A method for removing contaminants on a semiconductor substrate is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes forming a dielectric structure on the semiconductor substrate. A portion of an electrically conducting region to a side of the dielectric structure is etched, and a conductive material is deposited on the etched electrically conducting region.

Field effect transistors (FETs) are attractive as switching devices in power supplies. However, the high dv/dt stresses to which the switching devices in such power supplies are exposed can cause an internal body diode of a FET to conduct under normal power supply operating conditions. This internal body diode is a bipolar diode that stores an associated charge that can be relatively large because of the relatively large volume of the drift region in a power FET. Consequently, the recovery time of this diode after forward conduction can become a substantial portion of an operating cycle as the operating frequency is increased. The conduction in these diodes limits the maximum switching speed and contributes to power losses within the power supply.
One solution to this problem is to provide a Schottky diode in parallel with a FET. In a circuit including these elements, the body diode of the FET does not turn on if the Schottky diode has lower turn-on voltage than the turn-on voltage of the body diode. A fast reverse recovery results since Schottky diodes have very short reverse recovery times.
Reliably fabricating integrated circuits with FETs and Schottky diodes is difficult due to the formation of contaminants during processing. Contaminants formed during processing can deposit on a surface of an electrically conducting region that will form a Schottky contact. The electrically conducting region may be, for example, a semiconducting portion of a Schottky diode. If contaminants deposit on the electrically conducting layer, the conductivity at the surface of the electrically conducting region is altered. When a Schottky metal is deposited on the surface of the electrically conducting region, the formed Schottky diode may not function in its intended manner because of the altered conductivity of the electrically conducting region.
The contaminants that deposit on the electrically conducting regions can be produced at many stages of the fabrication process. For instance, contaminants may be produced during a photolithography process. Photolithography processes are used to form dielectric structures that isolate gate electrodes from source regions in FETs. In an exemplary process, a dielectric layer is first deposited on a semiconductor substrate. A layer of photoresist is then deposited on the dielectric layer and is irradiated with a pattern of radiation. The irradiated portions of the photoresist layer may be removed to form a photoresist pattern. Portions of the dielectric layer exposed through the photoresist pattern may be etched. After etching, the photoresist pattern may be stripped in a stripping chamber to leave a plurality of dielectric structures. During stripping, some of the photoresist may not be completely removed from the stripping chamber and can deposit on electrically conducting regions on the semiconductor substrate.
Contaminants can also be present in the air of a cleanroom or in processing fluids such as process gases and process liquids. Contaminants in the air or in processing fluids can also deposit on electrically conducting regions on a semiconductor substrate, thus altering the conductive properties of the electrically conducting regions.
Contaminants can also be produced in a reflow process. FIG. 1, for example, shows a semiconductor substrate 202 having a plurality of trench metal oxide field effect transistor (MOSFET) devices 200 and a plurality of electrically conducting regions 218 comprising a semiconducting material. Dielectric structures 250 made of BPSG (borophosphosilicate glass) are disposed on the semiconductor substrate 202 and isolate the gate electrodes from the source regions in the MOSFET devices 200. In this example, the electrically conducting regions 218 have an upper surface that coincides with the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate 202. The electrically conducting regions 218 are disposed to the sides of the dielectric structures 250.
During a reflow process, the dielectric structures 250 are heated to melt them. When the dielectric structures 250 are heated, dopants such as boron and phosphorous in the dielectric structures 250 vaporize and deposit on and/or diffuse into electrically conducting regions 218 on the semiconductor substrate 202. This is sometimes referred to as xe2x80x9cautodopingxe2x80x9d. As shown by the arrows 150 in FIG. 1, in autodoping, dopants can deposit anywhere on the semiconductor substrate 202. Dopants that are at the electrically conducting regions 218 alter the surface conductivity of the electrically conducting regions 218. When a conductive material (not shown) such as a Schottky metal is deposited on the electrically conducting regions 218, a Schottky diode is formed. Because of the altered conductivity of the electrically conducting regions 218, the formed Schottky diode may not function as intended.
In sum, the presence of contaminants at electrically conducting regions on a semiconductor substrate makes reliable volume production of devices such as Schottky diodes difficult. Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems.
Embodiments of the invention relate to methods for removing contaminants from electrically conducting regions that are disposed adjacent a dielectric structure. Broadly, contaminants at the electrically conducting regions can be removed by, for example, etching a portion of the electrically conducting regions.
One embodiment of the invention is directed to a method for removing contaminants on a semiconductor substrate. The method comprises: (a) forming a dielectric structure on the semiconductor substrate; (b) etching a portion of an electrically conducting region disposed to a side of the dielectric structure, wherein the electrically conducting region is etched at a faster rate than the dielectric structure; and (c) depositing a conductive material on the etched electrically conducting region.
Another embodiment of the invention is directed to a method for removing surface contamination on a semiconductor substrate. The method comprises: (a) forming a field effect transistor on a semiconductor substrate, wherein the field effect transistor has a gate electrode, a source region, and a drain region; (b) forming a dielectric structure on the gate electrode and the source region; (c) reflowing the dielectric structure; (d) etching a portion of the electrically conducting region disposed to a side of the reflowed dielectric structure, wherein the electrically conducting region is etched at a faster rate than the dielectric structure; (e) forming a barrier layer for a Schottky diode on the etched electrically conducting region; and (f) depositing a conductive layer on the barrier layer.
Other embodiments of the invention relate to products made by such methods.
These and other embodiments of the invention are described in further detail with reference to the Figures and the detailed description.

Method for removing surface contamination on semiconductor substrates


An electronic camera includes an image sensor. The image sensor has an imaging surface for capturing an object scene, and repeatedly generates an object scene image. A CPU assigns a search area on the imaging surface, and repeatedly executes search processing for searching a facial image on the search area in parallel with executing object scene image generating processing of the image sensor. A character representative of a position of a facial image detected by the search processing is superposed on a through-image on an LCD monitor. The size of the search area assigned on the imaging surface is reduced as a panning and/or tilting speed of the imaging surface is increased.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic camera. More specifically, the present invention relates to an electronic camera which adjusts an imaging condition by paying attention to a feature image appearing in an object scene image.
2. Description of the Related Art
One example of a camera of such a kind is disclosed in a patent document. According to the patent document, a face detecting area having a high possibility of existence of a face of a person is set on the basis of assist mode information. Face detecting processing is executed by noting the set area, and image correction processing such as a tone correction, a contrast correction, a color-balancing correction, an edge enhancement, etc. is executed on the basis of a face detection result. However, in the patent document, the size and/or the position of the face detecting area is fixed irrespective of panning and/or tilting the imaging surface. Thus, panning and/or tilting the imaging surface may prevent a face of a person from being detected accurately.

Electronic camera and method which adjust the size or position of a feature search area of an imaging surface in response to panning or tilting of the imaging surface


In a cooling system structure for a vehicular water-cooled internal combustion engine with a cylinder section and a cylinder body and a cylinder head. The cooling system structure having water jackets formed in the cylinder body and the cylinder head, respectively, with a radiator disposed forwardly of the engine main unit. A water pump performs forced circulation of coolant through the radiator and the water jackets, to permit routing of pipes with enhanced appearance. Water jackets are formed, respectively, in a cylinder body and a cylinder head such that coolant flows through the cylinder body and the cylinder head independently of each other. A thermostat is mounted on a front wall surface of a cylinder section and is capable of selecting a condition in which the water jackets directly communicate with each other or a condition in which the water jackets communicate with each other via a radiator.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooling system structure for a vehicular water-cooled internal combustion engine. The internal combustion engine includes a cylinder section constituting, together with a crankcase for rotatably supporting a crankshaft, an engine main unit, with a cylinder body that rises upwardly from the crankcase. A piston is connected to the crankshaft and is slidably fitted within a cylinder head connected to the cylinder body. Water jackets are formed in the cylinder body and the cylinder head, respectively. A radiator is disposed forwardly of the engine main unit with a water pump disposed on the engine main unit. The water pump performs a forced circulation of coolant through the radiator and the water jackets.
The present invention also relates generally to power units for small sized vehicles. The power unit is mounted on a vehicle body frame including an internal combustion engine and a transmission. The internal combustion engine includes a crankcase that rotatably supports a crankshaft having an axis extending in a vehicle width direction and a cylinder body in which a piston connected to the crankshaft is slidably fitted and that rises upwardly from a front portion of the crankcase. The cylinder body includes a water jacket formed therein for circulating coolant. The transmission is disposed rearwardly of the crankshaft and is housed in a transmission housing section formed in the crankcase rearwardly of the cylinder body. The present invention relates particularly to an improved cooling system structure in a power unit for use in a small sized vehicle.
2. Description of Background Art
A known arrangement, as disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 4842715 wherein a cooling system structure includes a water pump disposed at a lower portion on a first end side of an engine main unit in a direction extending along an axis of a crankshaft. A thermostat is disposed at a front portion of a cylinder head on a side opposite to the water pump in the direction extending along the axis of the crankshaft. The arrangement further makes a discharge port of the water pump communicating directly with a front lower portion of a water jacket formed in a cylinder body, thereby allowing coolant to flow to the side of the thermostat by way of the water jacket in the cylinder body and a water jacket in the cylinder head.
A radiator needs to be disposed at a position wherein the radiator easily receives airflow forwardly of an engine main unit. In the arrangement disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 4842715, external pipes disposed on both side of the engine main unit connect between the thermostat and the radiator, and between the radiator and the water pump. A need thus exists for improvements in terms of appearance.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-9350 discloses a disposition of a water pump in a power unit mounted on a small sized vehicle, such as a motorcycle. More specifically, the water pump is disposed on a side wall of a cylinder body wherein the positioning is less likely to be subject to restrictions in terms of layout and an extending of the piping length is avoided.
In a small sized vehicle, such as a motorcycle, in which the position at which the power unit is mounted greatly affects an interior space of an occupant, a need exists for minimizing the size of the power unit in a vehicle width direction as much as possible. However, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-9350 the water pump that is operatively associated and connected with a first end of a crankshaft is disposed so as to bulge outwardly in the vehicle width direction from the side wall of the cylinder body. This invites a larger size of the power unit in the vehicle width direction and a longer piping length between a water jacket in the cylinder body and the water pump.

