A test system for testing electric connections, in particular soldered connections, between electronic components and a printed circuit board to be tested, characterized in that the test system includes a subassembly, which is movably mounted in a housing of the test system, and a current and/or voltage source for energizing the circuit board to be tested, the current and/or voltage source being arranged in the housing of the test system in such a way as to be movable in at least two directions in space.

EP 0 633 478 A2 discloses a test system for checking electronic connections of electronic assemblies with a circuit board to be tested.
Such test systems were developed successively. Thus, the electrodes by joints and/or robot arms can be brought to the circuit board and determine, for example. by resistance measurement, whether a solder joint is positioned correctly and an electrical contacting of the electronic components of the circuit board can be done via this solder joint.
Increasingly, circuit boards are now equipped with communication modules, e.g. USB or Ethernet plug connections are also provided to enable data transfer between other printed circuit boards or external electronic devices with the printed circuit board electronic components, in particular with one or more data memories located on the printed circuit board.
For this purpose, the current generic test systems have no possibility of functional testing.
Based on the prior art, it is now an object of the present invention to enable an optimized data transmission of the test system to the circuit board.
The present invention solves this object by a test system having the features of claim 1.
A test system according to the invention is used to check electrical connections, in particular solder joints, between electronic assemblies and a circuit board to be tested. This can be effected for example by resistance measurement by test pins or electrodes.
The test system also has an assembly movably mounted in a housing of the test system and a current and/or voltage source for supplying power to the assembly. The current and/or voltage source is movably arranged in at least two spatial directions within the housing of the test system but may preferably also be movably arranged in three spatial directions. The current and/or voltage source may also have a control characteristic in a preferred embodiment. As a result, the current and/or voltage source can be brought closer to the printed circuit board and, for example, measuring devices or repair devices, e.g. soldering tools, provide a voltage with fewer line losses. Measuring devices, e.g. test electrodes, temperature sensors and/or communication interfaces can thereby achieve a better measurement signal or data transmission. In the case of repair tools, the amount of energy delivered, for example for soldering, can be adjusted more precisely. In existing test systems, the voltage and/or current supply usually takes place via power sources permanently fixed in the housing. However, especially when transferring data to the printed circuit board, line losses lead to a reduction of the transmission power. The same also applies in part to the transmission of measured values.
Other advantageous embodiments of the invention are the subject matter of the dependent claims.
In a particularly preferred embodiment variant, the module can be designed as a communication interface, in particular for data transmission of data according to a communication protocol between the circuit board to be tested or checked and the test system. Due to the proximity of the current and/or voltage supply, an almost lossless and fast data transfer is possible.
The assembly may be configured as a test module. The test module can preferably have a printed circuit board, wherein the current and/or voltage source is fixedly connected on this circuit board or connected to this circuit board.
The communication interface may advantageously have at least three electrically conductive contact tips which, by contacting with a contacting arrangement on the circuit board to be tested with a plurality of, in particular metallic, contacting points, allow a data exchange with the data memory of the circuit board to be checked, whereby the data exchange takes place according to a communication protocol.
Via at least two of the contact tips, a differential data feed to the printed circuit board to be tested can advantageously take place, and via at least two further contact tips, a differential data return to the printed circuit board can take place.
The communication interface can be permanently connected to a test module, which is movably arranged in at least two spatial directions in the housing of the test system.
The current and/or voltage source can also be part of the test module. In this part, the further assembly is for example the communication interface
The current and/or voltage source can be arranged at a discrete distance from the contact tips and have a readback line extending between the current and/or voltage source and at least one of the contact tips to compensate for line resistance and voltage variations.
The test module and the communication interface to which the current and/or voltage source is connected may be mounted on the underside and leading to the printed circuit board.
The current and/or voltage source can be controlled with regard to an output voltage and/or with regard to a current limitation.
The test module may have a transformer module with a transformer, with which a galvanic isolation to the communication module is realized on the circuit board to be tested and ensures an adjustment in the sense of an Ethernet connection, in particular independently thereof, whether or not there is another electrical connection to an Ethernet socket with the communication module.

Test system for checking electrical connections of electronic components to a printed circuit board


An ink-jet recording device which carries out flushing of the nozzle holes of color-ink recording heads without suspending the printing operation. When flushing of the color-ink nozzle holes is required, the device determines, using bit-map data, whether or not black ink dots are to be printed in nearby locations that correspond to the nozzle holes requiring flushing. If so, flushing is effected by discharging color-ink drops in the locations where black-ink dots are to be formed. Subsequently, the black-ink dots that are larger than the color-ink dots are superposed over the color-ink dots, thereby concealing the color-ink dots. Alternatively, flushing of the nozzle holes of the color-ink recording heads is effected by discharging each of three colors at a location where a black-ink dot is to be formed, thereby forming a composite black dot and obviating the necessity to superpose a black-ink dot.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-jet recording apparatus for printing patterns on a recording medium by discharging ink drops from nozzle holes.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical ink-jet recording apparatus employs a recording head adapted for use in discharging ink drops from nozzle holes after pressurizing ink in pressure generating chambers by means of piezoelectric vibrators and heating elements. It is desirable in such an ink-jet recording apparatus to take measures to prevent print quality deterioration resulting from the presence of dried ink near nozzle holes and dust sticking to the nozzle holes.
One of the measures that has been taken is a so-called flushing operation in which ink drops are flushed out of the nozzle holes, irrespective of print data, by moving the recording head to a capping unit on standby in a non-print area each time the printing operation continues for a predetermined period, for example, 20 seconds.
Viscous ink sticking to a nozzle hole that has not discharged any ink drops or that has discharged only a few ink drops during the printing operation is thus made removable by discharging ink drops every predetermined period, irrespective of the printing operation. Consequently, the period of time before the nozzle hole becomes clogged with ink can be prolonged.
The ink-jet recording apparatus is loaded with two kinds of recording heads; namely, a black-ink recording head for discharging black ink and a color-ink recording head for discharging yellow, cyan and magenta ink, so that black ink and color ink are supplied to the respective recording heads.
Since solvents for use in black ink and color ink are different, as are their drying speeds, the flushing periods of the two kinds of recording heads are different. Particularly when quick-drying ink is used during color printing, one problem is that the printing speed decreases because the flushing operation is more frequently needed.
Consideration has been given to the use of an ink-jet recording head having high color printing performance for printing color label patterns. In this application, the paper feed function of a recording apparatus and the movement of its carriage are used for a so-called label issuing apparatus for cutting out the color label patterns with a cutting tool. However, the carriage movement path becomes longer because label paper wider than ordinary office recording media is used for labels. Consequently, it takes a considerable amount of time to move the recording head to a capping unit for flushing purposes. In other words, the use of conventional capping means as an ink receiver, such as the capping means used in an ordinary office recording apparatus, incurs a reduction in printing speed, thereby creating an obstacle to the commercial utilization of such a label issuing apparatus.

Apparatus and method for flushing ink-jet recording heads without suspension of printing


This invention reliably encodes an image while continuously inputting the image with a relatively simple configuration. For this purpose, in this invention, input image data is encoded by an encoder (102) and stored in first and second memories. An encoding sequence controller (108) monitors the code amount. Upon determining that the code amount has reached a set value, the encoding sequence controller discards the data in the first memory and instructs the encoder (102) to increase the quantization step and continue encoding. Preceding encoded data is stored in the second memory. The encoded data is re-encoded by a re-encoder (109) using the same quantization step as that of the encoder (102) after the parameter is changed. The re-encoded data is stored in the first and second memories. The quantization steps set in the encoder (102) and re-encoder (109) at this time have such values that re-encoding by the re-encoder (109) is ended before time when the code amount reaches the set value again.

