There is disclosed a cleaning liquid for producing a semiconductor device which comprises (A) fluorine-containing compound; (B) water-soluble or water-miscible organic solvent; and (C) inorganic acid and/or organic acid, optionally, further comprises (D) quaternary ammonium salt or (D') a specific organic carboxylic acid ammonium salt and/or an organic carboxylic acid amine salt; as well as a process for producing a semiconductor device by forming a resist pattern on a substrate equipped on the surface with an insulating film layer or a metallic electroconductive layer, forming a via hole or electric wiring by dry etching, removing the resist pattern by ashing treatment with oxygen plasma; and effecting an cleaning treatment with the above cleaning liquid. The above cleaning liquid and production process can readily remove the deposit polymer formed in the case of dry etching without impairing metallic film and insulating film.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cleaning liquid having extremely low corrosiveness to materials such as a metallic film and SOG (Spin On Glass) film and to a process for producing a high quality and highly reliable semiconductor device, said cleaning liquid being suitably used for e.g. removing a deposit polymer formed in the case of dry etching in a semiconductor device production process using silicon, specifically (1) for removing a deposit polymer (deposit protection film) formed and stuck inside or around a via hole (connective hole formed in an insulating film for connecting between a metallic electroconductive film layer formed for wiring in a lower layer of an insulating film and a metallic electroconductive film layer formed in the upper layer of the aforesaid insulating film), which via hole being formed particularly in the insulating layer (interlaminar insulating film); and (2) for removing a deposit polymer formed and stuck to a side wall, etc. after wiring of a metallic electroconductive layer.
2. Description of the Related Arts
In general, lithography has heretofore been adopted in the production of a semiconductor device such as LC and LSI. In the case of producing a semiconductor device by lithography, there are adopted a series of steps of forming an insulating film such as silicon oxide film on a substrate such as a silicon wafer and an electroconductive film such as a metallic film for wiring as electroconduction; uniformly applying a photoresist on the surfaces thereof to provide a photosensitive layer; applying a selective exposure and developing treatment to form a desired resist pattern; subjecting thin films in the lower layer to selective etching treatment using the resist as a mask to form a circuit pattern; and then completely removing the resultant resist pattern.
With recent progress in high integration of semiconductor devices, there is required a pattern formation with an accuracy of a half micron to a quarter micron. Thus, with the progress of such fine processing, the dry etching becomes prevalent in the above-mentioned selective etching treatment and the removal of the resist pattern is carried out increasingly by an ashing treatment with oxygen plasma.
There is known, however, in such a dry etching treatment, the formation of a deposit polymer due to the dry etching gas, resist, processed film and the like in the perimeter of the formed pattern. Such a deposit polymer, when being left inside and around via holes, brings about such unfavorable situations as high electric resistance and short circuit. Accordingly, it is extremely important to remove the deposit polymer in order to obtain a high quality semiconductor device.
The removal of a slight amount of the deposit polymer can be achieved by the combinational use of an ashing treatment and an organic solvent for resist peeling such as an alkaline or acidic solvent. The removal of a large amount thereof can be achieved by a cleaning treatment through the use of a treating liquid containing hydrofluoric acid or containing hydrofluoric acid and ammonium fluoride.
However, such a treatment method by the use of a fluorine compound is useful in the case of using an extremely corrosion resistant insulating film of silicon oxide such as a CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition)-silicon oxide or a thermal silicon oxide and a relatively corrosion resistant metallic film made of tungsten, titainium, an alloy thereof, titanium/tungsten alloy, titanium nitride or the like, as a lower layer film for the insulating film wherein via holes are formed. Nevertheless, the aforesaid treatment method, when applied to an insulating film of SOG silicon oxide or a metallic film made of aluminium or an aluminum-containing alloy, brings about, for example, a connection failure for the metallic film through via holes by the above-mentioned fluorine compound which corrodes and dissolves the insulating film or the metallic film, thereby completely losing electrical reliability.
In the case where aluminum or an aluminum-containing alloy is subjected to dry etching to form metallic wiring, the deposit polymer is formed and stuck to the side wall of a wiring layer. Such polymer is extremely difficult to remove, and besides an acid is formed by the phenomenon in that radicals and ions in a reaction gas that are incorporated into said deposit polymer are left in the air after the end of the etching treatment, and are reacted with the humidified air. Consequently, the wiring materials are corroded thereby, resulting in an increase in electric resistance and wire breakage, thus causing serious adverse influeneces.
As a method for preventing such corrosion of the wiring materials, a method is put into practice for example, in which said radicals and ions are washed away by carrying out a cleaning treatment with ultrapure water for a long time after the dry etching. In this method, however, it is extremely difficult to completely remove the radicals and ions from the deposit polymer formed and stuck to the side walls and there is always a fear of causing corrosion of the wiring materials. It is therefore indispensable to completely remove the deposit polymer for the purpose of exterminating the corrosion.
In addition, it is difficult to remove the deposit polymer formed in the case of a dry etching treatment for the layer of titanium or tungsten. Although such deposit polymer is removable by a cleaning treatment through the use of a treating liquid containing hydrofluoric acid or containing hydrofluoric acid and ammonium fluoride, a metallic layer made of tungsten, titanium, an alloy thereof, titanium/tungsten alloy, titanium nitride or the like has fair corrosion resistance against a fluorine compound, but has not complete corrosion resistance thereagainst, thereby causing a fear that the electrical reliability is lost by pattern peeling and the like. The deposit polymer, when being allowed to remain unremoved, causes adjacent wirings to come into contact therewith by the accumulated pressure of the film in the next step, thus giving rise to a short circuit and an abnormality of wiring.

Cleaning liquid for semiconductor devices


Comfort Maternity Pillow allows pregnant women to rest or sleep in any desirable position at any stage of their pregnancy without disturbing their previous resting habits. The object of this invention comprises a rectangular pillow that has two attached extensions. The detachable pillow extensions are uniquely curved to form an open cavity when placed together. This allows a pregnant female to rest or sleep on her expanding abdomen in prone position. When the above said pillow extensions are pulled away from each other, they function in assisting a pregnant woman who is resting in side position. In this scenerio, one pillow extension supports a woman's back, and another extension, supports her abdomen and legs, when placed between her knees. Comfort Maternity Pillow aides pregnant women with many other positions by means of manipulating the pillow extensions.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the pillow for use by women who are pregnant.
2. Description of Prior Art
There are currently a number of pillows specifically designed for pregnant women to aide in relieving the stress involved in basic activities such as resting and sleeping. Although these devices do fulfill their function in a limited manner, the complexity of their operation disrupts a natural resting or sleeping pattern that the woman is used to. For example, pregnancy devices that use any kind of mechanical apparatus necessary to operate for pose adjustment, such as hand air pumps or buttons for electrical operation (such as inventions with U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,315 issued to Ortman (1991) or U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,147 issued to Supplee (1995) and others in this category), interfere with natural resting or sleeping habits. All of these devices that allow pregnant woman to rest or sleep in any desirable position at any stage of her pregnancy require complicated steps, as described above, for a specific pose adjustment. The devices that demonstrate their simplicity in its operation (such as U.S. patent issued to Gambin (1993) that uses the idea of a hole in a middle of the pillow to assist pregnant women to rest or sleep in prone position or U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,396 issued in 1985, which is an improvement to U.S. Pat. No. 2,562,725, issued in 1951, employs an idea of using connected pillows to support pregnant abdomen in prone position but unable to do its function for the end-stage pregnancy size abdomen) are limited for use to a specific pose or a specific stage of pregnancy.


A method for detecting the occurrence of actual locked axle conditions in a vehicle propelled by AC motors includes the steps of detecting a potential locked axle condition, which may be induced due to a faulty speed sensor; setting the frequency of the inverter which controls operation of the AC motor coupled to the potentially locked axle at a predetermined frequency value; varying the level of electromagnetic flux in the motor; measuring torque produced by the motor; and determining based on the measured torque whether or not the potential locked axle condition is an actual locked axle condition.

The present invention is related generally to detection of locked axle conditions and, in particular, to a method for verifying without a speed sensor the occurrence of an actual locked axle condition in a vehicle propelled by AC motors.
Locomotives used for hauling applications are generally equipped with speed sensors coupled to respective traction motors or to the axles driven by the motors. The speed sensor data or information may be used to detect a locked axle condition. If a locked axle condition occurs on a given axle while the locomotive is moving, the rotational speed of that axle decreases to zero, and all other axles rotate at a speed corresponding to the speed of the locomotive. Thus, a locked axle condition can be detected whenever a substantial difference in speed is sensed in one axle relative to the other axles.
In addition, when a speed sensor fails to supply reliable sensor data, a locked axle condition may be indicated in a system controller since existing controllers are not generally capable of detecting speed sensor failures. When a locked axle condition is indicated, the operator generally has to stop the train and visually inspect the axle or wheels for any discernable damage. If the visual inspection does not reveal any useful information, then the train may have to be rolled slightly to ascertain whether in fact the axle is locked or whether the condition was indicated due to a faulty speed sensor. If the latter is true, then the locomotive can be operated at lower speeds until the speed sensor and/or speed detection system can be repaired. Stopping trains, inspecting axles, and operating at lower speeds involve burdensome delays. Thus, there is a need for a low-cost method which will reliably distinguish between an actual locked axle condition and an erroneously detected axle condition, which may be indicated based on speed sensor failure.