Cooling system structure for vehicular water-cooled internal combustion engine


A system and method for accessing a data cache having at least two ways for storing data at the same addresses. A first and second tag memory store first and second sets of tags identifying data stored in each of the ways. A translation device determines from a system address a tag identifying one of the ways. A first comparator compares tags in the address with a tag stored in the first tag memory. A second comparator compares a tag in the address with a tag stored in the second tag memory. A clock signal supplies clock signals to one or both of the ways in response to an access mode signal. The system can be operated so that either both ways of the associative data cache are clocked, in a high speed access mode, or it can apply clock signals to only one of the ways selected by an output from the first and second comparators in a power efficient mode of operation.

The present invention relates to instruction and data caches used in micro processor based computing systems for temporarily storing instructions and data. Specifically, a system and method are described which can address the associative cache in a high speed mode, or in a mode which conserves power.
Computing systems, including micro-processor based systems, use a cache in conjunction with a main memory to hold data and/or instructions which are being processed. The cache comprises a memory where the temporary contents needed for processing are maintained so that the most recently used data from a main memory is located in a cache memory for rapid access by the micro-processor system.
Cache memories are organized as set associative comprising sets of individual SRAMs which contain the desired data and which typically have common address lines. Each SRAM is referred to as a way, and in a two-way associative cache, common address lines are connected to each SRAM. Lines of multi byte data are stored in each location of the ways. The information contained within a line of the set associative cache memory is derived by an effective address 20 generated by the microprocessor system. The effective address includes a tag field, a line index field and a byte field. The tag field of an effective address is utilized to determine whether or not one or the other ways contains the data being sought.
Both ways may be simultaneously addressed, and data from one or the other of the ways may be selected by a multiplexer by comparing a tag derived from the address applied to the ways of the associative cache to a tag contained in a tag memory or directory. The tag memory includes a row of tag data corresponding to the same row number of data in a given way. Thus, a comparison between the contents of a row of a tag memory and a tag from the tag memory determines which way contains the desired data and a multiplexer selects the desired data from the identified way.
In small computing systems, power efficiency becomes more important than was previously the case in earlier applications of set associative cache memories. Associative cache memories provide for higher speed data access when both ways are simultaneously addressed and clocked, and a late select command to the multiplexer selects the data from one of the ways. While this provides for optimum access speed, power is dissipated in each of the SRAMs of the associative cache when only one SRAM contains the selected data. This represents a significant waste of operational power, particularly in battery operated devices such as cellular telephones which may use such microprocessor systems.
To avoid the needless consumption of power by the way which does contain the desired data, some set associative cache memories have been provided with prediction logic. These systems all provide for a prediction of which way contains the requested data, and enable only the predicted way to produce the data. However, the prediction logic consumes power, and does not guarantee 100% predictability. Accordingly, more cache misses occur on a false prediction with only a marginal savings in power consumption.
In order to reduce power consumption, some designs reduce voltage levels or the operating frequency of the access cycle. There are limitations, however, to these techniques particularly lowering the operating frequency, since providing adequate time to make a set decision, and then obtain the required data, mandates a reduced maximum frequency of operation.
In a paper entitled, "A 600 MHz Single Chip Multiprocessor With 4.8 GB/s Internal Shared Piplined bus and 512 kB Internal Memory", 2003 International Solid-State Circuits Conference, pg. 254, a set associative instruction cache is described having reduced power consumption for normal prefetch cycles. Tag memory access and data memory access are divided into two consecutive cycles and only one way is activated. On the other hand during branch conditions, tag memory access and data memory access of both ways are executed in the same cycle to enhance the performance. In this way, there are two variations of cache performance, one emphasizing low power and the other high performance. However, the trade off between power savings and obtaining higher access speed is limited to normal prefetch and branch conditions. Further, the access during normal prefetch operations are made over two cycles which significantly slows down the access process. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a system which can be morphed between high performance, as well as a lower power consumption, in a variety of applications.

Method and system for providing cache set selection which is power optimized

International Business Machines Corporation


A charged particle radiation apparatus includes a control device that switches between a first charged particle beam and a second charged particle beam, the first charged particle beam being scanned to acquire an image and a waveform signal, the second charged particle beam being scanned over a sample before the scan of the first charged particle beam and used to charge the sample more than the first charged particle beam; wherein the control device is configured to acquire at least one of signal waveform data and image data about a pattern formed on the sample in accordance with a scan performed on the sample by the second charged particle beam, and to stop, when the acquired data has proved to be indicative of a predetermined state, the scan of the second charged particle beam.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a charged particle radiation apparatus and, more specifically, to a charged particle radiation apparatus having a beam irradiation condition determination device that determines beam irradiation conditions for charging a sample.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a wide variety of patterns are used for semiconductor wafers and other samples as semiconductor elements are increasingly highly integrated and miniaturized. In addition, the importance of semiconductor element measurement and inspection is increasing as the semiconductor elements are increasingly highly integrated and miniaturized. Further, as the semiconductor elements are increasingly highly integrated and miniaturized, contact holes performing a function of establishing an electrical connection between multiple layers and grooves formed between line patterns are increasing in depth. The contact holes, in particular, are formed to a considerable depth with their diameter decreased. The aspect ratio (the ratio between the depth and diameter) of some contact holes is higher than 50.
A preliminary charging method (hereinafter may be referred to as the pre-dose method) is known as a method of measuring and inspecting the bottom of such deep holes and deep grooves. The pre-dose method, which is disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Patent No. 4093662 (U.S. Pat. No. 7,977,632), is a method of positively charging a beam irradiation region by irradiating a sample with a beam having a secondary electron emission efficiency (electrons emitted from a sample/electrons incident on the sample) of higher than 1 before beam irradiation for measurement or inspection. Electrons emitted from the bottom due to positive charging are directed toward the surface of the sample without colliding with the sidewall of a deep hole. Therefore, the electrons emitted from the bottom of the hole can be detected with high efficiency.
If the surface of the sample is excessively charged, the potential difference of one region from another region having a different potential may increase to cause electrostatic breakdown. Japanese Patent No. 5117080 (U.S. Pat. No. 8,384,030) describes a preliminary charging condition determination method. This method performs pre-dosing and observation while changing the location of irradiation. When the luminance value of the bottom of a hole pattern increases above a setting, this method concludes that electrostatic breakdown may occur, and then decreases, for instance, a beam acceleration voltage for the purpose of reducing the effect of surface charging.
A method disclosed in Patent WO 2013/011792 A1 acquires images while changing beam conditions and analyzes the acquired images in order to determine pre-dose conditions under which the luminance value difference between an edge peak and a hole bottom is within a predetermined range.


A method and apparatus for the automatic migration of data via a distributed computer network allows a customer to select content files that are to be transferred to a group of edge servers. Origin sites store all of a customer's available content files. An edge server maintains a dynamic number of popular files in its memory for the customer. The files are ranked from most popular to least popular and when a file has been requested from an edge server a sufficient number of times to become more popular than the lowest popular stored file, the file is obtained from an origin site. The edge servers are grouped into two service levels: regional and global. The customer is charged a higher fee to store its popular files on the global edge servers compared to a regional set of edge servers because of greater coverage.