Conventionally, a JPEG system using discrete cosine transform (to be abbreviated as DCT hereinafter) and a system using Wavelet transform have been often used as still image compression systems. Since coding systems of this type are variable-length coding systems, the code amount changes from one image to be encoded from another.
In a JPEG system as an international standardized system, only one set of quantization matrices can be defined for an image, so the code amount cannot be adjusted without any prescan. Therefore, when this method is used in a system in which data is stored in a limited memory, memory overflow may occur.
To prevent this, a sufficient memory capacity must be secured. However, the sizes of input images are not unconditionally equal but are different in some cases. Accordingly, it is necessary to secure a memory having a capacity suitable to a maximum possible input size.
Unfortunately, in an apparatus in which a memory is thus secured in accordance with the maximum size, this memory is secured even when images smaller than the maximum size are input. That is, the memory cannot be effectively utilized.
It is, therefore, possible to secure a memory capacity in accordance with medium-sized images. In this case, however, coded data obtained by encoding exceeds this memory capacity.
As countermeasures against this inconvenience, the following methods are known. In one method, if a predetermined code amount is exceeded, the compression ratio is changed, and the original is reread. In another method, a code amount is estimated beforehand by prescan, and quantization parameters are reset to adjust the code amount.
In a conventionally known code amount control method which performs prescan, pre-compressed data is input to an internal buffer memory and expanded, and the expanded data is finally compressed by changing compression parameters and output to an external memory. In this method, the compression ratio of the final compression must be higher than that of the pre-compression.
In another known method, for example, an allowable code amount for each pixel block is obtained, and a coefficient obtained by level-shifting the DCT coefficient n times is Huffman-coded to decrease the code amount. The shift amount n is determined on the basis of the allowable code amount.
However, the method of executing prescan and final scan is time-consuming because an original is scanned twice.
Image information contains not only original image data but also image region information that accompanies the image data. The image region information is mainly used to execute color processing or adjust the number of tone levels by an image output unit such as a printer engine to obtain a fine-looking output image. A natural image contains chromatic colors and achromatic colors while a document original contains many black characters. When the type of black ink to be used is changed depending on the type of image, a natural image can be made more natural, and characters can be output more sharply.
In this way, 1-bit attribute flag data is added to each pixel to indicate that the pixel has a chromatic or achromatic color or the pixel corresponds to a character portion. Accordingly, when the image is output and, more particularly, printed, the image quality can be increased. The image region information also contains information other than the above-described information.
Hence, when image information should be compressed, not only the image data but also the image region information must be compressed. To make the compressed and encoded data have a target size or less, scan must be executed twice as prescan and final scan.
To solve this problem, the assignee of the present inventors has already proposed several techniques for encoding an image substantially within the encoding process time of one cycle using a small memory capacity. These techniques will be described later in detail, and only a brief description will be made here. When the code amount is going to exceed the target memory capacity, the compression ratio of the encoder is increased. In addition, data that has already been encoded is re-encoded to be equivalent to that compressed at the newly set compression ratio.
Although the above process is very effective, the re-encoder that executes the re-encoding process needs to have a high process capability. If the re-encoding process capability is low, the compression code amount at the newly set compression ratio may exceed the target value before the end of re-encoding. If this occurs, the re-encoding process cannot be activated. As a result, compression encoding fails.
For the above reason, a high re-encoding process capability is required. In fact, the above-described case occurs relatively rarely. Hence, a high process capability for re-encoding is excessive and leads to an increase in cost.

Image processing apparatus, control method of the same, computer program, and computer-readable storage medium


A method and apparatus for resizing or processing images initially retrieves a one-dimensional sample of the image, such as a line of pixels. The image can be of a machine-readable symbol, or other data. A moving window having, for example, five pixels, includes a center "hard core" and four surrounding pixels. Two or more structural sets or multisets are applied to the window to produce a set of pixels greater than the set of pixels in the original image. For example, the center pixel is repeated three times, while immediately adjacent left and right pixels are repeated twice. Thus, a series of nine pixels results. The resulting nine pixels are then sorted based on descending gray scale levels. The n-th largest pixels is selected, such as the third largest. The image is updated, the window moved, and the method repeats again. Pyramid filtering, cubic convolution interpolation, or other techniques can be used to reduce the size of an image, and more complex windows and structural sets can be employed.

There are numerous applications for processing video or digital images. Such images typically include noise that must be filtered from the image. Some noise is generated when altering the size of an image. Enlarging or expanding an image typically involves repeating pixels in a sampled image. Expanding the dimensional format or size of a video image typically does not involve many problems. However, reducing the size of an image often induces noise such as aliasing frequencies which are added to the synthesized, reduced image. For example, lines as artifacts can be created within an image by resampling the image. Prior techniques for eliminating such aliasing frequencies include finite impulse response (FIR) and infinite impulse response (IIR) filtering to remove this noise. A problem with such filtering techniques are that they are less than optimally effective or require significant processing time.
One solution for reducing errors or noise in image resizing involves interpolation. As is known, interpolation is the process of estimating the intermediate values of a continuous event from discrete samples, such as discrete pixels in a digital image. Interpolation has been used to magnify or reduce digital images. In a monochrome image having a discrete number of gray level values, interpolation introduces new gray level values. Such new gray level values are not present in the original image, and thus the resulting, resized image is distorted from the original image.
Another solution for reducing errors or noise in images involves mathematical morphology. Morphological methods manipulate the shapes in the original image. However, the ability to separate and manipulate different shapes causes morphological methods to be highly sensitive to noise or defects in the original image. Prior solutions prefilter the original image to remove noise. However, such prefiltering may distort the shapes of the original image, thereby degrading the performance of such morphological methods.
Improved solutions for reducing errors or noise in images, known as "soft" morphological methods, perform well in noisy conditions, but maintain much of the desirable standard morphological properties. Soft morphological methods are described, for example, in L. Koskinen et al. "Soft Morphological Filters," SPIE Proceedings, Vol. 1568, 262-270, and P. Maltsev, "Soft Morphological Filters and Hierarchical Discrete Transformations," SPIE Proceedings, Vol. 2180, 175-184. Typical or discrete morphological filters process signals as sets of points or values based on local maximum and minimum operations. Under discrete morphological filtering, such maximum and minimums are replaced by more general weighted order statistics, and "erosion" (or "dilation") of a function F by a set B at any point x is obtained by shifting the set B to x and taking the minimum (or maximum) of F inside the shifted set. In contrast the soft erosion and soft dilation in soft morphological operations replace maximum and minimums with more general weighted ordered statistics.
A key idea of soft morphological filters is that a structuring set or "multiset" (defined below) is divided into two parts: a "hard center" that behaves like an ordinary structuring set, and a "soft boundary" where maximum or minimum values are replaced by other order statistics. As a result, soft morphological filters behave more sensibly in noisy conditions and make the filters more tolerant to small variations in the shapes of objects in the filtered image.
Mathematically, soft morphological operations are naturally defined under a framework of weighted order statistics. First, we let A and B be finite convex sets of Z.sup.k and K be a natural number (e.g., k=2) such that A.OR right.B and 1.ltoreq.k.ltoreq.min {.vertline.B.vertline./2,.vertline.B-A.vertline.}. Forx .epsilon.Z.sup.2 we denote the "translated set" by S.sub.x, that is EQU S.sub.x ={x+s:s .epsilon.S},
which is a collection of objects, such as integers, where repetition allowed in a set is called a multiset, e.g., {1,2,3} is a set and {1,1,2,3,3,3} is a multiset. We denote the repetition operation by .gradient., that ##EQU1## For example {2V1, 2, 3V3 }={1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3}.
The basic soft morphological operations are soft dilation and soft erosion, which are defined as follows.
Soft Dilation: Let f: Z.sup.k Z+ be a signal and S.sub.pyr =[B, (A1,r1), (A2, r2), . . . , (An,m)] a hierarchical structuring system. The soft dilation of the signal f by a hierarchical structuring system S.sub.pyr is defined as follows
f.sym.[B, (A1,r1), (A2, r2), . . . , (An,m)](x)=the m-th largest value of the multiset Ms={rn.gradient.f(a):a.epsilon.(An).sub.x }.orgate.{r(n-1).gradient.f(a):a.epsilon.(A(n-1).backslash.An).sub.x }.orgate. . . . .orgate.{r1.gradient.f(a): a.epsilon.(A1.backslash.A2).sub.x }.orgate.{f(b):b .epsilon.(B.backslash.A1).sub.x }, PA1 f[B, (A1,r1), (A2, r2), . . . ,(An,rn)](x)=the rn-th smallest value of the multiset PA1 Ms={rn.gradient.f(a):a.epsilon.(An).sub.x }.orgate.{r(n-1).gradient.f(a):a.epsilon.(A(n-1)/An).sub.x }.orgate. . . . .orgate.{r1.gradient.f(a):a.epsilon.(A1.backslash.A2).sub.x }.orgate.{f(b):b.epsilon.(B.backslash.A1).sub.x },
Soft Erosion: Let f: Z.sup.k Z+ be a signal and S.sub.pyr =[B, (A1, r1), (A2,r2), . . . , (An,rn)] a hierarchical structuring system. The soft erosion of the signal f by a hierarchical structuring system S.sub.pyr is defined as follows
In general, soft morphological filters are nonlinear image transformations that locally modify geometric features of images. Soft dilation can be viewed as an operation that expands an original image, while soft erosion can viewed as an operation that shrinks the original image. The L. Koskinen et al. article also describes soft closing and soft opening operations. In general, soft opening is defined as soft erosion followed by soft dilation, while soft closing is defined as soft dilation followed by soft erosion. Both soft closing and soft opening can be viewed as operations which smooth the contours of an input image, typically following soft erosion or dilation of the original image. Since soft dilation and soft erosion are weighted order statistics filters, and thus stack filters, soft closing and soft opening can be viewed as a cascade of stack filters.
Known soft morphological operations provide good techniques for resampling discrete data that overcome some shortcomings of prior techniques, such as interpolation. Known soft morphological methods, however, still suffer from noise in the original image, and other drawbacks.

Method and apparatus for processing or resizing digital images, such as images of bar code symbols


Various methods and structures for fabricating a semiconductor chip structure comprising a chip identification “fingerprint” layer. A semiconductor chip structure includes a substrate and a chip identification layer disposed on the substrate, the chip identification layer comprising random patterns of electrically conductive material in trenches formed in a semiconductor layer. The chip identification layer is sandwiched between two layers of electrodes that have a crossbar structure. A first crossbar in the crossbar structure is located on a first side of the chip identification layer and includes a first set of electrical contacts in a first grid pattern contacting the first side of the chip identification layer. A second crossbar in the crossbar structure is located on a second side of the chip identification layer and includes a second set of electrical contacts in a second grid pattern contacting the second side of the chip identification layer.

