array of the features described in Ginter, et al, including any combination of the following:                A. VDE chain of handling and control,        B. security trusted internodal communication,        C. secure database,        D. authentication,        E. cryptographic,        F. fingerprinting,        G. other VDE security and communication techniques,        H. rights operating system,        I. object design and secure container techniques,        J. container control structures,        K. ARPML rights and process control language,        L. electronic negotiation,        M. secure hardware, and        N. smart agent (smart object) techniques.
For example, parties using the Virtual Distribution Environment can participate in commerce and other transactions in accordance with a persistent set of rules they electronically define. Such techniques, systems and arrangements bring about an unparalleled degree of security, reliability, efficiency and flexibility to electronic commerce, electronic rights management and other important business models. The present inventions make use of these persistent electronic rules to provide secure, automated, cost-effective electronic control for electronic document and other digital item handling and/or delivery, and for the electronic formation and negotiation of legal contracts and other documents.
By way of non-exhaustive summary, these present inventions provide a highly secure and trusted item delivery and agreement execution services providing the following features and functions:                Trustedness and security approaching or exceeding that of a personal trusted courier.        Instant or nearly instant delivery.        Optional delayed delivery ("store and forward").        Broadcasting to multiple parties.        Highly cost effective.        Trusted validation of item contents and delivery.        Value Added Delivery and other features selectable by the sender and/or recipient.        Provides electronic transmission trusted auditing and validating.        Allows people to communicate quickly, securely, and confidentially.        Communications can later be proved through reliable evidence of the communications transaction—providing non-repudiatable, certain, admissible proof that a particular communications transaction occurred.        Provides non-repudiation of use and may record specific forms of use such as viewing, editing, extracting, copying, redistributing (including to what one or more parties), and/or saving.        Supports persistent rights and rules based document workflow management at recipient sites.        System may operate on the Internet, on internal organization and/or corporate networks ("Intranets" irrespective of whether they use or offer Internet services internally), private data networks, and/or using any other form of electronic communications.        System may operate in non-networked and/or intermittently networked environments.        Legal contract execution can be performed in real time, with or without face to face or ear-to-ear personal interactions (such as audiovisual teleconferencing, automated electronic negotiations, or any combination of such interactions) for any number of distributed individuals and/or organizations using any mixture of interactions.        The items delivered and/or processed may be any "object" in digital format, including, but not limited to, objects containing or representing data types such as text, images, video, linear motion pictures in digital format, sound recordings and other audio information, computer software, smart agents, multimedia, and/or objects any combination of two or more data types contained within or representing a single compound object.        Content (executables for example) delivered with proof of delivery and/or execution or other use.        Secure electronic containers can be delivered. The containers can maintain control, audit, receipt and other information and protection securely and persistently in association with one or more items.        Trustedness provides non-repudiation for legal and other transactions.        Can handle and send any digital information (for example, analog or digital information representing text, graphics, movies, animation, images, video, digital linear motion pictures, sound and sound recordings, still images, software computer programs or program fragments, executables, data, and including multiple, independent pieces of text; sound clips, software for interpreting and presenting other elements of content, and anything else that is electronically representable).        Provides automatic electronic mechanisms that associate transactions automatically with other transactions.        System can automatically insert or embed a variety of visible or invisible "signatures" such as images of handwritten signatures, seals, and electronic "fingerprints" indicating who has "touched" (used or other interacted with in any monitorable manner) the item.        System can affix visible seals on printed items such as documents for use both in encoding receipt and other receipt and/or usage related information and for establishing a visible presence and impact regarding the authenticity, and ease of checking the authenticity, of the item.        Seals can indicate who originated, sent, received, previously received and redistributed, electronicallyview, and/or printed and/or otherwise used the item.        Seals can encode digital signatures and validation information providing time, location, sender and/or other information and/or providing means for item authentication and integrity check.        Scanning and decoding of item seals can provide authenticity/integrity check of entire item(s) or part of an item (e.g., based on number of words, format, layout, image—picture and/or text—composition, etc.).        Seals can be used to automatically associate electronic control sets for use in further item handling.        System can hide additional information within the item using "steganography" for later retrieval and analysis.        Steganography can be used to encode electronic fingerprints and/or other information into an item to prevent deletion.        Multiple steganographic storage of the same fingerprint information may be employed reflecting "more" public and "less" public modes so that a less restricted steganographic mode (different encryption algorithm, keys, and/or embedding techniques) can be used to assist easy recognition by an authorized party and a more private (confidential) mode may be readable by only a few parties (or only one party) and comprise of the less restricted mode may not affect the security of the more private mode.        Items such as documents can be electronically, optically scanned at the sender's end—and printed out in original, printed form at the recipient's end.        Document handlers and processors can integrate document scanning and delivery.        Can be directly integrated into enterprise and Internet (and similar network) wide document workflow systems and applications.        Secure, tamper-resistant electronic appliance, which may employ VDE SPUs, used to handle items at both sender and recipient ends.        "Original" item(s) can automatically be destroyed at the sender's end and reconstituted at the recipient's end to prevent two originals from existing simultaneously.        Secure, non-repudiable authentication of the identification of a recipient before delivery using any number of different authentication techniques including but not limited to biometric techniques (such as palm print scan, signature scan, voice scan, retina scan, iris scan, biometric fingerprint and/or handprint scan, and/or face profile) and/or presentation of a secure identity "token."        Non-repudiation provided through secure authentication used to condition events (e.g., a signature is affixed onto a document only if the system securely authenticates the sender and her intention to agree to its contents).        Variety of return receipt options including but not limited to a receipt indicating who opened a document, when, where, and the disposition of the document (stored, redistributed, copied, etc.). These receipts can later be used in legal proceedings and/or other contexts to prove item delivery, receipt and/or knowledge.        Audit, receipt, and other information can be delivered independently from item delivery, and become securely associated with an item within a protected processing environment.        Secure electronic controls can specify how an item is to be processed or otherwise handled (e.g., document can't be modified, can be distributed only to specified persons, collections of persons, organizations, can be edited only by certain persons and/or in certain manners, can only be viewed and will be "destroyed" after a certain elapse of time or real time or after a certain number of handlings, etc.)        Persistent secure electronic controls can continue to supervise item workflow even after it has been received and "read."        Use of secure electronic containers to transport items provides an unprecedented degree of security, trustedness and flexibility.        Secure controls can be used in conjunction with digital electronic certificates certifying as to identity, class (age, organization membership, jurisdiction, etc.) of the sender and/or receiver and/or user of communicated information.        Efficiently handles payment and electronic addressing arrangements through use of support and administrative services such as a Distributed Commerce Utility as more fully described in the copending Shear, et al. application.        Compatible with use of smart cards, including, for example, VDE enabled smart cards, for secure personal identification and/or for payment.