Method for detecting locked-axle conditions without a speed sensor


A contact assembly, in particular for a connector for electrical connection between printed circuit boards, comprising a support of resilient conductive material, an insulation layer disposed on the support and at least one signal conductor disposed on the insulation layer, wherein each signal conductor includes signal contact pads. The support functions as ground conductor. In the insulation layer adjacent the signal contact pad(s) an opening is provided to expose a part of the support as associated ground contact pad.. The contact assemblies are manufactured by attaching a tape of conductive material to a tape of insulation material. A pattern of signal conductors is made from the tape of conductive material by means of a photolithographic process. Openings are formed in the tape of insulation material and said tape of insulation material with its side opposite to the signal conductors is attached on a support tape of resilient conductive material. Finally, contact assemblies with a plurality of signal conductors are punched out of the assembled tape.

The invention relates to a contact assembly, in particular for a connector or the like, comprising a support of resilient conductive material, an insulation layer disposed on the support and at least one signal conductor disposed on the insulation layer, wherein the support functions as ground conductor and wherein each signal conductor includes signal contact pads.
Such a contact assembly is known for example from U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,369. Contact assemblies of this type are used in systems in which digital signals are transmitted at high speed, i.e. a low rise time, so that the electrical performance of the contact as circuit element is of high importance. By using these contact assemblies the signal conductors with the support functioning as ground conductor form transmission lines so that the signal conductors can be designed with a predetermined impedance.
In the contact assembly according to U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,369 a hole plated with a conductive material is made in the insulation layer to obtain a connection of the support at the side of the signal conductors whereby the manufacturing of the contact assembly becomes more complicated and thus costly.


Methods and apparatuses for assembling elements onto a substrate. The surfaces of the elements and/or the substrate are treated and the elements are dispensed over the substrate in a slurry. In one example of the invention, the substrate is exposed to a surface treatment fluid to create a surface on the substrate which has a selected one of a hydrophilic or a hydrophobic nature, and a slurry is dispensed over the substrate. The slurry includes a fluid and a plurality of elements (each of which includes a functional component). Each of the plurality of elements is designed to be received by a receptor region on the substrate. The dispensing of the slurry with the fluid occurs after the substrate is exposed to the surface treatment fluid, and the fluid is the selected one of a hydrophilic or a hydrophobic nature. In another example of the invention, a plurality of elements is exposed to a surface treatment fluid to create surfaces on the elements having a selected one of a hydrophilic or a hydrophobic nature. A slurry is dispensed over a substrate, wherein the slurry contains a fluid and the plurality of elements which are designed to be received by a plurality of receptor regions. The fluid is the selected one of a hydrophilic or hydrophobic nature. In another example of an aspect of the invention, a surfactant is used with a slurry having elements which are deposited onto receptor regions in a fluidic self assembly process. Other examples of methods are also described.

There are many examples of large arrays of functional components which can provide, produce or detect electromagnetic signals or chemicals or other characteristics. An example of such a large array is that of a display where many pixels or sub-pixels are formed on an array of electronic elements. For example, an active matrix liquid crystal display includes an array of many pixels or sub-pixels which are fabricated on amorphous silicon or polysilicon substrates which are large. As is well known in the art, it is difficult to produce a completely flawless active matrix liquid crystal display (LCD), when the display area is large, such as the LCD's on modern laptop computers. As the display area gets larger and larger, the yield of good displays decreases. This is due to the manner in which these display devices are fabricated.
Silicon VLSI can be used to produce such an array over a silicon wafer's surface, but silicon wafers are limited in size, limited in conductivity, and not transparent. Further, processing of large areas on silicon wafers can be expensive. Displays which valve the light coming through them need to be transparent. Single crystal silicon can be bonded to a glass substrate and then etched to remove most of the area to achieve transparency, but this is intrinsically wasteful in that, for the sake of maximizing light transmission, the majority of the processed material is discarded and becomes chemical waste. The under-utilization of the precious die area wastes resources, causes greater amounts of chemical waste to be generated in the process, and is generally inefficient and expensive. Another example is photodiode arrays which may be used to collect solar energy. Large arrays of silicon photodiodes with concentrating lenses have been made by sawing wafers and using a pick and place assembly, but thermal dissipation is poor for large elements, and the small elements require too much assembly time.
Alternative approaches to fabricating arrays such as displays include fabricating the desired circuitry in an amorphous or polycrystalline semiconductor layer which has been deposited on a substrate, such as glass or quartz. These approaches avoid the limitations of the size of the available single crystal silicon wafers, and avoid the cost of the single crystal wafers, but require expensive deposition of the semiconductor layer, and they still require processing of the entire large substrate to form the active elements in an array, still resulting in the production of much chemical waste and wasted resources. These processes also limit the choice of the substrate; for example, plastic substrates cannot be used due to the nature of the processes which deposit the semiconductor layers. Furthermore, amorphous or polycrystalline silicon semiconductor elements do not perform as well as those made from single crystal semiconductor material. For displays, as an example, it is often difficult or impossible to form some of the desired circuitry out of the amorphous or polycrystalline semiconductor materials. Thus, high frequency edge drivers may be impossible to form out of these materials. This results in the difficulty and expense of attaching an electrical lead for each and every row and column of an array, such as an active matrix liquid crystal display array.
As noted above, another difficulty with the existing techniques is that the large number of elements in a large array results in a low probability that all of them will work properly and thus the yield of acceptably good arrays from the manufacturing process is low. Furthermore, there is no possibility of testing any of the elements until the assembly is complete, and then any imperfection in the array must be tolerated or the entire array could be discarded or special and expensive techniques must be used to repair it. These problems result from the fact that the various elements in the array are fabricated on the array rather than separately.
It is possible to separately produce elements, such as pixel drivers and then place them where desired on a different and perhaps larger substrate. Prior techniques can be generally divided into two types: deterministic methods or random methods. Deterministic methods, such as pick and place, use a human or robot arm to pick each element and place it into its corresponding location in a different substrate. Pick and place methods place devices generally one at a time, and are generally not applicable to very small or numerous elements such as those needed for large arrays, such as an active matrix liquid crystal display. Random placement techniques are more effective and result in high yields if the elements to be placed have the right shape. U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,291 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,904,545 describe methods which use random placement. In this method, microstructures are assembled onto a different substrate through fluid transport. This is sometimes referred to as fluidic self assembly (FSA). Using this technique, various blocks, each containing a functional component, may be fabricated on one substrate and then separated from that substrate and assembled onto a separate substrate through the fluidic self assembly process. The process involves combining blocks with a fluid and dispensing the fluid and blocks over the surface of a receiving substrate which has receptor regions (e.g. openings). The blocks flow in the fluid over the surface and randomly align onto receptor regions.
Thus the process which uses fluidic self assembly typically requires forming openings in a substrate in order to receive the elements or blocks. Methods are known in the prior art for forming such openings and are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,291. The substrate having openings in the glass layer 10 may be used as a receiving substrate to receive a plurality of elements by using a fluidic self assembly method. FIG. 1A shows an example where a separately fabricated element 16 has properly assembled into the opening 14. However, it has been discovered that at times, an element 16 will not properly assemble into an opening 14 due to the fact that the element 16 becomes turned upside down and then lodges in the top of the opening 14. An example of this situation is shown in FIG. 1B. Often times, the inverted element 16 lodges into the opening 14 so tightly that it remains in the opening and prevents non-inverted elements from falling into the opening 14. Thus, the opening at the end of the assembly process will typically not be filled with an element or perhaps worse, may still contain an inverted element lodged at the top of the opening 14.
FIGS. 2A through 2D show an example in the prior art for creating a plurality of openings in a receiving substrate which is designed to receive a plurality of separately fabricated elements which are deposited into the openings through fluidic self assembly. The method shown in FIGS. 2A through 2D begins by, in one example, thermally growing a silicon dioxide layer on a silicon substrate 20. The resulting structure is shown in FIG. 2A with the silicon dioxide layer disposed over the silicon substrate 20. Then, a photoresist material may be applied, and exposed through a lithographic mask and then developed to produce a patterned mask formed from the developed photoresist. Then an etching solution is applied to etch through the patterned mask to create an opening 24 in the silicon dioxide layer 22. The resulting structure is shown in FIG. 2B. Then, the silicon dioxide layer 22 with its opening 24 is then used as a patterned mask to etch the silicon layer 22 to create the opening 26 in the silicon layer 20 as shown in FIG. 2C. This etching of the silicon layer 20 may be performed with a KOH etchant or with an EDP etchant as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,291. After etching the opening 26 in the silicon layer 20, the silicon dioxide layer 22 is removed, for example, by an etch in a hydrofluoric acid solution. This results in the structure shown in FIG. 2D where the opening 26 is now ready to receive a separately fabricated element through an assembly process, such as for example, fluidic self assembly or perhaps a pick and place procedure. The structure shown in FIG. 2D has the drawback that a monocrystalline silicon layer is required in order to use the KOH etch to form the hole.
Even if the opening is perfectly formed, the fluidic self assembly process can still produce poor results if the elements do not flow smoothly over the surface containing the openings. For example, if there is too much friction between the elements and the surface, the elements tend to stick to the surface and do not flow into receptor regions. Thus, receptor regions are not filled or take longer to fill. If the elements remain stuck to the surface during planarization and interconnect metallization, the completion of an assembly with these stuck elements will potentially destroy metal electrical interconnects or other functional features.
From the foregoing discussion, it can be seen that it is desirable to provide methods for allowing improved fluidic self assembly.