The present disclosure generally relates to the field of semiconductors, and more particularly relates to a method of fabricating semiconductor chips, in which the method uses directed self-assembly (DSA) of block copolymers (BCPs) for patterning in fabricating the semiconductor chips.
Semiconductor chip security has become increasingly important. A unique numerical number, e.g., a serial number, assigned to each chip has been the conventional approach to identify authentic chips fabricated by an authorized manufacturer. However, an unauthorized manufacturer can forge a numerical number to produce a counterfeit chip. The proliferation of counterfeit chips in modern semiconductor manufacturing has been an increasing problem without a viable solution.
Therefore, there is a need to fabricate semiconductor chips that can be uniquely identified as authentic chips fabricated by an authorized manufacturer.

International Business Machines Corporation


A video transmission system, a video transmitting apparatus, a video receiving apparatus, and a video transmission method whereby, when a plurality of terminals whose characteristics differ receive video simultaneously, each terminal can receive video with quality appropriate for that terminal. In this system, a video transmitting apparatus (100) divides layered-coded data by quality and bit rate by means of a channel division section (106), and transmits data on separate channels from a video transmitting section (108) after adding priorities calculated by a priority calculation section (112). Video transmitting apparatus (100) also groups channels by quality and calculates a group list by means of a group list calculation section (114), and transmits this group list from a group list transmitting section (116).

Video data transmitted by a conventional video transmission system is normally compression-coded into a fixed bit rate or below by means of a method such as H.261 or MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) so that it can be transmitted in a fixed transmission bit rate, and once video data has been coded the video quality cannot be changed even if the transmission bit rate changes.
However, with the diversification of networks in recent years, transmission path bit rate fluctuations have become large, and video data has become necessary that enables video transmission at quality commensurate with a plurality of bit rates. In response to this need, layered coding methods have been standardized that have a layered structure and can handle a plurality of bit rates. Among such layered coding methods, recently standardized MPEG-4 FGS (Fine Granularity Scalability) in particular, is a layered coding method with a high degree of freedom regarding bit rate selection. Video data coded by MPEG-4 FGS is composed of a base layer, which is a moving picture stream for which stand-alone decoding is possible, and at least one enhancement layer, which is a moving picture stream for improving base layer decoded moving picture quality. The base layer is video data of low picture quality in a low bit rate, and a high degree of flexibility in achieving high picture quality is possible by matching the enhancement layer to the bit rate.
In MPEG-4 FGS, the total data size of an enhancement layer to be transmitted can be controlled to allow application to a variety of bit rates, and it is possible to transmit video of quality that is in accordance with the bit rate.
However, when video is received simultaneously by a plurality of terminals, since the capabilities of terminals receiving the video and the characteristics (reception area) of the network used by each terminal differ, there is a problem in that the quality deemed to be necessary for each terminal is different. Here, "quality" includes, for example, image quality, frame rate (smoothness of motion), error resilience, spatial resolution, delay, processing complexity, and so forth.
With regard to this point, a technology for performing video transmission at appropriate quality according to network characteristics for a terminal for which the network status fluctuates due to network congestion or the like is one that divides a video stream into layers and transmits these layers on channels with different priorities (see, for example, page 1 and FIG. 1 of Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. HEI 4-100494).
FIG. 1 is a drawing showing an example of the configuration of a conventional video coding apparatus. In this video coding apparatus 10, a video coding circuit 12 performs video coding on an input video signal using motion compensation, DCT (discrete cosine transform), and quantization, and outputs coded data to a layering circuit 14. Layering circuit 14 divides coded data input from video coding circuit 12 into M areas in N×N-pixel block units used in DCT (where N and M are both natural numbers), and outputs M coded data to a packetizing buffer 16. In the data division by layering circuit 14, image quality degradation that occurs when a particular area among the M areas is discarded is measured, and the area size is controlled so that this degradation becomes equal to a permitted value set beforehand. With respect to divided coded data input from layering circuit 14, packetizing buffer 16 transmits an area containing a low-frequency component on a high-priority channel.
Thus, in video coding apparatus 10, by subjecting DCT coefficients to area division, and transmitting from a low-frequency component on a high-priority channel, video can be received with image quality in accordance with a bit rate even when network congestion occurs since coded data in a low-priority channel is discarded.
However, with the above-described conventional technology, although it is possible to receive video with image quality in accordance with the transmission bit rate, a plurality of terminals cannot individually freely select the type of quality (such as image quality, smoothness of motion, error resilience, spatial resolution, or processing complexity as described above, for example) to be given priority.
For example, within a limited transmission bit rate, it is preferable for a terminal with a large display screen to receive video with priority given to high image quality of successive images even if motion is not smooth, rather than video with smooth motion but low image quality. Conversely, in the case of a terminal with a small display screen, it is preferable to receive video of low image quality but with smooth motion rather than video of high image quality but lacking smooth motion. Also, in the case of a terminal in a radio environment in which there is a high error rate on the network, it is preferable to receive video with high error resilience that can be played back under conditions in which errors occur, rather than video with low error resilience that can only be played back under error-free conditions.
Thus, when video is received simultaneously by a plurality of terminals whose characteristics (terminal performance or reception bit rate) differ, it is deemed necessary for a terminal to be able to freely select the type and level of video quality, and to be able to receive video of appropriate quality according to the terminal's characteristics and conditions.

Video transmission of layered coded data

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Inc.


An integrated circuit may include receiver circuitry that receives data from an external device. Such receiver circuitry may include, among other things, equalization circuitry that may reconstruct the received data before transmitting the received data to other parts of the integrated circuit. The receiver circuitry may include two different equalization circuits. A first equalization circuit may perform equalization on the received data to generate a first equalized output while a second equalization circuit may generate a second equalized output. The receiver circuitry may further include an amplifier circuit that selectively amplifies either the first or second equalized output from the respective first and second equalization circuits based on the data rate of the received data.

In a typical serializer/deserializer (SerDes) system, a transmitter circuit is coupled to a receiver circuit. A serial data stream is transmitted from the transmitter circuit via transmission lines, which may be referred to collectively as a transmission channel, that connect the transmitter circuit to the receiver circuit.
As an example, an integrated circuit such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) device or an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) device, may include transceiver circuitry that includes both transmitter and receiver circuits. Signals may be transmitted from logic blocks within the integrated circuit device (e.g., the core region of the device) to the transmitter circuit to be transmitted out of the integrated circuit device. Accordingly, signals received by the receiver circuit may be transmitted to the core region or other parts of the integrated circuit device for further processing.
When signals are propagated from one circuit to another (e.g., from a transmitter circuit to a receiver circuit, or from one integrated circuit device to another), there may be signal loss due to numerous reasons (e.g., resistance in the transmission channel, etc.). As such, the received signals are distorted and may need to be reconstructed (or equalized) before they are processed or used by other circuitry.
Generally, an equalizer is included in transmitter and receiver circuits to equalize signals that are being transmitted between different circuits or devices. However, the equalizer circuit typically only supports a limited range of data rates and as such may only be applicable to limited applications that fall within that range. It is within this context that the embodiments described herein arise.


Improved diamond particle emitters, useful for flat panel displays, are fabricated by suspending nanometer-sized ultra-fine particles in a solution, applying the suspension as a coating onto a conducting substrate such as n-type Si or metal, subjecting the coated substrate to a plasma of hydrogen, and applying a thin, conformal diamond overcoating layer onto the particles. The resulting emitters show excellent emission properties, such as extremely low turn-on voltage, good uniformity and high current densities. In particular, the electron emitters are capable of producing electron emission current densities of at least 0.1 mA/,mm.sup.2 at extremely low vacuum electric fields of 0.2-3.0 V/.mu.m V/.mu.m. These field values are about an order of magnitude lower than exhibited by the best defective CVD diamond and almost two orders of magnitude lower than p-type semiconducting diamond. It is further found that the emission characteristics remain the same even after the plasma treated diamond surface is exposed to air for several months.