Transactions may be one or more component transactions of any distributed chain of handling and control process including Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system, electronic trading system, document workflow sequence, and banking and other financial communication sequences, etc.                The present inventions also provide for the use of a trusted third party electronic go-between or intermediary in various forms, including the "virtual presence" of such go-between through the rules and controls it contributes for distributed governance of transactions described in the present invention, and further through the use of a distributed, go-between system operating in on-line and/or off-line modes at various user and/or go-between sites. Such a trusted third-party go-between can provide enhanced and automated functionality, features and other advantages such as, for example:        Third party go-between can provide an independent, objective third party assurance of item authenticity, integrity, delivery and/or other actions and/or events.        Third party go-between can support non-repudiation of items having legal and/or other important consequences.        Third-party go-between can perform auditing, notarizing, authentication, integrity checking, archiving, routing, distributed chain of handling and control processing, and/or other processing.        Third party can provide store and forward capabilities.        Trusted go-between can supervise execution of legal items such as documents—ensuring that all required conditions are satisfied and that all parties agree before permitting a document to be executed and informing parties of any as-yet-unsatisfied requirements and allow parties to view completed documents on-screen and/or in printed form with "draft, not enforceable" or the like printed on the pages, before final agreement to commit. Actual execution (closing) occurs, for example, as the third party system verifies final, electronically asserted agreement and execution by all parties. Such "atomic" transactions are especially useful in supporting "closings" or the like.        Third party go-between can securely audit, manager supervise, and/or control automated electronic negotiations, contract agreement, contract execution, contract notariziation, and/or archiving of contracts, notarized contracts, and/or at least one VDE control set utilized in an electronic negotiation regardless whether or not that negotiation resulted in an executed contract, and regardless of whether or not the entire negotiation was conducted by electronic means.        Secure electronic controls can direct tasks to be performed by the third party go-between.        Third party go-between can provide a digital time stamp service to certify that a certain version of a certain document existed and was delivered to it at a certain day and time.        Third party go-between can legally notarize the item(s) if desired, and can also "notarize" electronic control structures associated with the item(s).        Third party go-between can authenticate an item by, for example, opening (e.g. decrypting content) one or more containers; digitally or otherwise "signing" one or mote items to indicate the third party has seen the item(s); verifying the integrity of the item(s) (e.g., using a one way hash function); affixing its own distinctive seal and/or other information to the item; generating audit information for item tracking purposes; and collecting payment based on the services it has performed.        Third party go-between can maintain a secure archive of the item(s) and/or identification/authentication information associated with the item(s) (e.g., a "one way hash" value of item contents or portions thereof). A portion or all of such archive (e.g., a "one way hash") may be stored within the affixed, visible seal applied described above.        Go-between can also serve as an archive of controls relating to certain items or item types (e.g., to allow a sender to access common controls and/or templates from any of various electronic appliances).        Secure electronic controls can provide a message digest that can be delivered to and registered by a trusted go-between as part of the object registry/archiving process.        Third party go-between can deliver item(s) to an intended recipient, or simply oversee the delivery transaction as an impartial third party observer.        Trusted go-between can deliver a copy and/or the original of an item with or without a seal affixed by the go-between.        Trusted third party go-between can maintain or exert control over an item, distributed chain of handling and control process(s), and/or other processes or workflow associated with it.        Trusted go-between can support governmental regulatory requirements by acting as a cryptographic key repository for encrypted communications; such secure communications may be accessed by governmental authorities, for example, through a warrant process to provide court or otherwise mandated access to specific communications or communications related information (e.g., for encrypted communications employing long key lengths).        Trusted go-between can act as a user rights authority clearinghouse for additional and/or alternative rights which may, for example, be available to particular classes, specific users, at a certain cost, or as specified by the sender. Trusted go-between may also mediate between sender(s) and recipient(s) in response to recipient's request for new, different and/or modified rights or sender's and/or receiver's request for third party archived information (which may require the agreement by only one, expressly either one, or both sender(s) and recipient(s).        In addition to multiple individuals and/or parties in several organizations, a trusted go-between may also provide services to parties within a single organization, thus enhancing the security, reliability, auditability, authentication, efficiency, and timeliness of secure document delivery and secure transaction facilitation within a given organization.        Trusted go-between may provide services both on public networks, such as the Internet, on internal corporate networks ("Intranets"—irrespective of whether or not they use Internet type conventions), and on private networks connecting two or more individuals and/or organizations exchanging, documents and other content in digital format and/or participating together in various transactions.        A third party go-between can provide a communications switching integration. For example, a communications service provider may automatically provide the go-between services for a connection. For example, certain telephone numbers might be offered that have these services built in to the switching network, or a special dialing sequence might be used to access a communications channel with these characteristics. This can provide data links for networks, or be integrated with traditional fax lines, or even voice lines. For example, a fax transmission might be archived, have a seal inserted during transmission, and/or have a hash value stored for later reference. A voice transmission could be similarly managed. Both of these examples have the advantage of compatibility with the existing infrastructure (albeit at the cost of lacking persistent control after delivery). Using this infrastructure for data links has the added advantage of transparency.        A third party go-between can provide Transaction Authority services as described in the copending concurrently filed Ginter et al patent application