A reinforced, laminated ceramic cutting tool has a core layer and at least two outer layers. The core layer and the outer layers, either alone or in combination, contain a reinforcement consisting of reinforcement particles, reinforcement whiskers or reinforcement platelets. When whiskers are used, the bulk of the whiskers are arranged so that a longitudinal dimension of each whisker is aligned substantially perpendicular to a flank face on the cutting tool. Likewise, when reinforcement platelets are used, the bulk of the platelets are oriented so that a basal plane of each platelet is in a plane substantially perpendicular to the flank face. Each outer layer has residual stresses in directions perpendicular to and parallel to the flank face, and each outer layer has the same thickness, composition and residual stresses as the other outer layer. Processes for making a laminated ceramic cutting tool, and products of those processes, are also disclosed.

A. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to cutting tools for machining operations and, more particularly, a method and composition for laminated ceramic cutting tools.
B. Description of the Prior Art
Metal cutting or "machining" is a widely used process in manufacturing. Among the common machining operations are shaping, planing, milling, facing, broaching, grinding, sawing, turning, boring, drilling, and reaming. Some of these processes, such as sawing, operate on both the external and internal surfaces of the workpiece, while others operate only on the internal (for example, reaming) or external (for example, milling) surfaces of the workpiece.
A wide variety of materials have been used or suggested as cutting tools, such as tool steels, high-speed steels, cast non-ferrous alloys, sintered carbides, diamonds and ceramics. The commonly measured parameters of cutting tool performance are cutting speed, depth of cut, feed rate, and tool life. Each of the prior art cutting tool materials is deficient in one or more of these parameters. Cutting tools made from tool steel, high-speed steel and cast non-ferrous alloys all have critical temperature limitations which restrict their cutting speed to relatively low rates, as measured in feet per minute (fpm). Typically, high-speed steels are restricted to 100-225 fpm for cutting steel and 250-300 fpm for cutting non-ferrous materials. The cast non-ferrous alloys will operate at up to about twice those rates. The carbide materials, such as tungsten carbide, improve on the cutting speed rates of the steels by a factor of 2-5, particularly when the carbides are coated. However, the carbides are not as tough as the steels and are susceptible to impact breakage. This severely limits their usage in applications where impact is a factor, such as in making interrupted cuts or in machining hard workpieces.
Ceramic cutting tools were first used around 1905 and have been gaining increasing acceptance in the United States since the 1950's. Ceramic materials, such as aluminum oxide (Al.sub.2 O.sub.3) , also known as "alumina", have been found to produce cutting tools which can operate at much higher speeds than the conventional steel and carbide cutting tools. There has been a trend to substitute ceramic-based cutting tools for metal cutting tools in the machine tool industry. Ceramic and ceramic composite compositions most often used for cutting tool applications include alumina, silicon nitride (Si.sub.3 N.sub.4), silicon nitride based ceramics in which aluminum is partially substituted for silicon and oxygen is partially substituted for nitrogen (the so-called "sialons") and aluminum oxide composite with titanium carbide (Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 /TiC).
Ceramics possess many but not all of the desirable properties required for cutting tools and have some of the characteristics necessary to counteract the principal causes of wear on cutting tools. The principal advantages of ceramic cutting tools are hardness, stiffness, high temperature strength, and chemical stability at elevated temperatures. Chemical stability is particularly important in minimizing the creation of craters on the top surface of the cutting tool, known as the rake face. High temperature strength is desirable during extended cutting operations. The main limitations of ceramics for cutting tools is their low tensile strength, low fracture toughness, and low impact resistance and thermal shock resistance. These property limitations make ceramic cutting tools of the prior art prone to premature failure by chipping, cracking or edge failure.
Reinforced ceramic cutting tools have recently been developed to improve on the cutting speed and life of the ceramic cutting tool. U.S. Pat. No. 4,961,757 to Rhodes et al. describes a reinforced ceramic cutting tool wherein the tool is comprised of a ceramic matrix reinforced by ceramic whiskers. The ceramic matrix is alumina or silicon nitride, and the whiskers are preferably silicon carbide. In tools according to the Rhodes et al. patent, silicon carbide whiskers are directly blended with the ceramic matrix and the mixture is hot pressed into cutting tools. A problem with this method and composition for ceramic cutting tools is that it provides very little control over the distribution and orientation of the reinforcements in the final tool body. The reinforcements are present throughout the entire thickness of the tool, and they have a substantially random orientation in the plane normal to the pressing direction and a partially random orientation in the through-thickness direction.
Another significant limitation to the method and composition of the reinforced ceramic cutting tools set forth in Rhodes et al. is the cost of reinforcements such as silicon carbide whiskers. Whiskers cost ten times that of the common matrix materials (for example, aluminum oxide). Hence, cost-effective manufacturing methods and material designs that make efficient use of the reinforcements, their distribution and orientation, are required. Cutting tools purportedly pursuant to the Rhodes et al. patent are commercially available under the designation "WG-300", as marketed by Greenleaf Corp., Saegertown, Pa.
The inventor has published articles generally discussing the properties of laminated ceramic composites and the reinforcement of these composites. See Amateau, "Properties of Laminated Ceramic Composites", record of proceedings for the 37th Sagamore Army Materials Research Conference, held Oct. 1-4, 1990, pp. 327-338; Kragness, Amateau and Messing, "Processing and Characterization of Laminated SiC Whisker Reinforced Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 ", Journal of Composite Materials, Vol. 25, p. 416 (April 1991); Kim, Amateau and Messing, "Residual Stresses in SiC Whisker-Mullite Laminated Composites", Ceramic Transactions, Vol. 19, p. 677 (1991); and Wu, Messing and Amateau, "Laminate Processing and Properties of Oriented SiC Whisker-Reinforced Composites", Ceramic Transactions, Vol. 19, p. 665 (1991). However, none of these publications teaches or suggests the use of reinforced laminated ceramic composites for cutting tool applications.
As recognized at column 3, lines 35-40 of the Rhodes et al. patent, the critical and unique combination of operating stress, temperature and impact makes the determination of materials suitable for use as cutting tools significantly different from the determination of materials for other industrial articles, such as heat exchangers, gears, refractories, heat engines and armor.
Finally, in Amateau and Messing, "Laminates, Ceramic", International Encyclopedia of Composites, Vol. 3, VCH, New York, pp. 11-16 (1990), the inventor pointed out that ceramic composites have been used in cutting tool bits and stated that laminated composite designs would permit economical use of the high-cost reinforcement phases as well as improving fracture strength and impact resistance. However, this article made no mention of any particular designs or processes for making laminated ceramic cutting tools. The inventor is aware of no specific teaching or suggestion in the literature of the art, or in commercial applications, for using a laminated, reinforced ceramic, wherein the thickness, composition and arrangement of the lamina and the orientation of the reinforcements is controlled to maximize the use of the expensive reinforcement materials and to improve properties which are important to cutting tools. The marked improvement in cutting tool performance realized when using properly reinforced laminated ceramic cutting tools, in light of the dearth of information in the literature or in practical applications in this regard, indicates that it would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the method and device for laminated ceramic tools as hereinbelow described and claimed.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a reinforced laminated ceramic cutting tool and a method of manufacturing the same wherein the distribution and orientation of reinforcements in the tool body is controlled so that the cost of the reinforcements is minimized while the enhancement of the properties of the cutting tool is maximized. It is a further object to provide a laminated ceramic cutting tool wherein the thickness, composition and arrangement of the lamina are selected to improve properties which are important to cutting tools. It is a still further object to increase tensile strength, fracture toughness, impact resistance and thermal shock resistance, as well as resistance to chemical wear, for ceramic cutting tools. Finally, it is an object to provide a method and device for laminated ceramic cutting tools wherein the tool exhibits greatly reduced wear per unit time when compared to prior art reinforced ceramic composite cutting tools.


Provided are a method for manufacturing a SiC single crystal having high crystal quality and, in particular, extremely low screw dislocation density and a SiC single crystal ingot obtained by the method. In particular, provided is a silicon carbide single crystal substrate that is a substrate cut from a bulk silicon carbide single crystal grown by the Physical Vapior Transport (PVT) method, in which the screw dislocation density is smaller in the peripheral region than in the center region, so that screw dislocations are partially reduced.