Currently, a promising source of electrons in vacuum devices is field emission of electrons into vacuum from suitable cathode materials. These vacuum devices include flat panel displays, klystrons and traveling wave tubes used in microwave power amplifiers, ion guns, electron beam lithography, high energy accelerators, free electron lasers, and electron microscopes and microprobes. The most promising application is the use of field emitters in matrix-addressed flat panel displays. See, for example, Semiconductor International, December 1991, p. 46; C. A. Spindt et al., IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 38, p. 2355 (1991); I. Brodie and C. A. Spindt, Advances in Electronics and Electron Physics, edited by P. W. Hawkes, Vol. 83, pp. 75-87 (1992); and J. A. Costellano, Handbook of Display Technology, Academic Press, New York, pp. 254 (1992), the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
A typical field emission device comprises a cathode containing a plurality of field emitter tips and an anode spaced from the cathode. A voltage applied between the anode and cathode induces the emission of electrons towards the anode. A conventional electron field emission flat panel display comprises a flat vacuum cell, the vacuum cell having a matrix array of microscopic field emitters formed on a cathode and a phosphor coated anode on a transparent front plate. Between cathode and anode is a conductive element called a grid or gate. The cathodes and gates are typically intersecting strips (usually perpendicular strips) whose intersections define pixels for the display. A given pixel is activated by applying voltage between the cathode conductor strip and the gate conductor. A more positive voltage is applied to the anode in order to impart a relatively high energy (400-3,000 eV) to the emitted electrons. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,940,916; 5,129,850; 5,138,237 and 5,283,500, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
A variety of characteristics are known to be advantageous for cathode materials of field emission devices. The emission current is advantageously voltage controllable, with driver voltages in a range obtainable from off-the-shelf integrated circuits. For typical device dimensions (e.g., 1 .mu.m gate-to-cathode spacing), a cathode that emits at fields of 25 V/.mu.m or less is generally desirable for typical CMOS circuitry. The emitting current density is advantageously in the range 0.1-1 mA/mm.sup.2 for flat panel display applications. The emission characteristics are advantageously reproducible from one source to another, and advantageously stable over a very long period of time (tens of thousands of hours). The emission fluctuations (noise) are advantageously small enough to avoid limiting device performance. The cathode is advantageously resistant to unwanted occurrences in the vacuum environment, such as ion bombardment, chemical reaction with residual gases, temperature extremes, and arcing. Finally, the cathode manufacturing is advantageously inexpensive, e.g., no highly critical processes, and adaptable to a wide variety of applications.
Previous electron emitters were typically made of metal (such as Mo) or semiconductor material (such as Si) in nanometer sizes. While useful emission characteristics have been demonstrated for these materials, the control voltage required for emission is relatively high (around 100 V) because of the materials' high work functions. The high voltage operation increases damage caused by ion bombardment and surface diffusion on the emitter tips. High voltage operation also necessitates high power densities to be supplied from an external source to produce the required emission current density. In addition, the fabrication of uniform sharp tips is difficult, tedious and expensive, especially over a large area. The vulnerability of these materials to ion bombardment, chemically active species and temperature extremes is also a serious concern.
Diamond is a useful material for field emitters because of its negative electron affinity and robust mechanical and chemical properties. Field emission devices employing diamond field emitters are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,129,850 and 5,138,237 and in Okano et al., Appl Phys. Lett., Vol. 64, p. 2742 (1994), the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference. Flat panel displays that employ diamond emitters are disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/567,867 (our reference Eom 5-118-32-28-26), now U.S. Pat. No. 5,747,918 08/548,720 (our reference Jin 116-30-1), U.S. Pat. No. 5,504,385, U.S. Pat. No. 5,637,950 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,180, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
While diamond offers substantial advantages for field emitters, there is a need for diamond emitters capable of emission at yet lower voltages. For example, flat panel displays typically require current densities of at least 0.1 mA/mm.sup.2. If such densities are achieved with an applied voltage below 25 V/.mu.m for the gap between the emitters and the gate, it will be possible for low cost CMOS driver circuitry to be used in the display. Unfortunately, good quality, intrinsic diamond generally does not emit electrons in a stable fashion because of diamond's insulating nature. Therefore, to effectively take advantage of the negative electron affinity of diamond in order to achieve low voltage emission, diamonds need to be conventionally doped into n-type semiconductivity. The n-type doping process, however, has not been reliably achieved for diamond. While p-type semiconducting diamond is readily available, p-doped diamond is not helpful for low voltage emission because the energy levels filled with electrons are far below the vacuum level. For example, a field of more than 70 V/.mu.m is needed for p-type semiconducting diamond to generate an emission current density of 0.1 mA/mm.sup.2. (See, e.g., Zhu et al., J. Appl. Phys., 78, 2707, 1995.)
An alternative method to achieve low voltage field emission from diamond is to grow or treat diamond so that the densities of defects are increased in the diamond structure, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,637,950. Such defect-rich diamond typically exhibits a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 7-11 cm.sup.-1 for the diamond peak at 1332 cm.sup.-1 in Raman spectroscopy, and it is possible for the electric field required to produce an electron emission current density of 0.1 mA/mm.sup.2 from these diamonds to reach as low as 12 V/.mu.m.
Thus, further improved diamond emitter devices, and improved methods for making such devices, are desired, particularly for flat panel displays.

Field emission devices employing diamond particle emitters


A ridge waveguide structure includes a substrate having a top surface; a ridge structure protruding from the top surface; and a waveguide formed in the ridge structure and a shape of the waveguide is corresponding to a shape of the ridge structure; the ridge structure includes a Y-shaped input section and a Y-shaped output section, the Y-shaped input section includes a total input section, a first branch and a second branch, the first branch and the second branch are diverged from the total input section and converged into the Y-shaped output section. The relation also relates to an electro-optic modulator.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an electro-optic modulator having a ridge waveguide structure, wherein the electro-optic modulator can achieve a high extinction ratio when functioning as an optical switch.
2. Description of Related Art
Electro-optic modulators, such as Mach-Zehner electro-optic modulators, change a refractive index of a branch (hereinafter "the first sub-branch") of a Y-shaped waveguide by employing a modulating electric field, which utilizes the electro-optic effect. Thus, the modulator can alter a phase of light waves traversing the first sub-branch. As a result, the phase of light waves traversing the first sub-branch can be shifted and thus interfere with light waves traversing another branch (hereinafter "the third sub-branch") of the Y-shaped waveguide. An output of the Y-shaped waveguide is modulated as the power output depending on the phase shift, which in turn depends on the modulating electric field. However, due to manufacturing imprecision inherent in an electro-optic modulator, the properties of the light waves respectively traversing the first and third sub-branches are not equal to each other. As such, when the electro-optic modulator is used as an optical switch, the power output is often larger than zero in an off state, or is less than a desired maximum value in an on state That is, an extinction ratio of the optical switch may be less than what is considered to be satisfactory.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an electro-optic modulator that can overcome the above-mentioned problems.

Electro-optic modulator having ridge waveguide structure


A recording medium has a first recording area on which multiplexed audio informations are recorded as sets of one or more information units, a second recording area on which control information for controlling recording of the multiplexed audio informations are recorded. The control informations include first information representing the number of sets of information composing the multiplexed audio informations, and second information instructing to record the multiplexed audio informations as a stream.

The present invention relates to a recording medium and a system for recording and reproducing the recording medium, and more particularly to a recording medium having a logical data structure for recording and reproducing information, the recording modes of which varies.
There has been known the DVD-Video, which is an optical read-only disc capable of storing high-quality video information and audio information. The DVD-Video records information based on a specific logical data structure so as to be applied in an extensive field and to have various functions enabling various interactive reproduction thereof.
In accordance with the logical data structure, which is disclosed in known documents, the DVD-Video comprises a lead-in area at the inner end portion of the disc, lead-out area at the outer end portion, and a data recording area between the lead-in and lead-out areas wherein a plurality of data files are stored.
The data which is recorded in the data recording area can be roughly divided into presentation data to be reproduced and navigation data for controlling the reproduction. The navigation data includes attribute of the presentation data and control data necessary for the reproduction. There are five navigation data, which are video manager information (VMGI), video title set information (VTSI), program chain information (PGCI), presentation control information (PCI), and data search information (DSI).
The presentation data comprises video data, audio data and subpicture data which are integrated together with a part of the navigation data in accordance with the MPEG 2 standard (ISO 13818-1).
The video data has one stream of data compressed in accordance with the MPEG 2 video format (ISO 13818-2). The audio data take up a maximum of eight streams and comply with in one of the linear PCM, AC-3 and MPEG audio standards.
The subpicture data are data compressed in accordance with the run-length coding for enabling menus, and credits and words in the case of movies and karaoke system to be displayed over the main image, and take up a maximum of 32 streams.
These video data, audio data, and subpicture data are aggregated into sets in pack unit so as to form a bit stream multiplexed in plurality of pack units, thereby forming the presentation data.
The presentation control information (PCI) and data search information (DSI) are added to each of the video data, audio data and subpicture data to form a video object unit (VOBU).
The presentation control information (PCI) is provided for determining the reproduction information in accordance with the condition of the presentation data. The data search information (DSI) relates to fast forward and rearward reproductions and continual reproduction.
A plurality of video object units (VOBU) form a cell (CELL), and a plurality of cells (CELL) form a video object (VOB), and a plurality of video objects (VOB) form a video object set (VOBS).
The video title set information (VTSI) and the program chain information (PGCI) are added to one or more video object set (VOBS) to form a video title set (VTS). A plurality of video title sets (VTS) are recorded sequentially after control data called video manager (VMG) having video manager information (VMGI).
The video title set information has attribute information of the video object set (VOBS) in the video title set (VTS). The program chain information (PGCI) has information on reproducing order of the presentation data in the form of information on order of the cells (CELL). The video manager information (VMGI) has information on the directory of the video title set (VTS).
The reproduction of the presentation data is controlled in accordance with the information of the navigation data so as to enable the interactive reproduction.
The DVD-RW (rewritable) has also become to attract attention in addition to the DVD-Video. The DVD-RW belongs to the same so-called DVD family including the DVD-Video, and has the physical compatibility therewith. Since the DVD-RW is capable of recording, reproducing, erasing and rewriting information, it is a recording medium extremely suitable to the user for producing or authoring a desirable multimedia title.
However, if the logical data structure for the DVD-Video is simply adapted to DVD-R and DVD-RW, since various types of information are now recorded, there occur problems.
In the DVD-Video, there is provided a stereophonic recording mode called 2/0 mode wherein 2-channel audio data are recorded as one audio stream, and a monaural recording mode called 1/0 mode wherein a monaural audio data are recorded as one audio stream.
However, when recording a movie which is bilingually broadcast, the bilingual speech and stereophonic sound are frequently alternately changed. Namely, audio information to be recorded includes individual information in multiple languages, each having the same time base, hereinafter referred to as multiplexed information, and multi-channel information such as the stereophonic audio information, hereinafter referred to as multi-channel information. In order to record a television program having such audio information, each time the type of the audio information changes, the audio stream is changed between the stereophonic recording mode to monaural recording mode, so that the video object (VOB) must be freshly set.
More particularly, at a bilingual broadcast, the monaural recording mode is selected so that a main sound and a sub sound are each recorded in a separate stream, thereby using two streams. At a stereophonic broadcast, the stereophonic recording mode is selected so that one stream is used. Every time the recording mode changes, a new video object is required. The same procedure is necessary when the bilingual speech and the monaural sound are alternately changed.
When the information is thus recorded, changing over the audio stream, the audio stream must also be changed when reproducing the information. When changing the stream at the reproduction, noises may generate, or a silent period may occur, thereby causing deterioration in sound quality.
In addition, if the reproduced digital audio data is supplied to a conventional digitally input audio-visual device, each time the audio stream is changed, the reproduction mode must be changed between the stereophonic reproduction mode and monaural reproduction mode.