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Trusted and secure techniques, systems and methods for item delivery and execution


A heat sink according to the present invention is configured to comprise:                a plurality of heat dissipating fins having at least bottom portions which form a heat receiving surface thermally connected to a heat generating electronic component; and        a heat-transfer connecting member for, by passing through each of said plurality of heat dissipating fins arranged in parallel, connecting said plurality of heat dissipating fins in such a manner that said bottom portions form said heat receiving surface.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat sink for cooling various heat generating electronic components, particularly, a semiconductor device and the like, and a cooling method.
2. Description of Related Art
When electronic components such as a semiconductor device, which are mounted on various devices including personal computers and the like or on electrical or electronic installations including electronic equipment and the like are used, they inevitably generate heat to some extent. Cooling of such generated heat is becoming a serious technical problem in recent years. Typically known as methods for cooling electrical or electronic devices which require cooling, are a method of lowering air temperature inside the housing of the device by a fan mounted on the device, a method of cooling a heat generating device, for example, a heat generating electronic component by attaching a cooling body on the heat generating device, or the like to cool same, and the like.
Such cooling bodies as mentioned above include a heat conductive metal member such as metal plate or metal block. For example, heat generated by a heat generating device is received by a metal block and then, the heat is dissipated by means of a heat dissipating fin mounted on the metal block. To have a limited envelop volume which is light weighted but has a wider heat dissipating area, (mountain-shaped) corrugated fins, caulked fins or the like are effective and widely used. In order to improve the heat conductivity, a heat transfer rubber sheet or the like is used between the heat generating device and the metal member. Further, as a method for fixing heat dissipating fins on the aforementioned metal block, there are used methods of brazing, soldering, caulking, adhering by use of an adhesive agent or a double-sided adhesive tape, screwing or the like.
According to the aforementioned method in which heat from the heat generating device is first received by a heat transfer metal block or the like and then, dissipated to a predetermined area or an open air by way of heat dissipating fins fixed on the metal block or the like, a metal plate, metal block or the like is placed at a heat path between a heat generating device, which is a heat source, and the heat dissipating fins, and then, there is contact heat resistance produced between the metal plate, metal block or the like and the heat dissipating fins, which presents a problem that heat dissipating performance is deteriorated over the whole heat sink.
In addition, there is another problem that cost is increased due to the need to prepare a member other than the heat dissipating fins and joint it with the heat dissipating fins. Further, when the member other than the heat dissipating fins and the heat dissipating fins are jointed to another member, there is also produced contact resistance. This presents a problem that contact resistance values vary dependent on the products. Furthermore, there is still another problem that a heat sink causes unnecessary radiation, which lowers heat cooling efficiency.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to solve the aforementioned conventional problems and to provide a heat sink for cooling electronic devices or the like, which has a reduced contact heat resistance between a metal block and heat dissipating fins, uniform cooling performance irrespective of products, reduced unnecessary radiation and excellent cooling performance, and a heat dissipating method.