The Internet has enabled information providers to provide multimedia information to users across the world. The amount of available information has increased exponentially in the small time that the Internet has been accessible to the public.
As more and more users access information providers' large multimedia files, such as music and movies, the information providers' servers became overloaded. The bottleneck became the bandwidth that the servers could handle.
Replica (including caching) servers were introduced that were spread across the Internet. The caching servers contained mirror images of the information providers' multimedia files. This eased the burden on the information providers' servers by offloading the user requests to the caching servers. Replicating the information providers' multimedia files across the caching servers required a large amount of storage for infrequently accessed files and Internet bandwidth.
Additionally, the number of files that are actually accessed within an information provider's collection of multimedia files is low in comparison to the total number of files in the collection.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for a system that provides for the intelligent distribution of an information provider's multimedia files across the Internet. Additionally, there is a need for a system that allows servers across the Internet to dynamically adapt to varying demands for multimedia files.

Automatic migration of data via a distributed computer network


A semiconductor laser module is provided by silver soldering the holder part of Kovar to the package of Kovar, and then silver soldering the lens holder part of pure iron or a stainless steel to the holder part. The lens holder part has the convergent rod lens fixedly soldered thereto by an Au/Sn solder of a high melting point of 280.degree. C. The semiconductor laser is fixedly soldered onto a stem, with the stem, the optical fiber and ferrule holder being fixedly soldered at positions so that the light emitted from the semiconductor laser is converged by the convergent rod lens at the light incidence end of the optical fiber and the laser light is coupled to the optical fiber. Thus, the convergent rod lens can be fixed with high-melting-point joining means, and a semiconductor laser module for optical communications in which the deterioration of light connection repeatedly generated by heat stress is suppressed can be obtained.

This invention relates to a semiconductor laser module, and, more particularly, to a semiconductor laser module for optical communications over a wide range of working temperature.
A semiconductor laser module for optical communications is proposed in JP-A-Hei- 3-155509 which, as shown in FIG. 1, comprises an optical device including an optical transmitter or detector mounted in a package 1, and an optical fiber 3 having one end face end faces located at an image-forming position 2a of a lens 2 and protected by a cylindrical ferrule fixed to the package 1 through a ring fitted over the lens 2 disposed in front of the optical device, wherein the end face of said optical fiber 3, directed to the optical device, is arranged so as to be substantially in the same plane as a joint plane of the lens-engaging ring and the package 1, and wherein a lens holder 4, made of a metal rod for holding the lens 2, is a monolithic body formed by a single material. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 5 denotes a heat sink and reference numeral 6 denotes a semiconductor laser.
As mentioned above, the lens holding member constituted by the lens holder 4 for holding the lens 2 and mounted in the package 1 as a component part of the semiconductor laser module is monolithic and made by a material of one kind.
However, since the material for the package main body 1, Kovar (KV), nickel alloy, etc. have been used to form air-tight terminals, consideration of a thermal expansion coefficient relationship with a glass or ceramic as an air-tight sealing material must be given consideration.
In the prior art, relative to the package 1, it is necessary to mechanically stably fix the lens holder member 4, made of a metal rod, for holding the lens 2 when the lens holder is connected to the package 1. Therefore, for the lens holder member 4, a material with a thermal expansion coefficient equivalent to the material of the package is used. So, a difference arises between the thermal expansion coefficient of the lens holder 4 and that of the lens 2. In the above-mentioned prior art, however, because a solder with a melting point of 200.degree. C. or below is used as a fixing material for fixing the lens 2, the above problem attributable to a difference in the thermal expansion coefficient has not occurred.
Yet, in the prior art, if an attempt is made to fix the lens 2 with joining means having a high melting point of 280.degree. C. or higher, cracks occur in the lens 2 caused by thermal stress; therefore, it is impossible to fix the lens with high-melting-point joining means.
In recent years, the working temperature range required of the semiconductor laser modules for optical communications has been expanded to a wider range of -40.degree. C. to +85.degree. C. instead of the conventional range of 0.degree. C. to +65.degree. C.
With the above-mentioned prior art, it is impossible to fix the lens 2 with high-melting-point joining means, which assures high reliability in the required range of working temperature, and thus, the problem with the prior art is that it does not have sufficient reliability against changes in the thermal environment.

Semiconductor laser module with lens holder compensating for thermal stress


A first magnet is secured to the movable member at a first axial position and is associated with a first magnetic field. A secondary magnet is secured to the movable member at a secondary axial position and is associated with a secondary magnetic field. A sensor assembly comprises magnetic sensors arranged in an array (e.g., on a fixed member). A first magnetic sensor is spaced apart from the sensor assembly such that the first magnetic sensor detects the first magnetic field of the first magnet in a first state and an absence of or change in the first magnetic field in a second state. A data processor is arranged for determining an axial position of the moveable member based on at least one of the magnetic fields sensed by the sensor assembly.

A position sensor may detect the position of a movable member. For example, the position sensor may detect the position of a movable rod, piston, or another movable member with respect to a cylinder (e.g., hydraulic cylinder). The detected position may provide feedback, indirectly or directly, to an actuator associated with the movable member to precisely control the position or movement of the movable member at a corresponding time. The precision or accuracy of the position sensor may be degraded by any of the following factors: environmental stress, thermal stress, shock and vibration, and aging of components of the position sensor. Therefore, there is a need for a position sensor that determines the position of a movable member with enhanced precision or accuracy that addresses one or more of the above factors.

System for determining the position of a movable member


The present invention relates to a method for controlling a reactive power source in a wind power plant, the method comprising the steps of providing a wind turbine reactive power control signal and providing an active power reference signal, said active power reference signal being a measure of an active power production of the wind power plant. A control signal for the reactive power source is generated by combining the wind turbine reactive power control signal and the active power reference signal in such a way that the control signal for the reactive power source becomes a weighted signal of the wind turbine reactive power control signal. Moreover, the present invention relates to control units and wind power plants suitable for carrying out the present invention.

With increasing penetration of wind power generation, the requirements for the connection of wind power plants (WPPs) to the electrical grid are defined by new and emerging grid connection codes. The grid connection requirements vary in different parts of the world, but they share common aims, like to permit the development, maintenance and operation of a coordinated, reliable and economical transmission or distribution system.
The new requirements generally demand that WPPs provide ancillary services to support the network in which they are connected. WPPs differ from other generation sources—therefore they are particular in certain aspects of their control.
The main differences with synchronous generators (SGs) are as follows:                the energy source fluctuates and is unpredictable,        WPPs are highly modular and composed by a large number of generation units, thus introducing communication delays when sending the operational set points, and these could be in the range of hundredths of milliseconds,        the SGs provide the reactive power feed directly to the transmission system through their unit transformer which provides a more efficient voltage regulation since the reactive power is not transported over a long distance and through several transformers, and        wind turbine generators (WTGs) have bigger limitations in their reactive power and current capability due to the size of their electronic power converters.
Therefore, replacing traditional power plants, including their control characteristics during periods of strong wind could be a concern. Grid operators are solving this challenge by means of redacting specific sections in the grid codes for WPP performance.
Normally, the requirements of the utilities can be solved by the wind turbines and the plant controller. The wind power plant control can take place at wind turbine level and/or at plant level. The WPP controller can range from simply passing on references to the wind turbine control systems to performing the majority of closed-loop controls itself.
As voltage control is actuated by reactive power from the wind turbines it is possible to affirm that the voltage control design will cover an inner reactive power/voltage control loop, located at turbine level combined with an outer voltage control loop located at the point of common coupling (PCC) where it is intended to control the voltage.
However, at high active power levels it may occur that wind turbines, in particular doubly-fed induction generators, are not able to provide sufficient reactive power for voltage control. In such situation additional reactive power sources may be activated in order to ensure that a wind power plant meets the grid code requirement.
It may be seen as an object of embodiments of the present invention to provide a method and a control arrangement for controlling a reactive power source, in particular, at high active power levels.

Method and control arrangement for controlling a reactive power source


A high-pressure, flexible, self-supportive piping assembly includes a jointed conduit formed by a plurality of ball and socket joint elements, a flexible internal conduit extending through the jointed conduit, an external sheath, and fittings at opposite ends which communicate with the internal conduit. The sheath is heat shrunk onto the jointed conduit. Each joint element has a ball at one end and a socket at an opposite end whereby the joint elements can be connected serially in end-to-end relationship to form the jointed conduit. The ball of one joint element frictionally engages the socket of the next joint element and, in combination with the stiffness of the external sheath, result in a piping assembly which can selectively configured in shape and which will tend to retain such a shape until subsequently configured.