Recording medium and system for recording and reproducing the recording medium using control information that represents the number of sets of information composing the multiplexed audio information


Apparatuses, systems, and methods for transporting objects are shown and described. Embodiments of the present invention allow objects to be easily transported over elevated structures. The disclosed embodiments can be used for quickly and conveniently traversing one or more elevated structures, such as street curbs. The disclosed embodiments can be associated with a garbage truck and used to conveniently transport dumpsters over street curbs.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to apparatuses, systems, and methods for transporting objects. More particularly, the invention relates to curb ramp systems having at least one portable curb ramp for use with wheeled objects.
2. Description of the Related Art
Proper collection, containment, transportation, and disposal of waste are important for protecting public health and maintaining a clean environment. Refuse receptacles for collecting waste are often kept at residential sites and commercial sites. Dumpsters are one type of refuse receptacle often used to hold large quantities of solid waste. Dumpsters may be used at multifamily residential, institutional, commercial, industrial, and construction sites due to the large amount of waste generated at these locations.
Garbage trucks are used to empty dumpsters. To empty a dumpster into a garbage truck, the dumpster is moved from a collection site onto a roadway where the garbage truck is located. The dumpster can then be wheeled on the roadway towards the garbage truck. Once the dumpster is in the proper position, the contents of the dumpster are discharged into a collection container of the garbage truck. The empty dumpster may be returned to its collection site.
Unfortunately, a street curb may be located between the collection site and garbage truck. Thus, the dumpster may have to be lifted vertically and carried over the curb. For example, the partially or completely filled dumpster may have to be carried above the curb towards the garbage truck. After the dumpster is emptied into the garbage truck, the dumpster may again be lifted and carried over the curb in order to return the dumpster to the collection site. Thus, transporting the dumpster to and from the truck may be difficult. If the dumpster is heavy, two or more people may be required for properly transporting the dumpster.
Different types of dumpsters can be used based on the amount of waste generated at a particular location. A front load dumpster is often used at multifamily residential and light commercial sites. A front load dumpster often has a pair of sleeves fixed to opposing side walls of the dumpster. Each sleeve is configured to receive a lifting arm of a front loading garbage truck. To empty the front load dumpster into the truck, the lifting arms are positioned within corresponding sleeves of the dumpster. The driver then activates a hydraulic system which lifts the lifting arms and associated dumpster over the cabin of the truck. The hydraulic system then rotates the dumpster to an upside down position to transfer waste from the dumpster to a larger collection container or hopper at the back of the truck. The driver then lowers the emptied dumpster and withdraws the lifting arms from the sleeves. The driver may then activate a compactor to compact the waste within the hopper, thereby increasing the amount of solid waste that the hopper can accommodate. The front loading garbage truck then travels to the location of the next front load dumpster to repeat the procedure until the hopper is full. Once the hopper is full, the front loading garbage truck travels to a disposal site, such as a landfill, to dispose of the waste.
A rear load dumpster is often larger than a front load dumpster. These types of dumpsters are often used at heavy commercial, industrial, and construction sites. To empty the rear load dumpster, the dumpster is pulled onto the bed of a truck, such as a roll-off truck, and transported to the disposal site. A typical roll-off truck is equipped with a winch and roller system which positions the dumpster onto the bed of the truck for transportation to the disposal site. At the disposal site, the bed and dumpster are tilted so that the waste is discharged through one or more rear doors provided at the end of the dumpster. After being emptied, the rear load dumpster is often returned to the same or a different refuse collection site.
To empty the contents of a dumpster (e.g., a rear or front load dumpster), the dumpster may have to traverse a curb or other structure. The filled dumpster may be relatively heavy and, consequently, difficult to transport over the curb.


Data unit identification for compressed video streams is described. In one or more implementations, a compressed video stream is received at a computing device and a determination is made as to whether prior knowledge is available that relates to the compressed video stream. Responsive to the determination that prior knowledge is available that relates to the compressed video stream, the prior knowledge is employed by the computing device to perform data unit identification for the compressed video stream. In one or more implementations, SIMD instructions are utilized to perform pattern (0x00 00) search in a batch mode. Then a byte-by-byte search is performed to confirm whether the pattern, 0x00 00, found is part of a start code, 0x00 00 01, or not.

The functionality that is available to users of computing devices is ever increasing. One example of this increase is the ability to consume and output video by the device. To support transfer and storage of the video, the video is often compressed, which may be performed using a variety of different encoding techniques.
However, decompression of a compressed video stream using conventional techniques may be resource intensive. Consequently, use of the conventional techniques may have a significant impact on the functionality of the device, especially in resource sparse operating systems and devices, e.g., mobile devices. Thus, conventional video stream decompression techniques may limit the functionality of the device that is available to a user both to decompress the video stream as well as functionality that is available for other uses.


A controller. The controller includes a processor and a non-transitory computer readable medium. The processor is configured to receive the speed of a first driven wheel from a wheel speed sensor and the speed of a drive shaft from a drive shaft sensor. The non-transistory computer readable medium includes program instructions executed by the processor for determining a speed of a second driven wheel based on a plurality of detected speeds of the first driven wheel and detected speeds of the drive shaft over time.

The invention relates to systems and methods for determining the speed of a driven wheel. Specifically, the invention determines the speed of a driven wheel using the speed of a drive shaft and the speed of a second driven wheel, and compensates for timing factors.
Vehicle systems, such as electronic stability control systems, require knowledge of the speed of each of the wheels of the vehicle. The speed of the wheels needs to be accurately determined in near real time (e.g., every 5 milliseconds). To achieve this, many modern vehicles use wheel speed sensors on each wheel with the sensors hard-wired to the control system or linked via a communication bus.

Wheel speed estimation using a drivetrain model


Example apparatus and methods distribute ranges or erasure codes associated with ranges to reduce or minimize the impact of a single point of failure in an object store. Erasure codes associated with related ranges to be stored in an object store may be accessed and selectively distributed to different storage devices associated with the object store. The erasure codes may be distributed according to a distribution plan so that an unavailability of one storage device will cause less than all of the related ranges to become unavailable. Example apparatus and methods may also provide a partial GET operation that will retrieve erasure codes associated with less than an entire object or with less than all possible ranges for an object. The partial GET operation may facilitate reconstructing less than an entire object, which may be valuable in, for example, weblog analytics.