Heat sink for electronic devices and heat dissipating method


An improved evaporator section for a dual manifold heat pipe. Both the upper and lower manifolds can have surfaces exposed to the heat source which evaporate the working fluid. The tubes in the tube bank between the manifolds have openings in their lower extensions into the lower manifold to provide for the transport of evaporated working fluid from the lower manifold into the tubes and from there on into the upper manifold and on to the condenser portion of the heat pipe. A wick structure lining the inner walls of the evaporator tubes extends into both the upper and lower manifolds. At least some of the tubes also have overflow tubes contained within them to carry condensed working fluid from the upper manifold to pass to the lower without spilling down the inside walls of the tubes.

This invention relates to heat pipes. More particularly this invention relates to improvements to the evaporator section of a dual manifold evaporator with an intermediate bank of evaporator tubes.
A heat pipe is a device that transfers thermal energy by the evaporation and condensation of a working fluid that is enclosed in the evacuated heat pipe vessel. Heat from an external source is absorbed in the evaporator end of the heat pipe and acts to transform the working fluid from a liquid phase to a vapor phase. The vapor then travels to the condenser end of the heat pipe system where the vapor condenses and transfers energy to thermal equipment that is connected to the condenser. The condensed fluid then flows back to the evaporator section to begin the cycle again. The passage connecting the evaporator section to the condenser section is generally referred to as the vapor space or the adiabatic region. The working fluid is normally in a saturated state, enabling the heat pipe to operate at near uniform temperature.
To construct a compact heat pipe heat exchanger that can transfer a large quantity of energy from a distributed heat source, one solution is to use a bank of heat pipes in parallel. The individual heat pipes generally are not interconnected in these systems; the evaporator of one heat pipe leads only to the condenser of the same pipe. Such systems are used in some commercial air-to-air heat exchangers, and they have also been used in a few fuel-fired boiler systems.
In some situations, it is desirable to combine the heat input from several heat pipe evaporators and to deliver the energy to a single condenser region. In effect, such a system would collect energy from a distributed source and deliver the energy to a single destination. This has been accomplished in the past by combining the condenser ends of several heat pipes whose evaporator ends are in the hottest region of a boiler with the evaporator end of a single, larger capacity heat pipe whose condenser end passes the thermal energy to a thermal load. This method of linking heat pipes adds to the system's cost and complexity and increases the overall temperature drop through the system.
There have been a umber of attempts to combine a plurality of evaporator tubes directly with a single condenser to collect heat from a diffuse source and transfer it to a single point. None has been particularly successful due to a variety of design and performance shortcomings. The structures illustrated in FIGS. 7 and 8 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,977,364 to Gijsgers et al. for "Apparatus for Evaporating Fluids" are representative. This patent is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. One problem in particular is caused by overflow of condensate from the upper manifold down the inner walls of the tubes which upsets the evaporation in these areas by quenching the operation of the affected tube and causing undesirable local overheating and temperature oscillations in the system.


A weight distribution system is shown and described. The weight distribution system may include a spring arm configured to be operatively engaged between plate members of a ball mount, and a pin member inserted into the spring arm, the pin member configured to secure the spring arm with the ball mount. The weight distribution system may also include an attachment mechanism configured to selectively place the spring arm in mechanical communication with a towed vehicle.