The present invention relates to a high pressure, flexible, self-supportive piping assembly allowing convenient placement and directing of a nozzle or diffuser connected to one end of the assembly.
Household showers typically include a shower head mounted from a rigid supply conduit by a ball and socket arrangement to allow the shower to be selectively directed. Other types of shower heads are connected to a flexible conduit which is not self-supporting, although the head is held in the hand to selectively direct the shower spray. As such, conventional shower heads are often difficult to use by persons with limited mobility or with limited use or dexterity of the hands.

High-pressure flexible self-supportive piping assembly


A drag box for use in applying cold mix asphalt paving material to a surface includes a pugmill for distributing the cold mix over the surface, a strike blade for shearing the asphalt mixture to a desired thickness, cylinders for raising and lowering the strike blade in response to elevational changes in the surface, at least one signal generator associated with each cylinder and adapted to produce a signal indicative of the elevation of the surface, and at least one signal receiver associated with each signal generator. The drag box is pulled behind a prime mover but preferably is not rigidly coupled with the prime mover. The blade is raised and lowered in response to signals emanating from the generator as the elevation of the surface changes, allowing surface level variations to be evened out while paving.

The present invention relates to a paving apparatus for applying asphalt mixtures to a surface. More specifically, the apparatus is a portable drag box that includes a pugmill and an adjustable strike blade. It is especially useful for applying cold mix.
While screeds are commonly used to smooth hot mix paving material as it is applied, cold mix paving material is typically too viscous for conventional screeds to properly smooth the applied material. The screeds tend to grab and pull the viscous mix as it is being applied.
Conventional adjustment mechanisms for screeds simply change the tilt or angle of attack of the screed but do not raise or lower the screed. Thus, in order to continue to lay a planar surface when the stiffness of the paving mixture increases, the forward speed of the screed must be slowed or the angle of attack of the screed must be adjusted. Even in doing either or both, the ride of the finished pavement is compromised.
Additionally, conventional screeds simply float on the applied pavement material. While the weight of the screed itself tends to cause the screed to float in a downward direction, the upward force induced by the applied pavement material tends to force the screed back upward. Thus, the screed tends to simply follow the contour of the roadway surface regardless of whether that surface is planar. Furthermore, conventional screeds are typically rigidly attached to a prime mover that pulls the screed across the paving material. Thus, vertical movement of the prime mover is transferred to the screed, which can cause unwanted elevational changes to be created in the paved surface.
Some screeds are manually adjusted in response to elevational changes in the surface. However, the lag time between the detection of a non-planar condition and the actual adjustment of the screed is too great with manual adjustment. Thus, the adjustment often actually exaggerates the detected non-planar condition by accounting for the non-planar condition of the surface only after the screed has passed that area. This creates more severe raised sections and indentations in the surface.
Similar to screeds, the strike blades of drag boxes are traditionally adjusted manually. Again, the lag time between the detection of a non-planar surface and the actual adjustment of the blade tends to create more severe raised sections and indentations in the surface. In addition, manual adjustment of the strike blade is costly as an additional operator must stand on the grate of the drag box to adjust the strike blade while other operators operate the prime mover that pulls the drag box. There is a need in the industry to lay a more planar road with a drag box.
In order to overcome these disadvantages, a device for evening out asphalt mixtures placed on a surface having high and low elevations is needed. More specifically, this device should be significantly more responsive to changes in the elevation of the surface than conventional devices.

Portable drag box with automated shearing device


A downhole steering tool is disclosed. The steering tool includes a rotatable shaft, a substantially non-rotating tool body deployed about the shaft, and a plurality of force application members deployed on the steering tool body. The steering tool further includes a bendable section deployed in the steering tool body. The bendable section is disposed to bend preferentially relative to the steering tool body under an applied bending load. The use of a steering tool body having a bendable section tends to advantageously reduce bending stresses in the steering tool body during use. Moreover, tools embodying this invention may be suitable for higher dogleg severity applications.

Directional control has become increasingly important in the drilling of subterranean oil and gas wells, for example, to more fully exploit hydrocarbon reservoirs. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional rotary steerable tools are used in many drilling applications to control the direction of drilling. Such steering tools commonly include a plurality of force application members (also referred to herein as blades) that may be independently extended out from and retracted into a substantially non-rotating steering tool body. The blades are disposed to extend outward from the steering tool body into contact with the borehole wall and to thereby displace the steering tool body from the centerline of well bore during drilling. The non-rotating steering tool body is typically deployed about a rotating shaft, which is disposed to transfer weight and torque from the surface (or from a mud motor) through the steering tool to the drill bit assembly.
In order to point (or push) the drill bit in a certain direction, one or more of the blades are moved radially outward into contact with the borehole wall to offset the non-rotating tool body from the centerline of the borehole. In a "point the bit" arrangement, the blades offset the steering tool body in substantially the opposite direction as the direction of subsequent drilling, while in a "push the bit" arrangement, the blades offset the steering tool body in substantially the same direction as the direction of subsequent drilling. Increasing the offset tends to correspondingly increase the degree of curvature (bend) in the borehole as it is being drilled.
While such steering tools are conventional in the art and are known to be serviceable for many directional drilling applications, there is yet room for further improvement. For example, there is a trend in the drilling industry towards drilling smaller diameter boreholes having sections with increased dogleg severity (curvature). As such there is a need for rotary steerable tools capable of achieving higher dogleg Severity (e.g., on the order of 10 or more degrees per 100 feet of borehole).
In conventional rotary steerable tools, as the required dogleg severity (curvature) of a borehole increases (particularly in small diameter boreholes) the trailing end (the upper end) of the non-rotating steering tool body tends to contact the borehole wall and thereby limit the ability of the steering tool to achieve a higher dogleg well path. Moreover, increased dogleg severity increases bending stresses in the steering tool body, Which must be accommodated to prevent tool failure.
Therefore, there exists a need for improved downhole steering tools. In particular, there exists a need for small diameter steering tools capable of achieving high dogleg severity. There also exists a need for a mechanism to accommodate the high bending stresses encountered in high dogleg boreholes.

Downhole steering tool having a non-rotating bendable section


An adapter for power supply is disclosed. The adapter comprises a body containing a peg module connected a connector of a plug, characterized in that one side of the body of the adapter is a common socket engaged with an engaging slot formed on the housing, the top portion of the engaging slot is a peg slot for the peg element at the bottom of the connector to align with the peg module at the interior of the body. The peg module is positioned within the interior of the body and the connector of various specification has a common plug for connection with a protruding peg of the adapter.

(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to adapter, and in particular, to a power source adapter with connectors allowing different types of electrical plugs used in different regions.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Adapters are used for electrical devices for current, a voltage conversion or changing, especially these adapters are used in notebook computer, mobile phones, digital cameras, PDA. These devices use adapters to provide operation or to recharging of batteries. Conventional adapters normally provide a fixed type of adapting function of power supply and drawback of these adapters is that they cannot be used in different regions of the world where different type of sockets or plugs are used. Another shortcoming of the available adapters is that these adapters normally have a significant size which occupies space when it is carried in a bag containing the electrical device. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a power source adapter which has small in size, and conveniently stored when it is not in use.


A method for determining data signal jitter via asynchronous sampling provides a low cost and production-integrable mechanism for measuring data signal jitter. The data signal is edge-detected and sampled by a sampling clock of unrelated frequency the sampled values are collected in a histogram according to a folding of the samples around a timebase. The timebase is determined by sweeping to detect a minimum jitter for the folded data. The histogram for the correct estimated timebase period is representative of the probability density function of the location of data signal edges and the jitter characteristics are determined by the width and shape of the density function peaks. Frequency drift can be corrected by adjusting the timebase used to fold the data across the sample set.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to digital interface circuits, and more particularly, to circuits and systems that evaluate data jitter.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data jitter determination is necessary to evaluate the performance of high-speed interface components and interfaces, as well as other circuits where jitter affect the bit error rate (BER). Determining data jitter is also desirable in many circuits that determine the quality of a received or transmitted data signal that also adapt performance of an interface in order to accommodate or reduce a level of data signal jitter.
In laboratory environments, high-accuracy laboratory instruments may be used to determine the jitter of a signal via very stable reference clocks and long integration times. However, the challenge of probing a very high frequency data signal and/or high-impedance data signal is significant, as the effects of the probe must be accounted for in the measurements and probe characteristics can vary over time and the probe compensation model may not be accurate under actual measurement conditions. Further, significant circuit area can be consumed in the impedance-matched and isolated output pads that permit such precision measurements. Such equipment is expensive and it is typically unfeasible to incorporate the equivalent of such instrumentation within production circuits.
On-chip measurements of data jitter are either performed using an internal global clock or an external sample clock with an internal delay line. Use of the internal global clock is limited in that clock jitter and data jitter cannot be separated. When an external sample clock is used, the delay accuracy, and thus the accuracy of the jitter measurement, is difficult to control. Since one inverter delay is typically the shortest delay available for fabricating an internal delay line, the resolution of the jitter measurement is then limited to one inverter delay. When measuring the jitter level of low-jitter signals, the resolution of the delay line technique is insufficient for accurate results. Further, if a large delay range is provided, the area and power required can be quite large, since the delay is typically operating at a very high clock frequency.
It is therefore desirable to provide a method and apparatus for determining data signal jitter that is low cost, can be at least partially integrated in a production circuit with no probing error and can quickly determine the jitter level of a data signal.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Determining data signal jitter via asynchronous sampling