Silicon carbide (SiC) is a wide band gap semiconductor having a wide band gap of 2.2 to 3.3 eV. Due to excellent physical and chemical characteristics thereof, SiC as a semiconductor material having environmental resistance is under research and development. In recent years, SiC has been used as a material for optical devices using the short wavelength range of from blue light to ultraviolet light, high frequency electronic devices, high voltage and high power electronic devices, and the like, and research and development for manufacturing SiC devices (semiconductor elements) have been vigorous.
In the advancement of practical applications of SiC devices, it is essential to manufacture SiC single crystals having a large diameter. In many cases, growing a bulk SiC single crystal by the PVT method has been employed (Lely Method or modified Lely Method). Specifically, a SiC sublimation raw material is contained in a crucible, then, a seed crystal composed of a SiC single crystal is attached to the lid of the crucible, and the raw material is sublimated, whereby recrystallization causes the SiC single crystal to grow on the seed crystal. Then, a SiC bulk single crystal (a SiC single crystal ingot) having a substantially cylindrical shape is obtained and then cut to a thickness of, in general, approximately 300 to 600 μm to manufacture a SiC single crystal substrate, which is used to form SiC devices in electric and electronic fields and the like.
A SiC single crystal contains hollow-core defects passing through in a growing direction, which are called micropipes, as well as crystal defects such as dislocation defects and stacking faults. These crystal defects deteriorate device performance. Therefore, the reduction of such defects is an important issue in applications for SiC devices.
Among them, dislocation defects include threading edge dislocations, basal plane dislocations, and screw dislocations. For example, it has been reported that commercially available SiC single crystal substrates have approximately 8×102 to 3×103 (/cm2) of screw dislocations, 5×103 to 2×104 (/cm2) of threading edge dislocations, and 2×103 to 2×104 (/cm2) of basal plane dislocations (see Non-Patent Literature 1).
In recent years, research and investigation relating to crystal defects of SiC and device performance has advanced and influences of the various defects are becoming clear. Among them, there are reports including leakage current in devices and decreased life of gate oxide film due to screw dislocations (see Non-Patent Literature 2 and 3). In order to form a high performance SiC device, at least, a SiC single crystal substrate having less screw dislocations is needed.
In addition, regarding the reduction of screw dislocations in a SiC single crystal, for example, there is a case reported in which the number of screw dislocations has been reduced to 67 (/cm2) by metastable solvent epitaxy (MSE method) (Non-Patent Literature 4). Additionally, another report describes that screw dislocations are dissociated into Frank-type stacking faults during epitaxial growth by chemical vapor deposition method (CVD method) (see Non-Patent Literature 5). However, in both of these methods, the growth rate of the SiC single crystal is several micrometers per hour, which is 1/10 or less of the growth rate of an ordinary SiC single crystal in the PVT method. Thus, it is difficult to employ the methods as industrial production methods.
On the other hand, regarding the PVT method, there has been reported a method of obtaining a SiC single crystal having less micropipes and screw dislocations by growing a SiC single crystal as an initially grown layer at a predetermined growth pressure and a predetermined substrate temperature and then performing crystal growth while gradually decreasing the substrate temperature and the pressure (see Patent Literature 1). However, the screw dislocation density of the SiC single crystal obtained by this method is 103 to cm2 104 (/cm2) (see the section of "Advantageous Effects" in the specification of Patent Literature 1). Considering applications to high performance SiC devices, further reduction of screw dislocations is necessary.
In addition, there has been reported a method for suppressing the occurrence of micropipes and reducing dislocation density of screw dislocations and the like by growing a SiC single crystal as an initially grown layer at a predetermined growth pressure and a predetermined substrate temperature and then growing the crystal by reducing the pressure to increase growth rate while maintaining the substrate temperate as it is (see Patent Literature 2). However, even with this method, the effect of reducing screw dislocations is insufficient.
Additionally, in the PVT method, besides a screw dislocation having a Burgers vector of <0001>, a threading mixed dislocation is reported to have been generated from a threading edge dislocation with a Burgers vector of ⅓<11-20>(0001) propagating in the basal plane (see Non-Patent Literature 6). However, the phenomenon accidentally occurs during crystal growth, and there is no reported case in which it was controlled, as far as the present inventors know.

Silicon carbide single crystal wafer and manufacturing method for same

Abstract: The method is a method for manufacturing a SiC single crystal by the PVT method using a seed crystal and the ingot is a SiC single crystal ingot obtained by the method. Particularly, the silicon carbide single crystal substrate is a silicon carbide single crystal substrate in which when, by representing the diameter of the substrate as R, a center circle region having a diameter of 0.5×R centered around a center point O of the substrate and a doughnut-shaped peripheral region remaining by excluding the center circle region are defined, the average value of screw dislocation densities observed in the doughnut-shaped peripheral region is 80% or less of the average value of screw dislocation densities observed in the center circle region.

NIPPON STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL CORPORATION


A method for fabricating MOS transistors comprises the steps of forming a polysilicon layer, having an underlying gate oxide layer on the major surface of a silicon substrate, providing a mask to cover a predetermined portion except the portion for an N-type polysilicon layer to be formed, doping the polysilicon layer uncovered by the first mask with N-type ions, providing a second mask to cover a predetermined portion except the portion for a P-type polysilicon layer to be formed, doping the polysilicon layer uncovered by the second mask with boron ions, subjecting the polysilicon layer to a patterning process to define gate electrodes of an NMOS and PMOS transistors, providing a third mask to cover a predetermined portion except the portion for an NMOS transistor to be formed, doping N-type ions into substrate portion for the NMOS transistor to be formed using the third mask and the gate electrodes as a mask to thereby form a source and a drain of the NMOS transistor, forming a silicon oxide layer over each of the gate electrodes, providing a fourth mask to cover a predetermined portion except the portion for a PMOS transistor to be formed, and doping BF.sub.2 ions into substrate portion for PMOS transistors to be formed using the fourth mask and gate electrodes overlaid by the silicon oxide layer as a mask, to thereby form source and drain regions of the PMOS transistors.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a method for fabricating MOS transistors and more particularly, to a method for fabricating low threshold voltage N-channel and P-channel MOS, and CMOS transistors in integrated circuits.
2. Description of the Related Art
Among numerous silicon MOS transistors, CMOS devices formed by the combination of PMOS and NMOS transistors are widely used in view of the low quiescent power consumption and high integration density features.
As the demand for low power consumption has increased, lower supply voltages have become more requisite for CMOS devices. This necessitates that the MOS transistors be operated at lower threshold voltages and this gives rise to the problem such as the increase in power consumption caused by subthreshold leakage currents and the short channel effects.
In the conventional MOS process, a CMOS device is fabricated with gate electrodes of N conductivity type (N-type) polysilicon. However, since a PMOS transistor of the CMOS device is generally designed to be of the buried channel type to facilitate the control threshold voltages, relatively large short channel effects and subthreshold currents are induced in the PMOS transistor because of the buried channel structure.
By contrast, when a gate electrode of the PMOS transistor is composed of P-type polysilicon, the short channel effect can be suppressed since the PMOS may be operated as a surface channel type MOS transistor.
Although either boron (B) or boron difluoride (BF.sub.2) may be used as dopants for forming the P-type polysilicon electrode, boron has been used conventionally for the following reasons: The decrease in threshold voltages and device reliability of the PMOS have been found. This is considered to be due to the B penetration into a channel region through a gate oxide layer which is caused by the difference in the amount of B segregation affected by fluorine at the interface between silicon (i.e., channel region) and silicon oxide (gate oxide layer). Therefore, the B dopants have been used conventionally for gate electrode doping. In addition, this B doping has been carried out simultaneously to the source and drain regions of PMOS transistors as well.
However, by this B doping method to the source and drain regions, the formation of shallow junctions in the source and drain regions is difficult, as aforementioned, which is disadvantageous to the device miniaturization. Furthermore, although this B doping is preferred for the fabrication of high withstand voltage MOS transistors, its allowable range in doping concentration is rather limited and can not be decreased enough due to the induction of the carrier depletion in polysilicon gate regions.
Referring to FIGS. 7A through 7D, there are described prior art process steps for fabricating low threshold voltage MOS transistors.
There are formed P-well and N-well regions 2 and 12 on a silicon substrate 1 in the regions 16, 17 and 18 where NMOS and PMOS transistors are to be formed, respectively, as shown in FIG. 7A.
A field oxide layer 4 of silicon oxide for isolation is then formed on a main surface of the well regions by the conventional local oxidation of silicon (LOCOS) process, in which openings for the NMOS and PMOS regions are defined using an oxidation mask film (not shown). Thereafter, a gate oxide layer 3 is formed, wherein channel doping is carried out so as to control threshold voltages of each MOS transistor.
Subsequently, a layer of polysilicon 5 for forming gate electrodes is disposed on the gate oxide layer 3. Since this polysilicon layer is also utilized as a resistor for an analogue circuit which will be described hereinbelow, the entire surface of the polysilicon layer 5 is doped with appropriate impurity ions so that predetermined values of resistivity can be obtained. This doping is usually carried out by implanting phosphorus (P) ions to facilitate the feasibility of the predetermined values.
As illustrated in FIG. 7B, a first mask 6 is provided over both the resistor and the region where a PMOS transistor 18 is to be formed. Subsequently, to dope the area of the polysilicon layer exposed by the first mask 6, a doping step is carried out with a high concentration of P ions either by ion implant or thermal diffusion process at from 900.degree. to 1000.degree. C. As the mask 6, a photoresist layer is conventionally used for the ion implant, while a silicon oxide layer is used for the thermal diffusion process. By this heavy P doping, the exposed portion of the polysilicon layer 5 turns to an N.sup.+ polysilicon layer 7.
By subjecting the polysilicon layers 5 and 7 to a patterning process using the conventional photolithography technology, a gate electrode 7a of NMOS transistor 16, gate electrodes 7b and 5 of PMOS transistors, and a resistor layer 5 are defined, as shown in FIG. 7C. Subsequently, a second mask 10 is provided to cover a predetermined portion except for the NMOS transistor 16 to be formed, and a high concentration of N-type impurities are doped to form source and drain regions 14 and 14 of the NMOS transistor 16.
Referring to FIG. 7D, a third mask 11 is provided to cover a predetermined portion except for the PMOS transistors 17 and 18 to be formed, and a high concentration of P-type boron impurities are doped to form source and drain regions 15 and 15 of the PMOS transistors 17 and 18, and the gate electrode 9 of PMOS 18.
To proceed with the miniaturization of the MOS transistor devices, the reduction in short channel effects is quite important. This may be carried out effectively by forming relatively shallow junctions for source and drain regions.
It has been known that although the source and drain regions may generally be formed for PMOS transistors by doping either B ions or BF.sub.2 ions, the latter ions are preferred for forming shallow junction regions and resulting in greater reduction in the short channel effects.
As described earlier, however, in the prior art ion implant process which has been carried out simultaneously into source and drain regions 15 and 15 and gate electrode 9, BF.sub.2 ions may not be selected for this ion implanting step for the following reasons:
When BF.sub.2 ions are used for a heavy doping into a gate electrode region, this doping is known to give rise to (1) a reduction of threshold voltages caused by B ions which reach even to a channel region by the enhanced diffusion effect assisted by the presence of F ions, and (2) the reduced reliability of a gate electrode 3 caused by a relatively large amount of B ions diffused into the gate electrode.
Accordingly, BF.sub.2 ions can not be used for this doping step, and it has been difficult to form shallow source and drain regions 15 and 15 on the surface of the semiconductor substrate, thereby resulting in an unwanted increase in the short channel effects.
In addition, to fabricate a PMOS transistor having a withstand voltage on the order of 10 V, in general, the impurity concentration in the drain region has to be lowered, since a withstand voltage is primarily determined by the breakdown voltage caused by the field concentration at the edge of the drain.
However, the above-mentioned lowering of the impurity concentration gives rise to another problem for the PMOS device, in that, by the use of a P.sup.+ polysilicon layer for the gate electrode of the PMOS device, the carrier depletion in the gate region is induced with relative ease by the lowered concentration.
In other words, this problem of the PMOS device arises when the impurity concentration is lowered in the interface region between P.sup.+ polysilicon layer and gate oxide layer for the gate electrode, due to the following factors: (1) The carrier depletion is induced at the gate oxide side of the polysilicon layer, and (2) this results in an insufficient channel formation because of the unduly reduced electric field at the polysilicon (gate) electrode, thereby resulting in a decrease in transconductance (gm) of the PMOS transistor.
This problem may be obviated by optimizing the conditions for fabricating MOS transistors, such as concentration and distribution of the impurities, and the conditions may vary depending on, among others, the thickness of the polysilicon layer. For the polysilicon layer thickness of about from 300 to 400 nm, for example, the appropriate conditions may preferably be achieved by carrying out an implant with ions of a concentration of approximately from 2.times.10.sup.15 to 3.times.10.sup.15 cm.sup.-2 and a thermal annealing at temperatures approximately from 850.degree. to 900.degree. C. These conditions are chosen such that the implanted ions will not penetrate through the gate oxide layer.
However, these conditions have not been achieved by prior process steps as described earlier. Therefore, the impurity concentration at the drain edge has not been optimized, and withstand voltages high enough for practical use have not been achieved for the MOS transistors.