Many vehicles are designed to transport freight, goods, merchandise, personal property, and other such cargo. Often, such vehicles are arranged to tow a towed vehicle, such as a trailer by attaching the towed vehicle to the towing vehicle though the use of a hitch assembly. For example, a hitch assembly may attach a trailer to a towing vehicle through a hitch ball and coupler arrangement that allows relative movement between the towing vehicle and the trailer as the towing vehicle makes turns, traverses uneven or rough terrain, and passes along inclining and declining roadways.
Even distribution of the weight of a towed vehicle among the axles of the towing vehicle is important to the effective operation of a towing vehicle that is towing the towed vehicle. Towed vehicles are often loaded with heavy cargo and may substantially outweigh the towing vehicle. When such a towed vehicle is coupled or secured to the rear of a towing vehicle, the majority of the weight of the towed vehicle may be born by the rear axle of a towing vehicle. Such uneven weight distribution may lower the rear of the towing vehicle and raise the front of the towing vehicle. Under such conditions, the tires of the rear axle may bear substantially more weight than the tires of the front axle of the towing vehicle.
Controlling the sway movement of the towed vehicle (i.e., lateral or side-to-side movement of the trailer with respect to the towing vehicle) relative to the towing vehicle as the trailer is towed is also important to the effective operation of a towing vehicle. While relative motion of the trailer with respect to the towing vehicle is necessary to accommodate turns and inclining and declining roadways, excess sway of the towed vehicle may be undesirable. This may be particularly true when the load that is being towed is heavy relative to the weight of the towing vehicle.
Many factors may contribute to the swaying of a towed vehicle. For example, crosswinds impacting the trailer; unevenly loaded towed vehicles; inclined, declined, and sloped roadways; winding roadways; and rough and uneven terrain may all contribute to swaying of the towed vehicle. Such factors may be exacerbated as the speed of the vehicle increases. As previously mentioned, towed vehicles and cargo may substantially outweigh a towing vehicle. When such a towed vehicle begins to sway, particularly when driven at high speeds such as on a highway, the towed vehicle may transfer sufficient side-to-side and lateral forces to the towing vehicle to cause undesirable driving conditions.
Weight distributing systems, with sway dampening; have been used to remedy these conditions. However, attaching such weight distribution systems can often be time consuming and difficult. Further still, these weight distributing system use spring bars of a square shape requiring use an intermediate part to fasten the spring bar into the ballmount. Typically this has been accomplished with trunnions and tubular bushings. This approach, however, leads to extra parts. These extra parts add weight to the system, increase looseness, increases costs and provide additional wear items requiring replacement.
There is a need, therefore, for a weight distributing system with sway dampening that uses fewer parts, weighs less than other systems, and is easier to operate. There is also need for a weight distributing system that easier and quicker to assemble.


A system for locating a lost disc golf disc is disclosed. A disc having a Bluetooth transmitter is utilized to send a signal to a smartphone which measures the distance to the disc from the smartphone. Outfitted with a 3-axis accelerometer, the flight path of the disc golf disc can also be tracked.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to disc golf. In particular, the invention relates to a location system for locating and tracking the flight of a disc golf disc during the play of disc golf.
Description of Related Art
Disc golf, also known as Frisbee® golf, is a flying disc game, as well as a precision and accuracy sport, in which individual players throw a flying disc at a target. According to the Professional Disc Golf Association, "The object of the game is to traverse a course from beginning to end in the fewest number of throws of the disc." The number of disc golf courses doubled in the 8 years from 2000 to 2008 and continues to grow. The game is played in about 40 countries around the world.
Ed Headrick, who is now regarded as the "Father of Disc Golf", designed and installed the first standardized target course in what was then known as Oak Grove Park in La Canada Flintridge, Calif. (today the park is known as Hahamongna Watershed Park). Headrick worked for the San Gabriel, Calif.-based Wham-O Corporation and is credited for pioneering the modern era of disc sports. While at Wham-O, Headrick redesigned the Pluto Platter, reworking the rim height, disc shape, diameter, weight and plastics, creating a controllable disc that could be thrown accurately. Headrick marketed and pushed the professional model Frisbee® and "Frisbee" as a sport. Ed founded "The International Frisbee Association" (IFA) and began establishing standards for various sports using the Frisbee such as the sports called Distance, Flying Disc Freestyle and Guts.
The game involves a number of specialized discs and it is not unusual for a player to have 10 or more different types of discs for different playing situations. Each type of disc has a unique flight characteristic, so losing a disc can inhibit proper game play. Losing a game disc is, unfortunately, a frequent occurrence. When the disc goes in an errant manner it is not too difficult to lose the disc on the terrain or water features on a course. Since disc golf discs are relatively expensive, different methods of locating a lost disc have been utilized. The attachment of buzzers, lights, electromagnetic signals and the like have been used or suggested. These devices are susceptible to water damage and can land where a buzzer or light cannot be heard or seen. Attaching fizzy tablets like Alka-Seltzer brand headache tablets to a disc has also been utilized in order to find a disc under water when the disc lands in a pond or deep body of water. Water is a problem for any location device on land too, since courses being mostly grass, can be wet, especially after a rain. None of the systems suggested or available to disc golf players allow for tracking distance, speed, rotation or the like. Accordingly, while there are some devices out there that partially solve the problems of locating a lost disc, there is not a complete system that meets all the needs of the disc golf player.


A circuit for performing window-relative dithering of intensity data comprises a programmable dither cell; circuitry for comparing dither values stored in the dither cell with selected parts of the intensity values and outputting an increment signal in accordance with the results of the comparison; a wrap prevention circuit for preventing the intensity from being incremented if incrementing would cause the intensity to wrap to a low value; and an adder for incrementing the intensity in response to the increment signal, provided it is not inhibited by the wrap prevention circuit. The dither circuit may be advantageously employed in a computer graphics system to dither pixel intensity values.