Deep neural networks (DNNs) have become very popular in many areas, especially classification and prediction. However, as the number of neurons in the DNN increases to solve more complex problems, the DNN becomes limited by the latency and power consumption of existing hardware. A scalable, ultra-low latency photonic tensor processor can compute DNN layer outputs in a single shot. The processor includes free-space optics that perform passive optical copying and distribution of an input vector and integrated optoelectronics that implement passive weighting and the nonlinearity. An example of this processor classified the MNIST handwritten digit dataset (with an accuracy of 94%, which is close to the 96% ground truth accuracy). The processor can be scaled to perform near-exascale computing before hitting its fundamental throughput limit, which is set by the maximum optical bandwidth before significant loss of classification accuracy (determined experimentally).

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are at the leading edge of classification, prediction, and translation. Furthermore, as they are being used to solve increasingly complex problems, they are growing exponentially in size. To enable these emerging algorithms, the speed and energy consumption of DNN hardware should be improved. Specifically, a typically limiting step at the core of DNN tasks is matrix-vector multiplication, where inputs encoded into a vector are multiplied by a matrix of weights.
The processor with the lowest possible latency for DNN inference tasks is one where the desired mathematical operations are executed in a single time step and without repeated memory access, since retrieving data from memory is expensive in time and energy. This high-speed computing can be realized in a so-called weight stationary dataflow. In this case, the entire weight matrix is stored on the hardware, and as long as the hardware is scalable to very large matrix sizes, the weights do not need to be updated. Input and output vectors are streamed through the weight stationary system. Google's digital electronic Tensor Processor Unit (TPU) and emerging lower-energy alternatives, such as analog electronic circuits and high-speed integrated optical matrix multipliers, employ this weight stationary approach. However, these methods are limited in scalability, i.e., the number of weights that can be stored on the hardware is on the order of 1,000×1,000; in the case of electronics, by RC time, and in optics, by constraints on control, multiplexing, programmability, component area, and insertion and waveguide loss. These schemes therefore cannot achieve optimal latencies on modern workloads because large matrices cannot "fit" onto the hardware.
Free-space optical matrix multiplication accelerators can perform matrix-vector multiplication. However, they employ fixed weighting masks and therefore cannot be reconfigured after a model update. Other free-space architectures that are reconfigurable implement weighting in the Fourier plane, and therefore cannot directly be used to run standard DNN models, which may limit their adoption.

Scalable, ultra-low-latency photonic tensor processor


The computer system comprises a first and second computer, at least one first storage system connected to the first computer, and a plurality of second storage systems connected to the second computer as well as being connected to the at least one first storage system. The first computer issues to the first storage system a normal write request and control-use write request stamped with issue time. A control-use write request is issued at periodic intervals. The first storage system receives a write request and transmits the write request as update-data to second storage system in such a way that the issue order is ascertainable. The second storage system receives the update-data and, responsive to a reflect instruction from the second computer, reflects the update-data in storage areas. The second computer acquires the issued times stamped on update-data received by the second storage systems, establishes a standard time on the basis of issue times, and instructs the plurality of second storage systems to reflect the update-data whose issue time is at or prior to the standard time in storage areas.

The present invention relates to a computer system and control technique for same, and in particular to a technique for performing remote copying in a computer system that comprises a plurality of storage subsystems.
In recent years, in computer systems that comprise a host computer and a storage subsystem containing a storage area for storing data, a strong need to improve reliability of data has arisen. It has become common practice to use remote copy technology in order to improve data reliability in such computer systems. Remote copy technology is a technology wherein data is copied among a number of storage subsystems situated at different sites. According to remote copy technology, in the event that a malfunction occurs in a copy source storage subsystem (primary storage subsystem), rendering it inoperable, it is nevertheless possible to recover the data using data from a copy destination storage subsystem (secondary storage subsystem).
In the meanwhile, processes employing transactions are commonly carried out in computer systems. A transaction refers to a number of related processes that are treated as a single processing unit, such as a deposit/withdrawal process at a financial institution, for example. In a process employing a transaction, it is imperative to avoid situations in which an intermediate result of a transaction is left uncompleted, such as where a deposit process is carried out, but no corresponding withdrawal process is carried out, for example. In order to prevent intermediate results of transactions being left uncompleted, it is necessary for storage areas in storage subsystems to maintain states in which, of data write requests issued by the host computer, those write requests whose issue time is at or prior to a criterion in time are all reflected in storage areas, while those write requests whose issue time occurs subsequent to the criterion in time are all not reflected in storage areas. Here, reflection of a write request in a storage area refers to write data contained in the write request being stored in the storage area.
In computer systems that carry out remote copying, there is known a technique of controlling degradation in performance due to larger distances among storage subsystems, while at the same time preventing intermediate results of transactions from being left uncompleted (for example,JP11-85408A). According to this technique, a primary storage subsystem having received a data write request on which a issue time is stamped from the host computer sends completion information to the host computer immediately after receiving the write request. It is therefore possible to control degradation in performance due to larger distances among storage subsystems. The primary storage subsystem also sends the received write requests to secondary storage subsystems in the order of issue time, whereupon the secondary storage subsystems having received the transmitted write request reflect the write requests in their storage areas, in the order of the issue time stamp appended to write requests. Thus, in the storage areas of secondary storage subsystems, it is possible to maintain states in which, of data write requests issued by the host computer, those write requests whose issue time occurs prior to a criterion in time are all reflected in storage areas, while those write requests whose issue time is at or subsequent to the criterion in time are all not reflected in storage areas. It is accordingly possible to prevent intermediate results of transactions from being left uncompleted.


A pressure transducer assembly comprises a pressure transducer, a cable, an expandable member, and a vented connector. The cable includes a proximal end, a distal end, and a vent tube. The proximal end is operatively connected to the pressure transducer. The expandable member is operatively connected to the vent tube proximate the distal end. The vented connector is operatively connected to the distal end, and the vented connector is configured and arranged to allow exposure of the vent tube to atmospheric conditions when in a disconnected configuration and to prevent exposure of the vent tube to atmospheric conditions when in a connected configuration. The expandable member accommodates changes in air pressure within the vent tube when the vented connector is in the connected configuration.

A variety of water related environments (e.g., a septic tank) commonly utilize floats and pumps to control fluid levels within pump chambers. If the fluid level is too high, fluid will be discharged through a pump outlet. To assist in calculating fluid depth, a pressure transducer is also commonly used. A submersible pressure transducer is positioned within the fluid in the pump chamber and utilizes a vent tube, which is typically part of the transducer cable.
An example prior art pressure transducer 114 with a vent tube 121 is illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2. The pressure transducer 114 is positioned within a pump chamber 100, in which there is also a pump 101 including a pump outlet 102 to discharge fluid from the pump chamber 100. A low level float 109 and a high level float 110 could also be positioned within the pump chamber 100. The vent tube 121 is part of the transducer cable 118, which also includes electrical wires (not shown) protected by a sleeve 119. The vent tube 121 is needed so that the reference side 115 of the transducer 114 can reference atmospheric pressure above the fluid in the pump chamber 100 while the pressure side 116 is measuring the pressure created by the fluid. This pressure differential along with the density of the fluid allows for the calculation of the fluid depth. These types of vent tubes are inherent to many issues including insects plugging the tube and condensate forming in the tube which can cause an inaccurate pressure differential. The condensate can also freeze causing the tube to be completely plugged which results in the loss of the atmospheric pressure reference. To combat this, users will place a bladder, bellow, or other expandable member 126 on the end of the vent tube 121, commonly within the control panel 106. The expandable member 126 seals the tube 121 yet still allows for the air in the tube 121 to expand and contract and still reference atmospheric pressure.
However, this is still problematic because these must be installed correctly. If too much or too little air is left in the expandable member, it can cause issues with the reading. Many times, when an expandable member is being installed, the user accidently presses on the expandable member causing this same issue. When long cable runs are needed, expandable members can also be problematic because the volume of air in the vent tube is proportional to the length of the vent tube and, in these systems, there is more air within the vent tube. Thus, the longer the vent tube, the more air that will be trapped by the expandable member. With a larger air volume, a larger expandable member is needed. Many times, this is overlooked, and the same expandable member is used which then fails because it reaches its maximum or minimum expandable limit. With the vent tube being brought back to the control cabinet, the expandable members are usually located within the cabinet. The cabinet is located where it is exposed to large temperature and pressure swings. It will see high temperature in the summer and low temperatures in the winter. This must be accounted for when sizing the correct size of expandable member. This is often not done correctly and will cause significant error in differential pressure value. With the vented cable being routed to the control panel, there is ample opportunity for the tube to get pinched or kinked when exiting the tank or going into the control box. These blockages of the vent tube can cause significant errors in the differential pressure reading of the transducer. These problems demonstrate a need for a submersible pressure transducer with an alternate way of connecting and sealing the reference side of the transducer.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, a need exists for the present invention.