Object stores may store objects using rateless erasure codes (e.g., fountain codes). An object to be stored may be sub-divided into ranges, which may also be referred to as super blocks. Ranges or super blocks may be encoded independently and stored independently. Ranges may also be retrieved and decoded independently. Theoretically, retrieving, decoding, and even reconstructing one range for an object ought to be possible even if another range is damaged or otherwise unavailable. Unfortunately, this theoretical partial recovery may be difficult, if even possible at all, to achieve using conventional systems. One difficulty may arise when conventional systems pay insufficient attention to how different ranges or super blocks are stored.
An object store, which may also be referred to as an object based storage system, may have multiple devices (e.g., disks) in multiple apparatus (e.g., servers) positioned at multiple locations (e.g., sites). An object store may be controlled with respect to where any given erasure code is stored or with respect to where any given collection of erasure codes are stored. Conventional object stores may use pre-defined or static configuration settings to statically determine erasure code locations and distributions. The control may be exercised when an erasure code is stored. For example, conventional object storage systems may use static, pre-defined settings to distribute erasure codes across a collection of disks, servers, racks, sites or other devices when a store operation is performed. Unfortunately, by relying on static, pre-defined configuration values, these conventional systems may inadvertently, or even intentionally, position ranges in ways that increase the likelihood that a single point of failure can have dire consequences.
The shortcomings of conventional systems that do not intelligently distribute related ranges to different drives or sets of drives may be compounded by conventional GET operations that retrieve erasure codes from an object store. A conventional GET operation may only return a complete object or no object. Thus, if any range is unavailable, as may be likely with a conventional system, then the GET operation may return no object, even if some of the ranges are available and undamaged.
A conventional GET operation will only retrieve data from an entirely intact object. However, conventional systems may reduce the likelihood that an entirely intact object will be available. Thus, conventional systems may consume resources (e.g., CPU, memory) storing ranges for objects that may be difficult, if even possible at all, to retrieve using conventional GET operations.
An erasure code is a forward error correction (FEC) code for the binary erasure channel. The FEC facilitates transforming a message of k symbols into a longer message with n symbols such that the original message can be recovered from a subset of the n symbols, k and n being integers, n>k. The original message may be, for example, a file. The fraction r=k/n is called the code rate, and the fraction k′/k, where k′ denotes the number of symbols required for recovery, is called the reception efficiency. Optimal erasure codes have the property that any k out of the n code word symbols suffice to recover the original message. Optimal codes may require extensive memory usage, CPU time, or other resources when n is large.
Erasure codes are described in coding theory. Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their fitness for a certain purpose (e.g., backing up files). Codes may be used for applications including, for example, data compression, cryptography, error-correction, and network coding. Coding theory involves data compression, which may also be referred to as source coding, and error correction, which may also be referred to as channel coding. Fountain codes are one type of erasure code.
Fountain codes have the property that a potentially limitless sequence of encoding symbols may be generated from a given set of source symbols in a manner that supports ideally recovering the original source symbols from any subset of the encoding symbols having a size equal to or larger than the number of source symbols. A fountain code may be optimal if the original k source symbols can be recovered from any k encoding symbols, k being an integer. Fountain codes may have efficient encoding and decoding algorithms that support recovering the original k source symbols from any k′ of the encoding symbols with high probability, where k′ is just slightly larger than k. A rateless erasure code is distinguished from an erasure code that exhibits a fixed code rate.
Object based storage systems may employ rateless erasure code technology (e.g., fountain codes) to provide a flexible level of data redundancy. The appropriate or even optimal level of data redundancy produced using a rateless erasure code system may depend, for example, on the number and type of devices available to the object based storage system. The actual level of redundancy achieved using a rateless erasure code system may depend, for example, on the difference between the number of readable redundancy blocks (e.g., erasure codes) written by the system and the number of redundancy blocks needed to reconstruct the original data. For example, if twenty redundancy blocks are written for an object and only eleven redundancy blocks are needed to reconstruct the object that was protected by generating and writing the redundancy blocks, then the object may be reconstructed even if nine of the redundancy blocks are damaged or otherwise unavailable. Objects may be sub-divided into ranges and then erasure codes may be generated for each of the ranges. When objects are divided into ranges and erasure codes are generated for each of the ranges, then the redundancy established in the object store may be achieved on a per range basis rather than on a per object basis.
Object based storage systems using rateless erasure code technology may facilitate storing erasure codes according to different redundancy policies (e.g., 7/3, 20/9, 20/2). A redundancy policy may be referred to as an NIM redundancy policy where N total erasure codes are generated and the message can be regenerated using any N-M of the N total erasure codes, M and N being integers, M<N.

Mitigating the impact of a single point of failure in an object store


A field-effect transistor including a channel layer, a source electrode, a drain electrode, a high-resistance layer provided on the channel layer between the source electrode and the drain electrode and a gate electrode provided in an opening formed in the high-resistance layer, wherein the high-resistance layer is defined by a first side-wall facing the source electrode and a second side-wall facing the drain electrode, such that the first side-wall is separated from the source electrode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to compound-semiconductor devices and, more particularly, to a field-effect compound-semiconductor device in which a gate leakage current is suppressed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Compound-semiconductor devices are semiconductor devices that use a compound-semiconductor material for the active part of the device. Due to the characteristically very small effective mass of carriers in such a compound-semiconductor material, compound-semiconductor devices are used extensively for high speed applications. Such a high speed compound-semiconductor device includes HEMT and MESFET as a representative device, wherein an HEMT or an MESFET is used extensively for high-frequency applications.
In a field-effect compound-semiconductor device for such a high-frequency application, it is desirable to reduce a source resistance thereof as much as possible.
In order to reduce the source resistance of a field-effect compound-semiconductor device, it is desirable to reduce the distance between a source region and a gate electrode as much as possible. However, such a semiconductor device having a reduced source-gate distance tends to show a problem of increased leakage of the current flowing through a cap layer to the gate electrode.
FIG. 1 shows the construction of a typical conventional compound-semiconductor FET (field-effect transistor) 10.
Referring to FIG. 1, the FET 10 is a so-called doped channel transistor constructed on a semi-insulating compound-semiconductor substrate 11, and includes a channel layer epitaxially formed on the substrate 11 by an epitaxial process such as an MOVPE process. On the channel layer 12, there is provided a barrier layer 13 that forms a potential barrier with respect to the channel layer 12 for confining carriers in the channel layer 12, and a spacer layer 14 is formed further on the barrier layer 13 with a thickness adjusted such that the FET 10 has a desired threshold voltage. Further, an etching stopper layer 15 is formed on the spacer layer 14, and a cap layer 16 is provided further on the spacer layer 15.
The cap layer 16 is covered by an insulation film 17, and the insulation film 17 is formed with an opening 16A that penetrates through the cap layer 16, such that a top surface of the etching stopper layer 15 is exposed at the bottom of the opening 16A. It should be noted that the opening 16A is formed in correspondence to a channel region of the FET 10.
On the insulation film 17, there is provided a gate electrode 18 such that the gate electrode 18 fills the opening 16A and achieves direct contact with the etching stopper layer 15, and a pair of N.sup.+ -type diffusion regions 19A and 19B are formed at both lateral sides of the gate electrode 18, such that the diffusion regions 19A and 19B penetrate through the layers 16-12 and reach the substrate 11. Further, source and drain electrodes 20A and 20B are formed on the cap layer 16 in ohmic contact with the diffusion regions 19A and 19B, respectively.
In the doped channel transistor of FIG. 1, the problem of penetration of a surface depletion layer into the channel layer 12, and resultant repulsion of the carriers therefrom, is successfully avoided. Further, the depth of the opening 16A, in other words, the distance between the channel layer 12 and the gate electrode 18 filling the opening 16A, is set as desired, by providing the etching stopper layer 15. In order to avoid the leakage of the source current to the gate electrode 18, the cap layer 16 is formed of an undoped compound semiconductor material.
In such a doped channel transistor, there inevitably arises a problem in that a substantial gate leakage current flows when the distance between the source region 19A and the gate region 18 is reduced for minimizing the source resistance, particularly when a high gate voltage is applied to the gate electrode 18 for inducing carriers in the channel layer 12. This problem occurs even when the cap layer 16 is formed of a high-resistance undoped compound-semiconductor material.
A similar problem occurs also in a doped channel FET 10' shown in FIG. 2 in which the source and drain electrodes 20A and 20B are disposed at both lateral sides of the cap layer 16 for reducing the distance between the channel layer 12 and the ohmic electrode 20A or 20B.
Summarizing above, conventional compound-semiconductor FETs have suffered from the problem of gate leakage current. In other words, conventional compound-semiconductor FETs could not reduce the source-gate distance as desired because of the gate leakage current and have suffered from the problem of reduced operational speed caused by the source resistance.

Field effect semiconductor device having a reduced leakage current


An interactive operation method of an electronic apparatus is provided. An image sequence is captured by an image capturing unit. An image pre-processing is executed on an image of the image sequence. A fingertip candidate region is obtained from the image. Whether the fingertip candidate region is connected with a hand region is determined. If the fingertip candidate region is connected with the hand region, the fingertip candidate region serves as a target fingertip region. Whether a click event occurs is determined by continuously tracking the target fingertip region. When the click event occurs, a corresponding function is executed.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an interactive control mechanism and more particularly relates to an interactive operation method based on gesture identification.
2. Description of Related Art
As electronic apparatuses develop in the recent years, electronic products such as smart phones, tablet computers, etc., become more and more popular. People start to pay more attention to issues such as the quality and capability that electronic apparatuses provide the user. For example, some electronic apparatuses may provide a human machine interface (HMI) to help achieve the interaction between the user and the electronic apparatuses. The design of the human machine interface is determined by the demand and habit of the user. For instance, physical controllers, such as mice, keyboards, and remote controls, are common human machine interfaces at present.
Through these physical controllers, the user is able to operate electronic apparatuses like computers or televisions. As human machine interface advances, physical controllers are gradually replaced by virtual controllers. Virtual controllers not only create a whole new experience for the user but also have many advantages. First, virtual controllers provide various ways of input. That is, the user may switch between the physical controller and the virtual controller to select a suitable input method according to the user's needs. In addition, the size and shape of the virtual controller may be varied to meet the user's requirements, and the virtual controller does not occupy any physical space.
Augmented reality (or abbreviated as AR) is a technique that calculates the position and angle of an image of a camera in real time and adds corresponding figures. The purpose of such a technique is to integrate the virtual world with the real world on a screen to achieve interaction. The current AR systems are mostly based on network cameras. Nevertheless, cameras of this type can only capture two-dimensional (2D) data. Using limited two-dimensional data to carry out positioning in a three-dimensional space requires highly advanced algorithms. However, the obtained results may not always be accurate. As a result, virtual controllers may not successfully interpret the user's intention and order.