The field of computer graphics concerns the creation, storage, manipulation and display of pictures and models of objects by a digital processor. Interactive computer graphics is the subclass of computer graphics in which a user dynamically controls the picture's content, format, size or color on a display surface by means of an interaction device such as a keyboard, lever or joystick. See Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics, by J. D. Foley and A. Van Dam, ISBN: 0-201-14468-9. The creation of synthetic images (i.e., images which exist as abstract collections of lines, points, curves, etc., in the computer's memory) is the usual domain of interactive computer graphics.
The two primary classes of interactive computer graphics systems are random-scan and raster-scan systems. Images displayed by a random-scan system are encoded as commands to draw each output primitive (i.e., point, line or polygon) by plotting individual points or drawing connecting lines between specified starting and ending coordinates of line segments. Polygons are simply treated as a closed series of line segments. Encoding for a raster-scan system is much simpler: output primitives are broken up into their constituent points for display. The major difference between a simple point-plotting random-scan system and a raster-scan system is in the organization of the stored data used to drive the display. As explained below, the data is stored in a "frame buffer."
In the random-scan system the component points of each successive output primitive are stored sequentially in memory and plotted in the same order, one point at a time. This is because the beam may be moved randomly on the screen. In the raster-scan system the frame buffer memory is arranged as a 2-dimensional array of data. The value stored at a particular row and column encodes an intensity and/or color value of a corresponding display element on the screen. The location of each display element is typically specified by a unique (X,Y) coordinate. Since each memory location defines a single point-sized element of an image, both the display screen location and its corresponding memory location are often called a "pixel," short for "picture element." Hereinafter, to avoid confusion, the term "display pixel" will be used to indicate picture elements of a display device, and "storage pixel" to indicate memory locations corresponding to the display pixels. FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a raster-scan graphics system 10, which includes an image creation system 12, an image storage system 14 (including a frame buffer), an image display system 16, a raster-scan display 18 and an interaction device 20. The image creation system 12 converts output primitives into the data stored in the frame buffer of the image storage system 14.
The use of color and gray scale has become an important part of modern computer graphics. The proper use of color is extremely complex because the color of an object depends not only on the object itself, but also on the light source illuminating the object and on the human visual system. Moreover, some objects only reflect light while other objects also transmit light. An observer of achromatic light does not experience any of the color sensations associated with red, blue, yellow, etc. Achromatic light is what is seen on a black and white television. The only attribute of achromatic light is its intensity. Intensity is typically represented with a scaler, e.g., 0 for black, 1 for white and 0.5 for medium gray. A black and white television can produce many different levels of gray at a single pixel position. Line printers, pen plotters and electrostatic plotters produce only two levels, the white of the paper and the black of the ink or toner deposited on the paper. A concern in computer graphics is how many intensity levels are "enough" to adequately represent an image; e.g., how many intensity levels are needed to reproduce a continuous-tone black and white photo in such a way that the reproduction appears to be continuous.
Many displays and hard-copy devices produce just two intensity levels (i.e., are "bilevel"), and even two or three bits-per-pixel raster displays produce fewer intensity levels than are often desired; however the range of available intensities is expanded through the spatial integration our eyes perform on the image. If a very small area, e.g. a 0.02.times.0.02 inch square, is viewed from a normal viewing distance, the eye will integrate fine detail within the small area and record only the overall intensity of the area. This phenomenon is used in printing black and white photos in newspapers, magazines and books, in a technique called "half toning," whereby each small resolution unit is imprinted with a circle of black ink whose area is proportional to the blackness of the area of the original photo. See Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics, referenced above, pages 597-601.