Method for fabricating CMOS transistors by implanting into polysilicon


A method of detecting a junction between a lesion and a wall in a CT scan image may include determining the boundary (B) of the wall to an internal space (L), identifying critical points (c1, c2) along the boundary, and selecting one critical point at either side of the lesion as a junction point between the wall and the lesion. The critical points may be points of maximum local curvature and/or points of transition between straight and curved sections of the boundary. The critical points may be selected by receiving first and second seed points (p1, p2) at either side of the lesion, moving the seed points to the boundary if they are not already located on the boundary, and finding the closest critical points to the seed points. The seed points may be determined by displacing the determined junction points (j1, j2) from an adjacent slice of the image into the current slice.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of detecting the junction of a lesion and a wall, such as a lung nodule attached to pleura or a polyp attached to a colon wall, in an image scanned from a human or animal body, particularly but not exclusively in a computed tomography (CT) image. The invention encompasses software and apparatus for carrying out the method.
2. Background Art
Detection of suspicious lesions in the early stages of cancer can be considered the most effective way to improve survival. Lung nodule detection and polyp detection are some of the more challenging tasks in medical imaging.
Computer-assisted techniques have been proposed to identify regions of interest containing a nodule in a CT scan image, to segment the nodule from surrounding objects such as blood vessels or the lung wall, to calculate physical characteristics of the nodule, and/or to provide an automated diagnosis of the nodule, to provide some examples. Fully automated techniques perform all of these steps without intervention by a radiologist, but one or more of these steps may require input from the radiologist, in which case the method may be described as semi-automated.
Detection of the size or extent of a lesion is important for accurate diagnosis, but it is difficult to detect the extent of a lung nodule attached to the pleura, or to separate a nodule from the pleura, because of their similar intensity in CT scans. Likewise, it is difficult to detect the boundary between a polyp and the colon wall.
Patent publications US-A-2003/0099384 to Zeng et al., filed Sep. 30, 2002, and US-A-2003/0099389 to Zeng et al., filed Nov. 23, 2001, describe methods of detecting pleural nodules using morphological closing for small nodules, and a deformable surface model for nodules larger than the structural element used for morphological closing.
Patent publication WO 03/010102 and the article 'Lung Nodule Detection on Thoracic Computed Tomography Images: Preliminary Evaluation of a Computer-aided Diagnostic System', Gurcan M et. al., Med. Phys. 29 (11), November 2002, pp. 2552-2558, describe a method of detecting pleural nodules using a local indentation search next to the lung pleura by finding a pair of points on a closed contour along the boundary of the lung where the ratio of the distance between the points along the boundary is greater than the straight line distance between the two points by more than a predetermined threshold.


A mechanism for performing routing in a communication system including a radio access network and a plurality of core networks connected to the radio access network. In order to accomplish a mechanism whereby the routing of a registration request to a serving core network, and also the rejection of a registration request, can be carried out in a controlled manner, a core network is first selected for a registration request received. The registration request is then forwarded to the selected core network and, in response to at least one predetermined criterion being fulfilled, the selected core network is notified that the registration request is to be served by that core network, i.e. that the registration request cannot be rerouted to another core network.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to a communication system where a plurality of Core Networks (CNs) shares a common Radio Access Network (RAN). More specifically, the invention relates to a routing procedure in a system of the above-mentioned type. Since the Core Networks are typically operated by different operators, the system is termed a Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) in this context. Routing here refers generally to a process during which the RAN, in response to an initial message originated from a user terminal, selects a Core Network for the user terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
The high price of the licenses for 3rd generation mobile telephone networks (3G) together with the high cost of the 3rd generation network infrastructure deployment requires innovative strategies in the development of the new network infrastructure. For a network operator, an effective way to reduce the investment costs and risks associated with this development is to share the new network infrastructure with other network operators. In many countries the authorities have become favorable for network sharing and allow network operators to form alliances in order to share a part of a network or even the whole network, provided that competition is not hampered.
In the current dynamic market place this development will increasingly result in partnerships and creative agreements between operators. This trend will also emphasize the need for tools that enable the implementation of various degrees of network sharing.
One way of sharing a network infrastructure is a solution where several operators share a common Radio Access Network. In a network like this, a common Radio Access Network is connected to several Core Networks, each being operated by a different operator. This concept is called a Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN). Despite several operators, the user may, depending on his/her terminal capabilities, see the network as a single network, the identity of which is broadcast by the Radio Access Network.
From the point of view of an operator, the advantages of a MOCN infrastructure are, for example, as follows:
the MOCN allows independent dimensioning of the Core Networks;
the charging entities are located in the Core Network of each operator; and
the MOCN allows complete control of the services provided and also a good control of the quality of service.
In a MOCN network, the Radio Access Network forwards an initial message originating from a user to one of the Core Networks. If the Core Network receiving the initial message from the Radio Access Network cannot serve the user in question, it informs the Radio Access Network accordingly, which then reroutes the initial message to another Core Network to see whether the user can be served by that Core Network.
One problem with the current MOCN networks relates to the rejection of service in a situation in which none of the Core Networks (i.e. operators) are able to provide service to a particular subscriber. In this situation, the last Core Network to which the initial message, which is a NAS (non-access stratum) message, is rerouted, does not know that the message has already been routed to all the other Core Networks of the MOCN and that the other networks are not able to serve the subscriber. Therefore, it is possible that the last Core Network initiates a new rerouting procedure, although no serving Core Network can be found. As there is currently no mechanism for handling these kinds of situations in the Radio Access Network, the Radio Access Network may alternately, upon receiving the service rejection from the last Core Network, release the signaling connection to the user terminal, without properly indicating the reason for the release. Therefore, the user terminal may, after entering the Mobility Management-Idle (MM-IDLE) or Packet Mobility Management-Idle (PMM-IDLE) state, start the whole procedure again.
The above problem typically exists when the subscriber tries to register with the network. The initial message originating from the terminal is therefore also termed a "registration request" in this context.
It is an objective of the invention to bring about a solution whereby it is possible to avoid the above-mentioned drawbacks.