Interactive operation method of electronic apparatus

National Taiwan University of Science and Technology


Provided is a Head Up Display (HUD) device for a vehicle, the device including: a plurality of light emitting devices; an image forming panel configured to generate an image based on light provided from the plurality of light emitting devices and output the image; a lens system arranged between the plurality of light emitting devices and the image forming device and configured to transmit light generated by the plurality of light emitting devices to the image forming panel; and a processor configured to control the plurality of light emitting devices and the image forming panel, wherein each of the plurality of light emitting devices is mounted to a circuit board by direct bonding.

A vehicle is an apparatus that moves in a direction desired by a user riding therein. A typical example of the vehicle may be an automobile.
Meanwhile, a variety of sensors and electronic devices have been mounted in vehicles for the convenience of a user who uses the vehicle. In particular, for user driving convenience, an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) has been actively studied. In addition, efforts have been vigorously making to develop autonomous vehicles.
Meanwhile, it is necessary to develop a variety of devices for interface between the a vehicle and a user. In particular, efforts is being made to research a Head Up Display (HUD) device in which a picture is implemented on a windshield to allow a user to recognize information while driving.
Such a HUD device displays an image using a light source, but a HUD device according to a related art has a problem of low system efficiency.
In particular, a lens system in the HUD device according to the related art is not able to efficiently use light generated by light emitting devices.


Computer systems and methods of operating a computer system are described. The computer system can include a computer rack; a first stack and a second stack provided in the computer rack, each stack comprising one or more computers; a first cooling plenum configured such that cooling air can flow between the computers in the first stack and the first cooling plenum; and a second cooling plenum configured such that cooling air can flow between the computers in the second stack and the second cooling plenum. The method of operating a plurality of computers may include providing a first and a second computer in a partial back-to-back relationship in the computer rack such that an overlapping portion of the back of the first computer faces an overlapping portion of the back of the second computer; passing cooling air through the first computer and out of an exposed portion of the back of the first computer and into a first cooling plenum or passing cooling air from the first cooling plenum into the first computer; and passing cooling air through the second computer and out of an exposed portion of the back of the second computer and into a second cooling plenum or passing cooling air from the second cooling plenum into the second computer.

As information technology has rapidly progressed in the past ten years, the role of computer network centers such as server farms and server clusters have became increasingly important to our society. The server farms provide efficient data storage and data distribution capability that supports a worldwide information infrastructure, which has come to dominate how we live and how we conduct our day to day business.
A server farm is a group or cluster of computers acting as servers and housed together in a single location. For example, a Web server farm may be either a Web site that has more than one server, or an Internet service provider that provides Web hosting services using multiple servers. In a business network, a server farm or cluster might perform such services as providing centralized access control, file access, printer sharing, and backup for workstation users.
To take advantage of economies of scale, the number of computers hosted in server farms has continued to grow over the past ten years. This has lead to an increasing need for space in which to house the network host units and a consolidation of spaces where they are located. Sites known as co-location sites where numerous networked computers find a home have emerged to meet this market demand. Space for the computers is typically rented at such sites. Rent calculations may be based on the overall space occupied, power consumption and bandwidth handled by the computers occupying the space. Because of the relationship between such factors, it will often be in favor of both a co-location site and computer service provider to maximize both the density and performance efficiency of the computers at a given site. By increasing the density at which computers may be packed into a given area, the service provider benefits as less space is required for a given number of computers; the co-location site benefits since the ultimate bandwidth available in association with the space available may be greatly increased.
Other less apparent benefits stem from conserving the space a host computer occupies. In many instances, it will be economically feasible to forestall the retirement of otherwise outdated host computers since the cost of the space they occupy is relatively lower, thereby justifying their continued service for a period of time. On the other hand, where it is preferred to only maintain the highest-end computers in service, the savings available by minimizing the size of such computers without hindering performance is quite clear. There exists a need for computer systems adapted for realizing these many advantages.
Typically, at a site where numerous computers are connected to a network, the computers are stacked in racks and arranged in repeating rows or cells. Access to the computers is necessary for servicing, upgrading hardware, loading software, attaching cables, switching power on and off, and so forth. The elimination of as much access space as is feasible can increase the density of computer systems that may be provided for a given square footage of area at a site. Consequently, there exists a need to eliminate extraneous access space while still maintaining the use of relatively inexpensive, standard (or more-or-less standard size) racks.
In the market today, a standard rack that is widely used measures roughly 19 inches wide, 30 inches deep and 74 inches high. In at least one co-location site, these racks are lined up in rows of roughly 10–30 units with access doors on each side of a rack. Access aisles are provided on both sides of the rows. Many of the racks are filled with cumbersome computers mounted on sliders which are attached through mounting holes provided in the front and back of the rack. Regardless of the chassis design of the computers (or lack thereof where computers are merely built on open trays with their components uncovered) and how they are mounted to the racks, data devices included in the computer are accessed from the front. Main board I/O's, other I/O's, power cords and such items are typically accessed from the back. It is this latter design aspect which not only results in inefficiency in the amount of access space required, but also in the frequent inefficiencies associated with having to administer services to both sides of a computer. Consequently, there exists a need for computers useable in a network setting that are accessible and fully serviceable from a single side.
As the number of computers in a server farm is increased, two competing factors come into play: consumption of floor space and heat/ventilation management. To increase the number of computers at a given server farm without increasing the density of the computers means one would need more space. As the cost of real estate continues to rise, especially in the urban areas where population density is high, there is a strong incentive to maximize the utilization of a given space. Furthermore, in some existing server farm facilities, there is no more space available for scaleable growth. In such a situation, in order to expand, one would have to absorb the cost of starting a new server farm.
Alternatively, one may try to increase the number of computers that are housed in a given space. In order to significantly increase the density of computers in a given space, one common solution has been to shrink the size of each individual computer in the rack. Another option is to decrease the space between the racks that are holding the stacks of computers.
However, as one increases the density of computers, problems associated with heat dissipation rises exponentially. One of the major causes of electronic component failure is overheating. High performance electronics such as CPUs generate substantial amounts of heat. Additionally, next generation processors and power supplies are emitting substantially more heat as computing requirements increases. Thereby placing further demands on effective heat dissipation. In order for computers to continue to operate properly, appropriate heat dissipation pathways must be provided. Because each computer contains thousands of heat producing electronic parts, as one increases the density of the computers, one must also address the difficult issues of providing proper cooling mechanisms to remove heat from the individual computer nodes and the clusters as a whole.


Compositions for use in characterization, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy of cancer cells are provided. The compositions comprise peptides and variants thereof which were isolated based on their ability to selectively bind glioma cells.