Graphics output devices can approximate the variable-area dots of half tone reproduction. E.g., a 2.times.2 pixel area of a bilevel display can be used to produce five different intensity levels at the expense of cutting the spatial resolution in half along each axis. The patterns shown in FIG. 2A can be used in the 2.times.2 areas. The patterns fill each 2.times.2 area with a number of dots proportional to the desired intensity. In FIG. 2A the numerals inside the boxes represent the intensity I for the respective areas. In general, an N.times.N group of bilevel pixels can provide N.sup.2 +1 intensity levels. Spatial resolution, which is decreased, is in effect traded for intensity resolution, which is increased. The use of a 3.times.3 pattern reduces spatial resolution by a factor of 1/3 on each axis, but provides ten intensity levels. Of course even larger patterns can be used, but the spatial versus intensity resolution trade-off is limited by the human eye's visual acuity (about one minute of arc in normal lighting).
The N.times.N pixel patterns used to approximate the half tones must be designed so that they are not conspicuous in an area of identical intensity values. For example, if the pattern shown in FIG. 2B were used, horizontal lines would be visible in any large area of the image that has intensity I equal to 3. Another consideration in choosing patterns is that they form a "growth sequence," in which a pixel that is intensified for intensity level J is intensified for all levels K greater than J. This minimizes the differences in the patterns for successive intensity levels, thereby minimizing the contouring effects.
Half tone approximation is not limited to bilevel displays. If a display has two bits per pixel, and thus four intensity levels, the half tone technique may be used to further increase the number of intensity levels. If a 2.times.2 pattern is used, a total of four pixels, each of which can take on three intensity values besides black, is available, allowing the display of 4.times.3+1=13 intensity levels. One possible set of growth sequence patterns for this case is shown in FIG. 2C. The respective intensities of the individual pixels sum to the intensity level I shown below each pattern.
The above techniques are appropriate if the resolution of the image to be displayed is lower than the resolution of the display device, allowing the use of multiple display pixels for one image pixel. If the image resolution and device resolution are the same, the "ordered dither" technique can be used to display an M.times.M image with multiple levels of intensity on an M.times.M bilevel display. In the ordered dither technique, the decision to intensify or not intensify the pixel at position (X,Y) depends on the desired intensity I(X,Y) at that point and on an N.times.N dither matrix D.sup.N. The dither matrix D.sup.N is indexed from 0 to N-1 along its rows and columns. Each of the integers 0 to N.sup.2 -1 appears once in the matrix. For example, when N=2, D.sup.2 is given by ##EQU1## To process the pixel at (X,Y), the dither matrix index values i, j are computed as follows: EQU i=X modulo-N, j=Y modulo-N.
Then if I(X,Y) is greater than D.sub.ij.sup.N, the pixel at (X,Y) is intensified; otherwise it is not. The above techniques are discussed at pages 597-601 of Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics, referenced above, and references cited therein.
Dithering thus has the effect of smoothing out the transition between two intensity levels. Circuitry for carrying out this dithering typically includes means for comparing the least significant part (e.g., the least significant nibble (LSN)) of the rendered intensity with a value stored in the dither cell at a row and column determined in accordance with the pixel sub-address (i.e., the fractional part of the pixel address). If the least significant part is greater than the dither cell value, then the most significant part (e.g., the MSN) of the rendered intensity is incremented. For example, consider a rendered image with eight-bit intensity values and a frame buffer having four bits per color. An exemplary dither cell is the 4.times.4 dither cell having the randomized values shown in FIG. 3. The LSNs of the rendered pixels define sixteen intensity levels with values from 0 to 15 which match the sixteen dither cell entries. The least significant two bits of both the X address and Y address of the pixel are used to select the cell value to be compared. The dither algorithm may be simply stated as follows: If I.sub.LSN is greater than D(X,Y), then I.sub.MSN =I.sub.MSN +1, where I.sub.LSN is the intensity value's least significant nibble, I.sub.MSN is the intensity value's most significant nibble and D(X,Y) is the dither cell value selected in accordance with the subaddresses of X and Y.
Exemplary circuitry for carrying out the dither algorithm is represented by the block diagram shown in FIG. 4. As shown, dither cell values D(X,Y) output from a dither matrix storage device 26 are input to a compare circuit 24. The dither cell values are compared with corresponding parts of input intensity values,, e.g., with the LSNs of corresponding input intensity values. If the LSN of an intensity value is greater than the dither cell value it is compared with, the MSN of that intensity value is incremented in adder 22 and combined with the LSN to form the output intensity value. In the prior art, most dither circuits use fixed or "hard wired" dither cell values. In addition, most prior art dither circuits have their row-column addresses fixed to corresponding (X,Y) screen addresses. These limitations create problems when the applications program employs windowing, since the pixel coordinates employed in most computations are window-relative as opposed to screen-relative. A further problem with known dither circuits is that their output intensities "wrap" to a low value when the input intensity is at a maximum.