Routing procedure for a communication system


A method for controlling a transfer bias in an image forming apparatus using an electrophotographic process to prevent front and rear ends of a paper from being contaminated by inversely charged toner. The image forming apparatus applies a second positive bias voltage having the intermediate level between a transfer voltage and a first positive bias voltage for cleaning the inversely charged toner with respect to the front and rear ends of the paper. In this manner, it is possible to prevent an electric shock on the photosensitive drum due to an abrupt voltage difference between the transfer voltage and the first positive bias voltage.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus using an electrophotographic process, and in particular, to a method for controlling a transfer bias of a transfer roller which transfers toner image from a photosensitive drum to a paper.
2. Related Art
An electrophotographic process is widely employed for an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a laser beam printer (LBP), a facsimile machine, etc. The electrophotographic process commonly consists of the successive steps of charging.fwdarw.exposing.fwdarw.developing.fwdarw.transferring.fwdarw.fixi ng. First, a photosensitive drum is uniformly charged to a predetermined potential, and the charged portion of the photosensitive drum is exposed to a light image of an original document being reproduced. This creates an electrostatic latent image corresponding to the document image on the photosensitive drum. After the electrostatic latent image is formed on the photosensitive drum, the latent image is developed by applying toner particles from a developing unit into contact with the latent image formed on the photosensitive drum. This forms a toner image of the original document on the photosensitive drum which is subsequently transferred and fixed on a recording medium. When a toner image is fixed on a recording medium, the toner image is first heated and fused onto the recording medium, and then naturally cooled so that it is fixed onto the recording medium.
Generally, as a unit for charging the surface of the photosensitive drum, a contact-type charging roller is used to produce an uniform electric field in response to application of high voltage for charging the surface of the photosensitive drum to a constant potential to attract toner particles and thereby form the latent image on the photosensitive drum. Typically, a charging unit is charged at the start of a printing operation. The surface of the photosensitive drum is charged and a developing unit is concurrently charged by way of the charging unit as the photosensitive drum rotates in a direction opposite to the rotation of the developing unit. As a result, an electrostatic latent image is formed on the photosensitive drum and the latent image is then visualized as a toner image by the developing unit. The charged area of the photosensitive drum is then exposed to a laser beam. Because of the potential difference between the exposed area and the unexposed area of the photosensitive drum, the toner particles are attracted only to the exposed area to form the toner image on the photosensitive drum. The toner image is then transferred to the recording medium. After the toner image is transferred to the recording medium, the photosensitive drum is charged back to an original voltage as the recording medium is being conveyed to a fixing unit. A common problem to contemporary charging unit, as I have observed, is that toner supplied from the developing unit often sticks on an unexposed area so that both edges of the recording medium can be contaminated.
Conventionally, there are a number of known techniques for controlling the charge and surface potential of a photosensitive drum to form an electrostatic latent image thereon as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,695 for Device For Controlling Charge Area Of Photoreceptor issued to Yamamoto et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,258 for Method Of Controlling Surface Potential Of Photoconductive Element issued to Harada, U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,779 for Image Forming Apparatus With Dual Voltage Supplies For Selectively Charging And Discharging An Image Bearing Member issued to Araya et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,328 for Method And Apparatus For Charging A Photoconductive Surface To A Uniform Potential issued to Daunton et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,149 for Image Forming Apparatus Having Image Transfer Electrode Contactable To Transfer Material issued to Hoshika, U.S. Pat. No. 5,450,180 for Image Forming Apparatus Having Constant Current And Voltage Control In The Charging And Transfer Regions issued to Ohzeki et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,243 for Image Forming Apparatus And Charging Device Thereof issued to Kurokawa, U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,982 for Image Forming Apparatus With A Photosensitive Member And A Charging Device Having An Oscillatory Voltage Source issued to Takahashi et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,289 for Apparatus for And Method Of Forming Image issued to Ito et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,534,982 for Developing Apparatus issued to Sakaizawa et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,375 for Contact Type Charging Device And Image Forming Apparatus Having The Same issued to Nagayasu et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,499 for Contact Charger Having Oscillating Voltage For Charging A Photosensitive Member issued to Yamazaki. While these conventional charging techniques contain their own merits, I have noted that none can efficiently minimize contamination of inversely charged toner from the photosensitive drum at front and rear ends of the paper due to the abrupt bias voltage difference. Hence, the front and rear ends of the paper may be contaminated more severely than other places of the paper.

Transfer bias control method for image forming apparatus using electrophotographic process


A method and system for handling files with mobile terminals and a corresponding computer program and a corresponding computer-readable storage medium, which can be used in particular for handling e-mail attachments and the like on mobile terminals (PDAs, Smartphone, mobile phone) are described. According to the described method, an original file is stored on a data processing device different from the mobile terminal, and a file corresponding to the original file is generated and transmitted to the mobile terminal. The corresponding file includes information about the storage location of the original file. The original file is handled on the data processing device. An application installed on the mobile terminal processes at least part of the data in the corresponding file according to user input entered on the mobile terminal. First processing device is thereby prompted to execute handling of the original file according to the user input.

Presently, e-mails are customary received together with attachments on mobile terminals. The following methods represent the state-of-the-art (the letters refer to FIG. 1):
A WAP or Web-based mail system C is accessed D by a mobile terminal A with the help of a browser B. Other methods are also known where e-mail attachments E are displayed in HTML format (e.g., Nokia Business One Server). This method has the advantage of being platform-independent, but has the significant disadvantage that the operation is not acceptable to a user.
Another method (Blackberry, Research In Motion Limited) uses special software G installed on the mobile terminal A or special mobile terminals which enable reception of e-mails; e-mail attachments E in the form of Text or HTML pages can also be viewed in this case. This method has the disadvantage that either special devices must be used or software G which is a different from standard mail agents F must be employed for receiving e-mails and attachments E.
Finally, standard mail agents F are used which are preinstalled on the terminals A. These agents F typically enable downloading I of attachments E in their original form. However, attachments must disadvantageously always be transmitted in their entirety and can only be viewed by using the applications H installed on the mobile terminal.
All these methods have in common of that complicated operations such as printing and faxing of the attachments E is typically not possible at all or are severely limited.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a method and a system for handling files with mobile terminals and a corresponding computer program and a corresponding computer-readable storage medium, which obviate the disadvantages of conventional systems and methods and, more particularly, make it possible to separately process file attachments of e-mails.

Method and system for handling files with mobile terminals and a corresponding computer program and a corresponding computer-readable storage medium


A machine analyzer is connected to an active vibration cancellation system in order to identify the operating status of the moving machinery while using a minimum of additional parts and taking advantage of signal processing already occurring in the active vibration cancellation system. A preferred embodiment employs a neural network pattern classifier in connection with detecting operating states such as cylinder misfires in an internal combustion engine.

The present invention relates in general to active vibration control systems such as active noise cancellers and, more specifically, to monitoring the operating status of a machine for which undesired vibrations are being cancelled by an active control system.
Active vibration control (also called active noise control) is a technique wherein undesired noise or other vibrations in an area are reduced or eliminated by adding equal and opposite vibrations (counter-vibrations) into the same area. Thus, a pickup sensor converts the undesired vibrations into electrical signals which are applied to a digital computer for calculating the necessary counter-vibrations which will cancel the undesired vibrations. A signal representing the counter-vibrations is coupled to an actuator which applies vibrations to the area where cancellation is to occur. In the case of audible noise, the vibrations to be cancelled are vibrations in air which are sensed by a microphone and are cancelled by inverse noise created by a speaker.
Active vibration control can potentially be used to reduce or eliminate undesirable vibrations (either sound travelling in air or vibrations transmitted mechanically through solid structures) in a wide variety of applications. In the automotive field, such applications include engine exhaust noise, engine mounts, body mounts, vehicle suspension, interior noise, and others.
In many instances where an active vibration control system is employed, the undesired vibrations are created by a machine (i.e., a device having relatively moving parts creating the vibrations while doing work), such as an internal combustion engine, a fan, a pneumatic pump or other device. These machines are often complicated systems themselves, and in many cases it is desirable to monitor and automatically diagnose the operating status of the machine. For example, internal combustion engines in today's automobiles are very complicated machines employing monitoring of complex emission systems and various performance parameters. Certain fault conditions, such as cylinder misfires, must be diagnosed during engine operation to protect emissions systems components, such as a catalytic converter. Thus, co-pending application Ser. No. 07/892,883, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,513 misfire detection system using an exhaust pressure transducer and a pattern classifier such as a neural network to perform engine diagnosis.
Both active vibration cancellation systems and machine diagnostic systems can be relatively expensive since they often require specialized hardware and significant computing power.

Integrated active vibration cancellation and machine diagnostic system


Data transfer efficiencies of a frequency division and/or time division multiple access (FDMA/TDMA) communication systems are improved over prior art systems by distributing signalling and messaging activities over all return channels of a channel group, by varying forward to return channel data rate ratios, and by reducing message transport delays with respect to prior art communication systems, based on message traffic over such channel group. Return channels of a defined channel group are time division controlled and are generic to operate either in a signalling mode or in a messaging mode. Data rates for the forward channel and the return channels may be selected from predefined combinations of forward and return channel data rates. Message transport delays are reduced over prior art delay periods by reducing the frame lengths of data frames transmitted at a specified frame rate over the forward channel and by transmitting network management data other than time-critical data reception results and time slot allocations periodically at a superframe rate which is less than the frame rate.