Pressure transducer assembly with atmospheric reference


A ramp generator for an analog-to-digital converter comprises an array of capacitors each controlled by a switch responsive to one or more control signals and operable to connect/disconnect one or more of the capacitors relative to the array and a current source operable to charge at least one of the capacitors. A method for operating a ramp generator having an array of capacitors comprises resetting the ramp generator, enabling a current generator to charge at least one capacitor in the switched capacitor array, and controlling the state of one or more switches, wherein the switches are operable to connect and disconnect one or more of the capacitors relative to the array. The output of the ramp generator having a plurality of programmable breakpoints. Because of the rules governing abstracts, this abstract should not be used to construe the claims.

The present invention relates generally to a ramp generator for analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion applications and more particularly to a programmable non-linear ramp generator which utilizes a switched-capacitor array for A/D conversion applications.
An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) may be used to translate an analog signal (e.g., a current or voltage produced by a sensor) into a digital signal that can be used by another device (for example, a microprocessor). In complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) imaging applications, for example, ADCs are increasingly being used as the preferred means for converting charge captured by CMOS sensors into a digital read-out.
Several types of ADCs are currently used, each type differing in the technique utilized to complete the A/D conversion. For example, feed-back type converters, dual-slope converters, flash converters, charge-redistribution converters, and digital ramp converters are known in the art.
A feedback-type converter typically employs a comparator, an up-down counter, and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). FIG. 8 is a simplified diagram of a prior art feedback-type converter. An analog signal (VA) is fed to one input of the comparator. The output of the comparator is connected to the input of the counter. The outputs of the counter are connected to the inputs of the DAC and the output of the DAC (Vo) is fed back to another of the comparator's inputs. The counter also receives a clock signal. Whenever the output of the comparator is high (i.e., when the difference between VA and Vo is positive), the counter counts the pulses of the clock signal and the output of the counter increases. This in turn causes the voltage Vo to rise. When Vo equals VA, the output of the comparator goes low and the counter is stopped. At this point, the counter's output represents the digital equivalent of the analog signal voltage.
FIG. 9 is a simplified diagram of a prior art dual-slope converter. A dual-slope converter typically functions in two stages. In the first stage, an analog signal (VA) is applied for a fixed time period to charge the capacitor C1 and produce a voltage v1. The voltage v1 typically has a variable slope during this first stage. In the second stage, a reference signal (Vref) is applied for a variable time period and allows the voltage v1 to discharge from the capacitor C1. The voltage v1 typically has a constant slope during the second stage. Control logic provides signals to control switching between the first and second stages. The control logic also provides control signals to a counter which is used to count pulses from a fixed-frequency clock. The count recorded by the counter during the second stage represents the digital equivalent of the analog voltage applied during stage 1.
FIG. 10 is a simplified diagram of a prior art flash converter. A flash converter typically uses 2N-1 comparators to simultaneously compare the analog input signal level (VA) to each of the 2N-1 possible quantization levels. A 4-bit DAC, for example, uses sixteen comparators to convert an analog signal into a 4-bit digital word. The DAC includes a logic block that encodes the output from each of the sixteen comparators into the N-bits of the digital word. For instance, an analog input signal between 0 and 5V may be represented using the 4-bit binary number. The 4-bit binary number may represent 24 (i.e., 16) different values (i.e., from 0 to 15). The resolution of the conversion will thus be 5V/15=⅓V. Accordingly, the first quantization level (e.g., for bit 0000) corresponds to an analog signal of 0V, the second quantization level (e.g., for bit 0001) corresponds to an analog signal of ⅓V, the third quantization level (e.g., for bit 0010) corresponds to an analog signal of ⅔V, and so on. This pattern is repeated for each of the sixteen quantization levels (i.e., up to bit 1111, which corresponds to an analog signal of 5V).
FIG. 11 is a simplified diagram of a prior art charge-redistribution converter. A charge-redistribution converter typically uses a capacitor array, a comparator, switches, and control logic, among others. During operation, a voltage (vA) proportional to the analog input voltage (VA) is first stored across the capacitors in the capacitor array by connecting one side of the array to VA and the other side of the array (e.g., the side also connected to an input of the comparator) to ground. The plates of capacitors connected to the input terminal of the comparator are then open-circuited (e.g., switch S2 is opened) while the plates of the capacitors on the other side of the capacitor array are switched to ground (e.g., SC1, SC2, . . . SC6 are connected to ground). Next, the charge stored by the capacitors is redistributed by switching the individual capacitors to the reference voltage and/or ground until the voltage across the plates of the capacitors reaches zero. The final position of the switches (i.e., SC1, SC2, . . . SC6) represents the output of the digital word. For example, a switch that is connected to ground in its final position represents a "0"; whereas a switch connected to the reference voltage source in its final position represents a "1".
A digital ramp converter typically includes a comparator and a ramp generator. An analog signal is fed to one input of the comparator and the output of the ramp generator is fed to another input of the comparator. FIG. 12 is a simplified circuit diagram of a ramp generator 100 and a comparator 102 according to the prior art. FIG. 13 is a timing diagram for a ramp generator 100 of FIG. 12 according to the prior art. The ramp generator 100 is comprised of a plurality of identical switching current sources 101(1), 101(2), 101(3), . . . 101(n), a capacitor 103, and reset switch S0. Operation begins by placing the ramp generator 100 into the reset mode by opening switches S1, S2, S3, . . . Sn and closing switch S0. Referring to FIG. 13, at to, signal To goes high and signals T1 through Tn remain low (which keep switches 101(1) through 101(n) open). When signal T0 goes high, switch S0 is closed and the output of the ramp generator 100 is connected to the voltage source Vref (i.e., Vramp equals Vref).
At t1, signal T0 goes low opening switch S0 and signal T1 goes high closing switch S1 and enabling current source 101(1). Current source 101(1) charges capacitor 103 and the output of the ramp generator (i.e., Vramp) begins to rise above Vref at a constant rate which is proportional to the value of the current source 101(1). At the first break point, t2, signal T2 goes high closing switch S2 and enabling current source 101(2). The slew rate of the ramp generator output is now doubled. At the next break point, t3, signal T3 goes high closing switch S3 and enabling current source 101(3). This increases the slew rate of the ramp generator again. The final break point occurs at tn when the last current source 101(n) is enabled by signal Tn closing switch Sn.
Returning to FIG. 12, the output of the ramp generator (i.e., Vramp) is supplied to an input terminal comparator 102. Comparator 102 compares Vramp with an analog signal Va, which is supplied to another input terminal of the comparator 102. If Va is greater than Vramp, the output of comparator 102 is high and the ramp generator 100 continues to increase Vramp. If Vramp is greater than Va, the output of the comparator 102 goes low and the ramp generator 100 stops increasing Vramp. An ADC code counter (not shown) is used to stop the ramp and to determine the ADC code.
One major drawback inherent to prior art ramp generators 100, however, is the difficulty encountered in trying to manufacture matched current generators. Due to the manufacturing techniques used to construct the transistors comprising the current sources, a current source can typically only be matched within approximately 2% of another current source. The inability to accurately match current source leads to inaccurate conversion of the analog signal.
As discussed above, ADCs are increasingly being used as the preferred means for converting charge captured by CMOS sensors into a digital read-out in CMOS imaging applications. The error inherent in the prior art ADCs adversely effects the results obtained in the CMOS imaging applications.
Accordingly, a need exists for a modulating ramp A/D converter which overcomes these problems and which overcomes other limitations inherent in the prior art. More specifically, a need exists for a modulating ramp A/D converter which can be used in CMOS imaging applications, for example, to convert charge captured by CMOS sensors into a digital read-out.