It has been estimated that in the year 2000, approximately 350,000 people were living with a primary brain tumor (Davis et al. (2001) Neurooncology 3: 152–158). The expected incidence of new cases of primary brain tumors in the United States is estimated to be over 35,000 for the year 2001 (Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States fact sheet (2001), available from CBTRUS, Chigaco, Ill.). Approximately 13,000 people die of malignant brain tumors in the United States each year, representing about 2% of all cancer deaths (Greenlee et al. (2001) Cancer J. Clin. 51: 15–36). Brain tumors are the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children under the age of 20 (Id.).
Glial tumors or gliomas are tumors which arise from neuroectodermal cells of the glial lineage and include glioblastomas (about 23% of primary brain tumors), astrocytomas (about 8% of primary brain tumors), anaplastic astrocytomas (about 4% of primary brain tumors), and oligodendrogliomas (about 3% of primary brain tumors). Of these, glioblastomas, which are malignant gliomas, are the most aggressive and difficult to treat (Roth & Weller (1999) Cell Mol. Life Sci. 56: 481–506; Badie & Schartner (2001) Microsci. Res. Tech 54: 106–113). Glioblastomas are the most common type of brain tumors in adults and by far the most devastating (Id.). While glioblastomas do not metastasize outside the brain, they are highly infiltrative and typically compress and destroy adjacent brain tissue and obstruct the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Patients with glioblastomas are immunosuppressed both locally and systemically by a process which is poorly understood but which involves the secretion of TGF-β and other cytokines (Roth & Weller (1999) Cell Mol. Life Sci. 56: 481–506).
Gliomas are poorly immunogenic, and no glioma-specific antigens have been recognized (Badie & Schartner (2001) Microsci. Res. Tech 54: 106–113). While the blood-brain barrier may be disrupted in some areas affected by glioma, frequently the blood-brain barrier is intact where migrating glioma cells infiltrate into normal brain tissue (Roth & Weller (1999) Cell Mol. Life Sci. 56: 481–506). Gliomas are very heterogeneous, varying greatly not only from individual to individual, but also in the neoplastic cell populations within a tumor (Id.). Gliomas exhibit variable expression of cell surface markers. These characteristics are major impediments for therapies designed to target tumor cells.
Current treatment of glioblastomas is multimodal (Id.; Spear et al. (1998) J. Neurovirol. 4: 133–137). Surgical resection is often performed to reduce tumor load and to prevent or reduce complications associated with compression. However, it is seldom possible to completely remove the tumor due to its location and/or its infiltrative growth pattern. Radiotherapy is considered to be the most effective treatment for glioblastomas, although there are several major drawbacks to this treatment: many gliomas are resistant to irradiation-induced cytotoxicity; normal brain tissue tolerance cannot be exceeded; and radiotherapy generates late side effects (Roth & Weller (1999) Cell Mol. Life Sci. 56: 481–506). Chemotherapy is also limited in its effectiveness because of toxic effects on normal tissues, including myelosuppression and peripheral neurotoxicity (Id). While combinations of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy are currently used to treat tumors, glioblastomas are usually fatal within one to two years of onset of symptoms (Karpati et al. (1999) Curr. Opin. Mol. Ther. 1: 545–552).
One desirable alternative to these conventional therapies is more specific, genetically-based therapies to allow specific targeting of tumor cells for diagnostic and prognostic tests and for therapeutic treatments. One ligand discovery approach has been to generate monoclonal antibodies against tumor cells and screen them for specificity (see, e.g., Wikstrand et al. (1999) Cancer Metastasis Rev. 18: 451–464). While antibody-mediated targeting of tumor cells has shown clinical promise, there are several limitations on the usefulness of antibodies. Monoclonal antibody techniques are expensive, time-consuming, and dependent on the immunogenicity of targets, a property which gliomas often lack. Monoclonal antibodies may not be useful for identification and targeting of conserved cell-specific receptors due to the receptor size, structure, and/or lack of immunogenicity. Further, antibodies are relatively large, which may limit their uptake into tumor cells, and antibodies are also taken up nonspecifically by reticulendothelial cells in non-tumor tissues (Aina et al. (2002) Biopolymers 66: 184–199). Although it may be possible to improve targeting of specific cells markers by further manipulation of antibodies, antibody-based methods are currently limited in their usefulness.
Thus, there remains a need for improved therapies to treat brain tumor patients as well as for more sensitive diagnostic and prognostic techniques. Molecular profiles of neoplastic cells based on DNA, mRNA, and/or protein alterations are rapidly being developed and utilized not only to augment diagnosis but to provide new therapeutic measures. Of these profiles, protein and protein-associated markers, particularly those on the tumor cell surfaces, lend themselves most readily to targeting procedures.
Protein surface markers have been described in association with malignant glioma cells. Growth factors such as EGF, PDGF, and cytokines have been exploited because they not only bind to upregulated surface receptors, but also modulate cell proliferation and differentiation. Additionally, the structures of these factors and their receptors are known, allowing for genetic and chemical manipulations to improve binding affinity, reduce immune complications, and disrupt associated molecular pathways. Growth factor receptors that have been described in association with malignancy include: epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR; see Kuan et al. (2000) Int. J. Cancer 88: 962–969; Wikstrand et al. (1998) J. Neurovirol. 4: 148–158); platelet derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR; see Nister et al. (1987) Cancer Res. 47: 4953–4960; Maher et al. (2001) Genes Dev. 15: 1311–1333; Westermark et al. (1995) Glia 15: 257–263). See also, Roth & Weller (1999) Cell Mol. Life Sci. 56: 481–506. Surface markers include cytokine receptors such as interleukin-4 receptor (IL-4 R; see Puri et al. (1996) Cancer Res. 56: 5631–5637; Rahaman et al. (2002) Cancer Res. 62: 1103–1109) and interleukin-13 receptor (IL-13 R; see Liu et al. (2000) Cancer Immunol. Immunother. 49: 319–324). Surface markers also include: transferrin receptor (TfR; see Li et al. (2002) Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 23: 206–209); urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR; see Del Rosso et al. (2002) Clin. Exp. Metastasis 19: 193–207; Kroon et al. (2000) Blood 96: 2775–2783); chloride channels (see Soroceanu et al. (1998) Cancer Res. 58: 4871–4879; Ransom et al. (2001) J. Neurosci. 21: 7674–7683) membrane-type matrix metalloproteinases (MT-MMPs; see Fillmore et al. (2001) J. Neurooncol. 53: 187–202); cell adhesion molecules such as integrins (see Goldbrunner et al. (1999) Acta Neurochir (Wien) 141: 295–305; Tonn et al. (1998) Anticancer Res. 18: 2599–2606; Paulus et al. (1996) Lab. Investigation 75: 819–826; and Laws, Jr., et al. (1993) Int. J. Dev. Neurosci. 11: 691–697); and CD44s (see Ranuncolo et al. (2002) J. Surg. Oncol. 79: 30–35; Breyer et al. (2000) J. Neurosurg. 92: 140–149). However, the presence of these receptors on normal cells, particularly during development or wound healing, makes targeting these receptors less desirable because of possible side effects on normal tissues.
The majority of markers utilized for targeting are those that are either upregulated, resulting in increased numbers of binding sites for the targeting ligand, or are rearranged molecules, allowing glioma-selective binding when compared to normal cells. For example, Debinski et al. ((2000) J. Neurooncol. 48: 103–111) showed that an increased number of binding sites for IL-13 accompanied the progression of gliomas from low to high grade. Similarly, transferrin receptors were shown to be present in significantly greater numbers on the surface of malignant glioma cell lines when compared to normal control cell lines (Wen et al. (1993) Neurosurgery 33: 878–881). In addition to cell surface markers, naturally-occurring neuroectodermal cell-specific ligands such as chlorotoxin (ClTx), a 4-kilodalton peptide from the venom of scorpions, have been used as targeting molecules for gliomas (Soroceanu et al. (1998) Cancer Res. 58: 4871–4879; Lyons et al. (2002) Glia 39: 162–173). The chlorotoxin peptide shows high-affinity, specific binding to glioma cells and may find use in therapeutic and diagnostic applications.
One of the few unique markers to tumor cells is a frequently rearranged form of EGFR known as EGFR type III variant ("EGFRvIII"), also called "de2-7 EGFR" (Johns et al. (2002) Int. J. Cancer 98: 398–408). This marker has a deletion in the extracellular domain, resulting in a tumor-specific cell surface receptor that is found on a variety of tumor cell types including malignant glioma, breast carcinoma, non-small cell lung carcinomas, and ovarian tumors (Kuan et al. (2001) Endocr. Relat. Cancer 8: 83–96).
With the exception of the rearranged EGFRvIII and IL-4-independent IL-13Rα2 (see, e.g., Nagane et al. (2001) J. Neurosurg. 95: 472–492), the surface molecules described above also are expressed by normal cells, limiting their usefulness in diagnosis or therapy. Additionally, there is frequently variation in marker expression within the same tumor mass over time with neoplastic progression or among the same type of tumors from different individuals. The multifunctional adhesion molecule involved in cell—cell and cell-matrix interactions, CD44s, was shown to be differentially expressed such that low-grade astrocytomas (9.5%) had far fewer cells with high expression of CD44s than did glioblastomas (59%), while positive CD44s staining was heterogeneous even within samples (Ranuncolo et al. (2002) J. Surg. Oncol. 79: 30–35). Such intratumoral and intertumoral heterogeneity of tumor cells indicates that no single marker will be able to provide diagnosis and/or targeting for all gliomas, but instead that an array of markers will be necessary for such purposes.
Small peptides that bind to cell surface markers also have been utilized in targeting strategies. The advantages of peptide ligands are their small size, specificity, and chemical stability, the ease with which they can be derivatized, and their general lack of binding to reticuloendothelial cells, in contrast to antibodies (Aina et al. (2002) Biopolymers 66: 184–199). Spear et al. ((2001) Cancer Gene Ther. 8: 506–511) used phage display technology to identify cell surface biorecognition molecules for brain tumors using different human and rat cell lines. However, the phage clones identified were found to have low binding specificity for glioma cells based on evaluations using ELISA. Thus, while some peptide ligands have been identified, there remains a need for additional peptide ligands which will preferentially bind to gliomas for use in diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy.

Peptides for recognition and targeting of GLIAL cell tumors


Affinity binding entities having TCRL binding domain and methods of their use are provided. More specifically these compositions bind HLA-A2/WT1+, HLA-A2/MAGE-A4, HLA-A2/MAGE-A9, HLA-A2/PAP or HLA-A2/TyrD+ cells and as such can be used in diagnostics and therapy.

The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to affinity entities comprising a TCR-like antibody binding domain with high affinity and fine specificity and uses of same.
Tumor and virus-infected cells are recognised by CD8+ cytotoxic T cells that, in response, are activated to eliminate these cells. In order to be activated, the clonotypic T-cell receptor (TCR) needs to encounter a specific peptide antigen presented by the membrane surface major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecule. Cells that have undergone malignant transformation or viral infection present peptides derived from tumour-associated antigens or viral proteins on their MHC class I molecules. Therefore, disease-specific MHC-peptide complexes are desirable targets for immunotherapeutic approaches. One such approach transforms the unique fine specificity but low intrinsic affinity of TCRs to MHC-peptide complexes into high-affinity soluble antibody molecules endowed with a TCR-like specificity towards tumour or viral epitopes. These antibodies, termed TCR-like antibodies, are being developed as a new class of immunotherapeutics that can target tumour and virus-infected cells and mediate their specific killing. In addition to their therapeutic capabilities, TCR-like antibodies are being developed as diagnostic reagents for cancer and infectious diseases, and serve as valuable research tools for studying MHC class I antigen presentation.

Affinity entities comprising a TCR-like antibody binding domain with high affinity and fine specificity and uses of same