This invention relates to message store-and-forward communication systems and particularly to radio-frequency store-and-forward communication systems which operate typically over a predetermined, limited number of available communication channels. Features of the invention are found to have particular application in satellite communication systems operating in a "star topology" over a fixed number of channels.
The invention herein is described as an improvement over a well known prior art system which is known as the "Standard-C communication system", see THE STANDARD C COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, N. Teller et al. International Maritime Satellite Organisation, London, England, International Conference on Satellite Systems for Mobile Communications and Navigation, 4th, London, England, Oct. 17-19, 1988, Proceedings (A89-36576 15-32). London, Institution of Electrical Engineers, pp. 43-46, (1988). A communication system such as the Standard-C system operates in a "star topology", hence between a "hub" and a substantial number of "mobile terminals". The Standard-C system utilizes schemes known as Time-Division Multiple-Access (TDMA) and Frequency-Division Multiple-Access (FDMA) to accommodate a large number of intermittent users (intermittently used mobile terminals) to share a limited-bandwidth, allocated, radio frequency band.
In FDMA, the allocated band is divided into a first number of narrow sub-bands, each sub-band constituting a time-continuous channel. The first number of channels are to be shared among a second number of users, where the second number, the number of users, is typically much larger than the first number of channels. An access protocol referred to as trunking is used to accommodate the relatively larger number of users.
In TDMA, an entire allocated band forms a wideband communication channel which is allocated to different users at different times. Data packets from a given user may be interspersed with those of another user during transmission over the communication channel.
Known communication systems, including the above-identified Standard-C Communication System, use a combination of FDMA and TDMA, where time-division multiplexing is used in the frequency-division multiplexed sub-bands. In the Standard-C system, forward (from the hub to the mobile terminals) data traffic is carried in a time-division multiplexed (TDM) forward channel which is received by all mobile terminals of the system. Other, combined frequency/time-division multiplexed channels carry return data traffic from the mobile terminals to the hub.
Both the forward data traffic and return data traffic consist of two traffic components of data. A first traffic component of data necessary for "call-setup" and "call-teardown" includes data referred to broadly as system data and more specifically as network management data. The first traffic component of data is called "signalling" or signalling packets (of data). The term "signalling" is used herein throughout to refer to this first traffic component of data and to a specific transmission mode in communication from the mobile terminals to the hub. A second traffic component of data bears user information, such as messages or data reports. Messages are typically user information, having been composed by the user, while data reports are typically telemetry-type information packets that are transmitted periodically by the mobile terminals. The transmissions of the second traffic component of data to transfer user messages is also referred to herein as "messaging". User information is in the forward direction communicated over typically fixed links to the hub. The hub stores the user information and selectively formats it as the second traffic component of data into the frames for transmission over the TDM forward channel. Systems, such as the Standard-C system are therefore also referred to as "store-and-forward" communication systems.
The Standard-C system communicates at a fixed data rate of 600 bits per second (bps). In communication over the TDM, or forward channel, data of both components are formatted into frames and are transmitted as a sequence of consecutive frames over the TDM channel. The frame length is established at 8.64 seconds, such that during a 24-hour period an integer number of 10,000 frames are transmitted over the TDM channel. The information, message and signalling packets, are scrambled, 1/2-rate convolutionally encoded and interleaved on a frame by frame basis. Decoding of received frames of information is also done on a frame by frame basis. Considering that the transfer of messages or "messaging" also requires "signalling" in both the forward and the return direction, decoding delays become additive and result in typical message transport delays of several minutes, such that a command-response type of transaction cycle may take place over a time period of about five minutes.
Past applications of the Standard-C system in global communications have traditionally involved communications between a fixed shore station (the hub) and any one of a number of mobile terminals which were ship-based. In such maritime environment, message transport delays of several minutes were not considered to be unacceptable.
In contrast to a relative indifference to time delays in shore to ship communications, user messages between a central trucking dispatch depot and a fleet of operating trucks tend to be more time-sensitive. For example, interactive communication is required when a driver is in difficulty, e.g. by being lost or in misunderstanding with a customer. Urgent messages to alert drivers of additions or deletions in pick-up or delivery schedules while the trucks are already enroute are more the rule than the exception. Thus, if a Standard-C communication system operates between a "land earth station" ("LES") as a hub and a number of mobile terminal equipped, land-based vehicles, existing message transport delays of several minutes for typical command-response type transactions become undesirable.
Increasing the data transmission rate over the standard 600 bps data rate of the Standard-C system would result in a higher message data capacity per frame, thus allowing more mobile terminals to be serviced over the system. However a data rate increase over that of the prior art 600 bps would not alleviate the system's inherent message transport delays. On the other hand, relatively shorter frame lengths could speed up handshake operations between transmitting and receiving terminals and would therefore reduce message transport delays. However, the use of frame lengths shorter than the standard 8.64 second frame length would, at any given transmission rate, tend to increase the ratio of network management data to user message data. Thus, shortening the frame length by simply increasing the data rate proportionally to the frame length reduction does not improve the aforementioned overhead ratio of network management information to user information. The frame structure comprising both network management data and user message data would become compressed in time but remain proportionally the same.
In addition to the undesirably long message transport delays described with respect to the Standard-C system, another drawback of the Standard-C system (and all other prior art FDMA/TDMA communication systems) is a well established dedication of frequency-division multiplexed channels as either signalling channels or message channel. For example, in communications originating at the mobile terminals, the first traffic component over the return channels, namely signalling, is assigned to the dedicated signalling return channels. Conversely, the second traffic component of user messages is assigned to the dedicated messaging return channels. It has become apparent that such dedicated use of available channels for communication from the mobile terminals to the hub results in an uneven utilization of the available channel capacities. As described above, signalling as used herein refers to the transport of protocol data packets for the purpose of network management, e.g. for call establishment and tear-down. Time division multiplexing within a signalling channel is accomplished by means of the slotted Aloha protocol, a contention-based channel access algorithm that does not guarantee packet delivery. In addition to the transport of network management protocol packets, it is also common to use the signalling channel for the transport of short data reports, provided they can tolerate non-guaranteed delivery, the use of signalling channel for such purpose being referred to as "datagram" service. In contrast, user messages requiring guaranteed delivery are sent on separate frequency multiplexed time-division multiple-access (TDMA) channels which are contention free. It is these latter type of TDMA channels that are referred to as "message channels". Access to the message channels is controlled by the hub, and is orchestrated through instructions contained in protocol packets which are sent on the forward TDM channel and acknowledged or responded to over the return signalling channel. When typical user message communication takes place over the Standard-C system, it is common to reach a traffic congestion limit in the TDM forward channel and the signalling channels before reaching a congestion limit in the message channels. Therefore, the message channels often remain underutilized.

Methods of communicating over time-division multiple-access (TDMA) communication systems with distinct non-time-critical and time-critical network management information transmission rates


A method includes detecting a change in temperature in an integrated circuit that is coupled to a differential communication link, and responding to the detected change in temperature by initiating a retraining process for the differential communication link.

Differential communication links, sometimes referred to as "high speed" links, are often used to transmit data from one integrated circuit to another within a computer system. In a typical differential link, one of the two devices attached to the link functions as a master device and the other functions as a slave. It is a common practice for the master device to initiate and perform a retraining process at regular time intervals to maintain link parameters and characteristics, such as the shape of the data eye, in an appropriate condition for reliable communication via the link.
There may be a trade-off involved in the timing of the retraining process. If the time interval between retraining processes is relatively short, the bandwidth provided by the link may be adversely affected. If the time interval between retraining processes is relatively long, the operating condition of the link may deteriorate such that the link fails to function.

Initiation of differential link retraining upon temperature excursion


Ammunition comprising bullets having destabilizing mechanisms that, under ballistic phase conditions, create instability in the bullets resulting in failure of the trajectory of the bullet and/or the sustainable velocity of the bullets.

Standard caliber bullets have maximum ranges over distances of kilometers. However, firearm training ranges using such ammunition do not have such considerable area and rely on much shorter target ranges. The Department of Defense, military units, law enforcement and commercial range have specified rules of safety for ranges which require space far beyond the distance between shooter and target. This space not only includes the individual shooting ranges, but also safety fans or shortfall zones, parking areas, and various structures. However, government agencies and commercial entities typically are limited to their existing footprint, and therefore available ranges are limited. Department of Defense, military units, and law enforcement require rigorous training schedules. Limited range availability places constraint on these schedules. There is a desire to add more ranges, but the availability of the space that is required under safety guidelines is limited within the land footprints that are available.
It is desirable to develop and use bullets with limited range to accommodate the limited range area available.
It would further be desirable to provide a design for such ammunition which provides realistic training or recreational use at limited or enclosed ranges, but wherein the ammunition has a limited and predetermined range to increase the available arenas for training.
Accordingly, there is a need for projectiles that can be prepared to limit the effective range of the projectile while capable of maintaining realistic performance.