Programmable integrating ramp generator and method of operating the same


A digital voucher system facilitates the convenient application of vouchers against products and services purchased from a merchant by a consumer. A voucher enabled device carried by the consumer stores digital vouchers in memory. The merchant queries and obtains applicable vouchers for the consumer from the voucher enabled device carried by the consumer, applies the vouchers to a transaction, and communicates the resulting transaction data back to the voucher enabled device.

Vouchers in the form of paper certificates or coupons have traditionally been used to obtain discounts on goods and services. The paper voucher as a discount mechanism suffers from significant drawbacks, however. As examples, the paper vouchers, once distributed, are extremely difficult or impossible to retire, recall, modify in value, transfer to another entity, or otherwise manage. It is also difficult to create and implement effective anti-fraud control for paper vouchers, and to create, print, and physically distribute paper vouchers to a wide audience.
Prior attempts to migrate paper vouchers to electronic representations also suffered from significant drawbacks. In some instances, dedicated electronic cards have been employed to carry digital vouchers. However, the electronic cards are easily lost and susceptible to use by others. Such cards also require special purpose additional hardware and communication protocols, connected with back-end systems, leading to increased system cost and complexity.
A need exists for an improved digital voucher management system.


A method for assembling a disk drive includes providing a head stack assembly (HSA), providing a shipping comb for assembling the disk drive, inserting a comb pin of the shipping comb into a locating holes in a HSA to assemble the shipping comb with the HSA together, positioning the HSA and shipping comb on a base cover of the disk drive, installing the HSA on the base cover via a bearing device thereof, rotating the assembled HSA and shipping comb to park the HSA on the ramp and aligning the comb pin with the securing hole, pushing the comb pin into a securing hole to lock the HSA in the base cover, assembling a latch device and a top voice coil magnet on the base cover, and rotating out the shipping comb to a position where the shipping comb is not interfered with the disk drive.

Disk drives are information storage devices that use magnetic media to store data. Referring to FIG. 1A, a typical disk drive 2 comprises a set of circular and concentric disks 201. Each disk 201 has a surface on which a magnetic coating is provided for forming a plurality of concentric tracks. The disks 201 are mounted on a spindle motor 202 that selectively spins the disks 201. A plurality of vertically-aligned sliders 203 incorporating read/write head therein (only one head is shown) are controllably carried and positioned by a HSA 200. A voice coil motor (VCM, not shown) rotates the HSA 200 to cause the sliders 203 to move across the surfaces of the disks 201 from track to track for reading data from or writing data to the disks 201. Both the spindle motor 202 and the HSA 200 are mounted to and supported by a base cover 205 of the disk drive 2. When in operation, a lift force is generated by the aerodynamic interaction between the slider 203 and the spinning disk 201. The lift force is opposed by equal and opposite spring forces applied by the HSA 200 such that a predetermined flying height above the surface of the spinning disk 201 is maintained over a full radial stroke of the HSA 200. The HSA 200 also comprises a ramp structure 230 to park the sliders 203 when the disk drive is not in operation.
FIG. 1B shows a detailed structure of the HSA of FIG. 1A. As illustrated, the HSA 200 comprises a set of drive arms 204 at one end thereof, wherein each drive arm 204 has a head gimbal assembly (HGA) 220 incorporating the slider 203 mounted on distal end of the drive arm 204. The drive arm 204 also has a locating hole 222 formed thereon for locating a shipping comb (not shown) used in process of mounting a HSA to the disk drive. The HSA 200 also comprises a fantail spacer 219 incorporating a voice coil 207 at the other end thereof, and the drive arms 204 are connected to the fantail spacer 219 by a bearing device 212. One end of a flexible printed circuit (FPC) 206 is electrically connected to the HSA 200, and the other end of the FPC 206 is electrically connected to a printed circuit board (PCB) 208. This electrical connection enables an external control system to control the HSA 200.
As illustrated above, in structure of a HSA, for maintaining a proper spring force that balances an equal and opposite lift force generated by aerodynamic interaction between the slider and the spinning disk, the distal end of each HGA is slightly downwards bended in manufacturing process of the HSA to produce a predefined spring force. More concretely, the distance between adjacent sliders mounted to respective HGAs is smaller than thickness of the disk. As a result, when assembling a head stack assembly to a disk drive, a special mounting tool, i.e., a comb-shaped shipping comb is used to facilitate the mounting process. More specifically, in HSA mounting process, the shipping comb is inserted into space formed between adjacent HGAs to enlarge the distance between the adjacent sliders, such that the disk can be accommodated in the space without interference with the sliders, thus no damage to the sliders and/or disks being happened.
Furthermore, when the disk drive with a ramp design is not in operation, the HSA moves its sliders away from above the disk surfaces until the sliders come to park on the ramp. The ramp is structured to park the set of sliders thereon and functions similarly as the shipping comb to separate adjacent sliders away from each other. During the disk drive operations, the HSA moves the sliders away from the ramp and then moves the sliders towards the disk surfaces, thereby positioning the respective sliders to a position above the respective disk surfaces.
Therefore, it is necessary to rotate the HSA to and park it on the ramp in HSA assembling process, such that when the assembly process is completed and the disk drive is operated, the sliders can be moved away from the ramp and located above the spinning disk surfaces. Conventionally, in HSA assembling process, parking the sliders onto the ramp is realized by utilization of the shipping comb abovementioned and this will be described below in conjunction with FIGS. 1A-1B and FIG. 2.
Now referring to FIGS. 1A-1B and FIG. 2, a conventional shipping comb 100 is of an integral structure, which comprises a comb finger 170 to separate two adjacent sliders 203 of a HSA 200 and an unmovable comb pin 120. Before the HSA 200 is mounted to the disk drive 2, the shipping comb 100 is secured to the HSA 200 by inserting its comb pin 120 into the locating hole 222 of the HSA 200. Then the bearing device 212 of the HSA 200 is pivotally mounted to the base cover 205 of the disk drive 2, and the sliders 203 of the HSA 200 are rotated towards the ramp 230, so that the sliders 203 can be parked thereto. After parking of the sliders 203 onto the ramp 230, other components for example top voice coil magnet (such as the top voice coil magnet 550 shown in FIG. 12A) and latch device (such as the latch device 540 shown in FIG. 12A) used to limit the position of the HSA, may be assembled to the disk drive.
In assembly process of above components, because of shaking or jolting inside the disk drive and the HSA mounted to the base cover of the disk drive rotating around the bearing device, consequently, the sliders parked on the ramp may slide away therefrom and collide with other part of the disk drive, for example, the sliders may impact the inner side wall of the disk drive, or the adjacent sliders collide each other, thus causing damage to the sliders. Therefore, in assembly process of the components such as the top voice coil magnet and the latch device, the HSA should be maintained stationary all the time by suitable manner until the components are mounted into the disk drive completely, as the top voice coil magnet and the latch device mounted into the disk drive are able to control position of the HSA and respective sliders with respect to the ramp.
However, since the conventional shipping comb described above has a comb pin that is position-fixed relative to the rest of the shipping comb, namely, the comb pin can be inserted only into the locating hole of the HSA, not both the HSA and the base cover of the disk drive, as a result, the shipping comb is unable to provide a function of holding the sliders of the HSA on the ramp during assembly process of other components. Therefore, various methods/devices are used in above assembly process to temporarily hold the HSA on the ramp.
One method commonly used is by forming a plurality of concave detents on the ramp. When parked on the ramp, the sliders are actually parked at these concave detents and these detents hold the sliders therein. However, due to dimension limitation of the ramp, the detents can not be formed sufficiently large, a slightly larger vibration will cause the sliders moving away from the detents of the ramp and making the HSA rotating freely around its bearing device, thus easily leading to slider damage or interference of the HSA with other components disposed in the disk drive.
Another method is using an additional locking mechanism to hole the HSA on its position. For example, a locating pilot may be inserted into both a locating hole and a respective hole formed on the base cover of the disk drive to temporarily secure the HSA on the base cover during process of assembling other components to the disk drive. However, this additionally provided locking device is time-consuming and difficult to be taken out after completing the whole assembly process. Moreover, this locking device is also difficult to be incorporated in an automatic assembly process of the HSA. Furthermore, providing this additional locking device increases manufacture cost.
Thus, it is desired to provide an apparatus and a method for easily assembling the HSA on the disk drive and simplifying its assembly process.

Method for assembling a disk drive using a shipping comb


A waveguide coupler comprising: a first coupling portion arranged to couple with a first waveguide and a second coupling portion arranged to couple with a second waveguide so as to connect the first waveguide and the second waveguide together; wherein arranged between the first and second coupling portions is a wave modulation portion arranged to modulate wave signals transferred between the first waveguide and the second waveguide.