A charge pump has a first branch that includes a first node connected between a first pull-up switch and a first pull-down switch and a second branch that includes a second node connected between a second pull-up switch and a second pull-down switch. The second branch is connected in parallel with the first branch. The charge pump has a voltage equalization circuit to equalize a first voltage at the first node and a second voltage at the second node. A third branch includes a third node that is connected between a third pull-up switch and a third pull-down switch. The third node is connected to the second node. The third pull-up switch and the first pull-up switch are controlled by a common pull-up signal. The third pull-down switch and the first pull-down switch are controlled by a common pull-down signal.

Charge pumps are used for various purposes in Integrated Circuits (ICs). A charge pump may be used to raise or lower voltage (e.g. to provide a DC output that is higher than a DC input), to drive current in a circuit, or for other purposes. ICs that use charge pumps may include ICs used in memory systems.
Many electronic devices make use of memory systems. Often, the memory system includes non-volatile memory such as flash memory. An electronic device that includes a memory system, or is connected to a memory system, is often referred to as a host.
A memory system that includes semiconductor memory may be in communication with a host through an interface. In some cases, more than one data storage device may be in communication with a host system through one or more interfaces. Various standardized interfaces may be used for communication between components including data storage devices and a host system, including Peripheral Component Interface (PCI), PCI express (PCIe), Serial ATA (SATA), Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification (NVMHCIS) or Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), and other interfaces.


A timing adjustment circuit includes a voltage-controlled delay line, a phase detector, a control voltage generation circuit, and a startup circuit. The voltage-controlled delay line receives an input clock signal and generates multi-phase clocks, a delay amount of each of the multi-phase clocks is changed according to a control voltage. The phase detector detects a phase difference between a first clock and a second clock, the first clock is a reference, the second clock is generated from the voltage-controlled delay line. The control voltage generation circuit generates the control voltage on the basis of the detected phase difference. The startup circuit operates for a certain period after activation, and continuously changes the control voltage between a first voltage and a second voltage.

Recently, performances of semiconductor memories (for example, DRAM: Dynamic Random Access Memory), processors, and the like used for computers and other information processing devices are significantly improving. Accordingly, it is preferable to correctly and speedily carry out signal transmission among chips mounted on a board and among a plurality of elements and circuit blocks within a chip.
In view of this, for example, there is a known technique in which: a timing adjustment circuit (for example, DLL circuit: Delay Locked Loop Circuit) is provided on the receiving side; a multi-phase clock is generated by delaying the input clock signal through the DLL circuit; and data is read (determined) at appropriate timing.
On the other hand, there is a known SerDes (SERializer/DESerializer) that interconverts serial data and parallel data at a high-speed interface such as a computer bus, and a DLL circuit is adopted in the SerDes as well.
The DLL circuit has a plurality of cascade-connected delay units so as to control, for example, a phase difference between a signal from a first delay unit (0 degree) and a signal from a second delay unit (360 degree) on latter stage of the first delay unit to become 0.
Then, the DLL circuit generates a plurality of signals with different phases (a multi-phase clock) using signals from the delay units between the first delay unit and the second delay unit. Note that a DLL circuit (a timing adjustment circuit) is not only adopted in SerDes but also widely adopted in a variety of electronic circuits (semiconductor integrated circuit devices).
As described above, the DLL circuit that has a plurality of cascade-connected delay units is adopted, for example, in a variety of electronic circuits such as SerDes. With such electronic circuits that adopt the DLL circuit, there is a possibility that the Phase Frequency Detector (PFD: phase detector) in the DLL circuit malfunctions, for example, upon startup by power application.
In other words, when the frequency of the input signal (an input clock signal) of the DLL circuit becomes higher, the operable range of the PFD is narrowed, thus, for example, the PFD malfunctions upon startup, which possibly makes generation of timing-adjusted output signals difficult.
In this regard, various timing adjustment circuits have been proposed.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-114873
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2006-025131
Patent Document 3: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2011-055482
Non-Patent Document 1: Kwon, Jae-Wook, et al., "A 3.0 Gb/s clock data recovery circuits based on digital DLL for clock-embedded display interface," ESSCIRC (ESSCIRC), 2012 Proceedings of the, IEEE, September 2012

Timing adjustment circuit and semiconductor integrated circuit device


The invention provides a heat-sensitive recording medium comprising (a) a support and (b) a heat-sensitive recording layer formed on the support and comprising a colorless or pale-colored basic dye and a color developing material capable of causing color development upon contact with the dye by heating, which medium is characterized in that the heat-sensitive recording layer contains at least one phosphate compound selected from the group consisting of 2,2'-methylenebis(4,6-di-tert-butylphenyl) phosphate of the general formula (1) shown below and alkali metal, ammonium and polyvalent metal salts thereof: ##STR1## wherein R represents a tert-butyl group.

Heat-sensitive recording media are well known in the art which make use of the reaction between a colorless or pale-colored basic dye and a color developing material and give images upon application of heat which brings the color developing material into contact with the basic dye. Such heat-sensitive recording media have the drawback that record images generally have insufficient storage stability and become faded with the lapse of time. Particularly when heat-sensitive recording media are stored under high humidity and/or high temperature conditions, record images may fade away in a relatively short period of time. Improvement in this respect is earnestly desired.
For improving the storage stability of record images, various heat-sensitive recording media containing a storage stability improving agent or agents have been proposed. However, the improvement in storage stability is generally compromised by newly accompanying drawbacks such as reduced whiteness and adhesion of residual substances to the thermal head. Thus, the results are not invariably satisfactory.