This invention relates to biocontrol formulations suitable for reducing the susceptibility of plants to fungal phytopathogens and for degrading turf thatch. In one aspect of the invention, a culture of strain Streptomyces sp. WYE 53 ATCC 55750 is incorporated into suitable delivery medium and applied to plant seeds and roots. Another aspect of the invention is directed to a composition comprising cultures of strains Streptomyces sp. WYE 53 ATCC 55750 and/or Streptomyces sp. YCED 9 ATCC 55660 and to a method for degrading turf thatch by contacting the turf thach with cultures of strains Streptomyces sp. WYE 53 ATCC 55750 and/or Streptomyces sp. YCED 9 ATCC 55660 which are incorporated into suitable delivery medium.

Fungal phytopathogens are a cause of severe economic losses in the agricultural and horticultural industries. Many different types of fungal phytopathogens have been described: these pathogens cause plant diseases such as damping-off, white-rot, brown-rot and root-rot. Such diseases can kill emerging seedlings, reduce plant vigor and adversely affect crop yields.
To minimize fungal infections, bedding-plant nurseries may grow seedlings in steam sterilized or chemically treated soils. However, such treatments also remove beneficial microorganisms from the soil, including microorganisms that would normally compete with soil fungi. In such cases, if a fungal pathogen is accidentally introduced, it may spread rapidly and produce widespread disease.
In agricultural settings, soils infested with phytopathogenic fungi may be unsuitable for growing certain crops. For example, soybean production in Michigan and in other soybean growing states is often severely limited by Phytophthora root rot caused by the fungus Phytophera megasperma (Filinow and Lockwood, 1985). Species of Pythium fungi are widespread in soils in parts of California, Washington State and Idaho. Pythium ultimum is the most common pathogenic species encountered and is associated with pre- and post-emergence damping-off of seedlings. This species is a serious pathogen of wheat, peas and chickpeas and other crop plants grown in these soils and in soils in other states and other countries (Trapero-Casas et al., 1990; Stanghellini and Hancock, 1970; Kraft and Burke, 1971; Westerlund et al., 1988). The use of chemical agents to control fungal phytopathogens is often not practical due to high costs, lack of efficacy and the emergence of resistant strains of the fungi. Additionally, the use of chemical fungicides is not desirable from an environmental viewpoint.
It is an object of the present invention to provide new biological control means of reducing fungal pathogen infection of plants. It is also an object of this invention to simultaneously provide new means for the biological degradation of turf thatch.

Use of streptomyces bacteria to control plant pathogens and degrade turf thatch


An ink containing a liquid vehicle, colorant, and a perfluorosurfactant.

The present invention is generally directed to ink compositions, and more specifically, the present invention is directed to colored aqueous ink compositions particularly suitable for use in ink jet printing processes, and especially thermal ink jet processes, acoustic ink jet processes, and other similar processes, and wherein there is minimal intercolor bleed for the images developed, photo like quality, and wherein paper curl is minimized and image smearing is minimal, or avoided. In embodiments, the present invention relates to inks comprised of an ink vehicle, colorant, and a perfluorosurfactant, such as perfluorooctanoicacid ammonium salt. Images developed with the inks of the present invention in embodiments enable ink jet prints of excellent resolution, acceptable density, excellent waterfastness, minimum or very low showthrough, excellent MFLEN, and low or minimal intercolor bleed and photo like quality on appropriate substrates.


This invention provides a brewing head unit of a coffee machine for inserting and locking the filter and the filter holder into the brewing head of a coffee machine. The filter and the filter holder can be inserted into the coffee machine visually. This invention further provides a simpler and easier method for inserting filter holder into a pressurized coffee machine. This invention also provides a cabinet filter holder which can be inserted or placed into the brewing head assembly/unit of a coffee machine by sliding the filter holder into the brewing head unit from front or side; by swinging the filter holder into the brewing head assembly/unit on a pivot; or by inserting the filter holder from the top. This invention further provides a brewing head assembly/unit wherein the locking mechanism is motor-driven. In one aspect of this invention, the method for opening and closing the brewing head assembly/unit of the coffee machine can be operated by remote control. This invention further provides a cabinet filter design wherein the boiler or heating system is separated from the brewing head assembly/unit.

Throughout this application, various references are referred to. Disclosures of these publications in their entireties are hereby incorporated by reference into this application to more fully describe the state of the art to which this invention pertains.
The locking mechanisms employed or used by most existing pump espresso or steam espresso machines are not very user friendly. It is very cumbersome for the user to locate and attach the filter holder unit into the locking mechanism on the brewing head unit of a coffee machine. As a rule, the filter holder units which have so far been in common use for espresso machines have a brewing tray which is provided with a radially projecting handle and has inserted there into a pot-shaped filter insert. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,962. With such design, the user would need to put the coffee ground into the stainless steel filter then place or insert the filter into the filter holder. Next, the user would need to find the fitting slot on the brewing head unit, attach the filter unit to the brewing head unit, and turn the filter unit to lock the filter unit onto the brewing head unit. Frequently, the user spends a lot of time attempting to locate the locking position on the brewing head unit.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,490,966 relates to a device for extracting the contents in a capsule consisting of two independent and identical clamping elements, enclosing a housing for a coffee capsule. The present invention relates to a simpler mechanism for locking the filter holder comprising a lower brewing head section fixedly attached to the brewing head unit and a housing which can be adapted to receive various types filter holders and/or capsules.
Moreover, traditional pump espresso and steam espresso machine uses either a boiler or a thermal block heating system which is mounted on top of the brewing head or shower and locking mechanism. With this design, the hot water from the heating system would flow directly to the filter.
The drawback to the previous designs of mounting the boiler or the thermal block heating system on the brewing head unit is that the placement of the locking mechanism is limited by this design. The limitations/drawbacks of the placing the heating system on top of the brewing head unit include:    1. The weight of the heating system on the top will increase the force required to open the brewing head, which is not user friendly.    2. When the heating system is fixed on top of the brewing head unit, it creates a constraint on the design of the locking mechanism. In the present invention, the filter holder (movable part) is placed on the bottom. Also, in the present invention, the movable part is on the top and the fixed part is located on the bottom, so the user can slide in or swing in the filter holder unit into the brewing head unit visually.
The present invention relates to the design of a brewing head unit of a coffee machine which has a cabinet filter holder and a boiler or heating system which is not placed on the top of the brew head unit. Another aspect of the invention, the boiler or the heating system as described above is separated from the brewing head unit. In a further aspect of the invention, the boiler or the heating system can be placed side by side with the brewing head locking mechanism.
The boiler and brew head of the invention are operatively connected by a Teflon hose. The primary advantages of having a boiler or heating system which is separate from the brewing heat unit is that the brew head unit does not have to carry the weight of the boiler so that the design of the locking mechanism is more flexible, versatile and/or dynamic.
It is another object of the present invention to take away from the user all the hassles of inserting the filter holder into the brewing head unit. The present invention relates to a new design which uses easy to fit cabinet design to act as the filter holder. The user has a very simple task to perform, namely to fit the filter into the filter holder visually. There is no longer any need for the user to search blindly for the locking position. This cabinet design concept can be applied to all types of pressurized espresso machines. There are at least 5 ways to place the cabinets into the machines and they can be performed as follows:    1. Slide the cabinet filter holder into the brewing head unit from the front;    2. Slide the cabinet filter holder into the brewing head unit from the sides;    3. Slide the cabinet filter holder into the brewing head unit from the rear;    4. Swing the cabinet filter holder in or out about a pivot fixed to the brewing head unit; or    5. Insert the cabinet filter holder into the brewing head unit from the top.
In another aspect of the invention, a motor is used to operate the locking mechanism and the cabinet filter holder without any manual intervention so that the entire movement of the cabinet filter holder unit would require less effort and be more convenient for the user. In a further aspect of the invention, the movement of the cabinet is provided by a motor which is operated by a remote control.
Table 1 below summarizes the key differences between the filter holder mechanism according to the existing state of the art and claimed cabinet filter holder of the present invention.
TABLE 1DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE FILTER HOLDER MECHANISMACCORDING TO THE EXISTING STATE OF THE ARTAND CLAIMED CABINET FILTER HOLDERExisting pressurizedfilter holderCabinet filtermechanismholder mechanismBoiler orIt needs to be on topThe boiler or thermalthermal blockof the brew head andblock does not haveabove the filterto be on the top ofholderthe brew head.It can even be placedside by side with thelocking mechanism.Filter holderThe user would firstThe new cabinet canfittingneed to search itbe slide in from theblindly and then wouldfront, side or rear,need to lock the holderor swing out orin place by turning itinserted from thefrom left to right ortop. The movement ofright to left.the cabinet can beautomated by a motorto drive/control themovement. The saidmotor can be operatedby remote control.Way to place ofSearch blindlyDirect/immediatelythe filtervisibleholder in placeLocking methodLock by swing fit ofRotate to Lock systemthe filter holder.
The foregoing objects and advantages of the present invention are illustrative of those that can be achieved by the present invention and are not intended to be exhaustive or limiting of the possible advantages which can be realized. Thus, these and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description herein or can be learned from practicing the invention, both as embodied herein or as modified in view of any variation which may be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the present invention resides in the novel methods, arrangements, combinations and improvements herein shown and described.

Cabinet design of filter holder for pressurized espresso machines