Waveguides are widely used in different technology fields such as wireless and wire-line communications, metrology, sensing and security for guiding waves from one point to another. Generally, waveguides can be broadly classified as metallic waveguides and dielectric waveguides. These different waveguides have very different fundamental characteristics and wave guiding properties.
As the terahertz (THz) frequency range is located between the microwaves and optics regimes, emerging THz waveguide applications will naturally employ convergence of techniques from both of these regimes. Whilst the transition between optics and microwaves for most applications only require simple scaling, guided-wave applications between optics and microwaves often require the use of both metallic waveguides and dielectric waveguides that have drastically different wave guiding properties for transferring wave signals or power. Efficient wave signals or power transfer and coupling between these waveguides are critical to both the operation and the characterization of THz guided-wave systems.


A mounter (3) integrally provided with a lancing element (47B) and analyzer includes a lancing member (47) provided with the lancing element (47B), a first member (4) including an accommodation portion (40) for holding the lancing member (47), and a second member (5) formed separately from the first member (4) for holding the analyzer (6). The accommodation portion (40) includes an accommodation space (43) communicable with the outside through a first opening (43a) and a second opening (43b). The lancing member (47) is held and hermetically sealed in the accommodation space (43) by closing the first opening (43a) and the second opening (43b) with a first seal member (44a) and a second seal member (44b).

For diabetes treatment, management of the blood glucose level by a patient himself or herself is important for maintaining the blood glucose level in a normal range. Particularly, measuring the blood sugar level regularly is essential for a patient of insulin-dependent diabetes to maintain the blood sugar level in a normal range. However, it is troublesome to often go to a medical institution for measuring the blood glucose level. Thus, portable blood glucose level measuring apparatuses are in practical use, which makes it possible to measure the blood glucose level without going to a medical institution.
As an example of such portable blood glucose level measuring apparatuses, the gazette of JP-A-2000-231discloses a concentration measuring apparatus used by attaching a mounter to a main body of a blood glucose measuring apparatus. As shown in FIG. 11 of the present application, the mounter disclosed in the gazette includes a lancing member 70 provided with a lancing needle 70a, and a biosensor 71 retaining enzyme and integrally connected to the lancing member. The lancing needle 70a is accommodated in a space 73 closed by the biosensor 71 as exposed in the space. The biosensor 71 is formed with a through-hole 71a for allowing the movement of the lancing needle 70a. Therefore, in the mounter 7, the lancing needle 70a is exposed whether or not the biosensor 71 is integrally connected to the mounter.
From a hygiene point of view, the lancing needle 70a need be sterilized, and the sterilized state need be maintained until the use of the needle. For this purpose, the lancing needle 70a need be sterilized in a hermetically closed space and the closed state need be maintained until the use. As described above, in the mounter 7, the lancing needle 70a is exposed whether or not the biosensor 71 is integrally connected. Therefore, in the mounter 7, the sterilization of the lancing needle 70a need be performed in the state enclosed by an aluminum laminated film or the like. Therefore, in the mounter 7, the sterilization of the lancing needle 70a cannot be performed in the state separated from the biosensor 71 and hence from enzyme retained in the biosensor 71.
The gazettes of Japanese Patent No. 2616331 and JP-A-9-94231 disclose lancing needles having biosensing function. Japanese Patent No. 2616331 discloses such a biosensor 8 as shown in FIG. 12 of the present application. The biosensor 8 includes a hollow lancing needle (counterpart electrode) 80, and a measurement electrode (operative electrode) 82 which is accommodated in the lancing needle 80 and in which enzyme 81 is fixed. The gazette of JP-A-9-94231 discloses such a biosensing device 9 as shown in FIG. 13 of the present application. The biosensing device 9 includes a lancing needle 90 integrally connected to a capillary 91. In the capillary 91, an operative electrode 92 in which enzyme is fixed, a counterpart electrode 93, and a reference electrode 94 are disposed. Also in the structures disclosed in these gazettes, the sterilization of the lancing needles 80, 90 cannot be performed in the separated state from enzyme.
When the above-described biosensors (biosensing device) are used, the measurement of the blood glucose level is performed using the amperometric method, for example. Specifically, a reaction field is first formed by causing enzyme to coexist with an electron carrier (e.g. potassium ferricyanide). Then, blood is supplied to the reaction field for oxidizing glucose contained in the blood while reducing the electron carrier. Thereafter, voltage is applied to the reaction field to oxidize the electron carrier, and the emitted amount of oxygen is measured as oxidation current. The blood glucose level is computed based on the value of the oxidation current.
The sterilization of the lancing needle may be performed by the radiation of gamma rays, for example. Therefore, when enzyme exists in the sterilizing process of the lancing needle, the enzyme is deactivated or the activity of the enzyme is deteriorated due to the gamma rays radiation. In such a case, a longer time may be required for the measurement or the measured concentration may be lower than the actual concentration, so that proper measurement cannot be performed.
On the other hand, when an electron carrier exists in the sterilizing process of the lancing needle, the electron carrier may be reduced. In such a case, the reaction field includes the reduced electron carrier derived from gamma rays radiation in addition to that derived from enzyme reaction. As described above, in the amperometric method, the blood glucose level is computed based on the amount of electrons emitted from electron carriers. Therefore, when an electron carrier is reduced by gamma rays radiation, the oxidation current value actually measured in applying voltage becomes higher than the value which should be measured. As a result, a concentration value higher than the actual concentration is computed, so that proper measurement cannot be performed.

Lancet-integrated mounter and method of making the same


A voltage regulating circuit has a first switch, a transformer and a second switch. The first switch has an input node, a first node and a second node. The transformer is connected to the switches has a first coil and a second coil. The first coil and the second coil respectively have an end, and the second coil is connected to the first coil in series at a node. The node between the first and second coils is connected to the second node of the first switch. The second switch is connected to the transformer and has a first node, a second node and an output node. The first node is connected to the end of the first coil. The second node is connected to the first node of the first switch. The transformer will not heat up when the transformer needs not to be used.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a voltage regulating circuit, and more particularly to a voltage regulating circuit for an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
2. Description of Related Art
With reference to FIG. 2, a conventional voltage regulating circuit for an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) comprises a transformer (10) and a switch (23). The transformer (10) is connected to AC power inputs L and N and comprises a first coil (11) and a second coil (12) connected in series. The first coil (11) is formed with multiple turns and has an end. The second coil (12) is formed with multiple turns with two ends respectively connected to the AC power inputs L and N. The switch (23) is connected to the transformer (10) and has a normal close node (232), a normal open node (233) and a common node (231). The normal close node (232) is connected to the end of the first coil (11). The normal opened node (233) is connected to the AC power input L through the transformer (10). When the input voltage is at a normal level, the common node (231) of the switch (23) is switched to connect to the normal close node (232). The input voltage passes through the first and second coil (11, 12) of the transformer (10) and the switch (23) as an output voltage. When input voltage is at a low level, the common node (231) of the switch (23) is switched to connect to the normal open node (233). The input voltage passes through the second coil (12) of the transformer (10) and the switch (23) to be transformed into an output voltage. The coupling ratio of the output voltage to the input voltage is the ratio of the sum of turns of the two coils (11)(12) to the number of turns of the second coil (12). Therefore the output voltage is higher than the input voltage in voltage level.
However, the input voltage still passes through the transformer (10) even when the input voltage is at a normal level. When the input voltage passes through the transformer (10), the transformer (10) heats up and may be damaged by constantly heating up.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides a voltage regulating circuit for an UPS to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.

Voltage regulating circuit for uninterruptible power supply


The present invention provides methods, reagents and kits for diagnosing and/or for the prognosis of non-autoimmune acute joint inflammation by detecting cytokine biomarkers in a sample obtained from an individual thought to be suffering from joint injury. The cytokine biomarkers used with the methods and kits of the present invention are IL-6, MIP-1β, MCP1 and IFNγ.

Increasing degrees of force applied to joints result in joint injury. Abnormal joint anatomy is frequently a hallmark of ageing, but joint injury is also frequently seen as a result of trauma. For instance, chondral lesions are often seen in athletes. While joint injury resulting from trauma is typically associated with acute inflammation, aberrant joint anatomy resulting from ageing (e.g., osteoarthritis) is a chronic condition. Physicians currently do not have a system or method available to differentiate between acute injury due to trauma and age related joint deteriorations. It is presently difficult to determine the appropriate course of treatment for a given patient since it is frequently unclear whether the particular condition the patient suffers from is acute or chronic.
The exceedingly high rate of exploratory knee arthroscopy highlights the difficulty of diagnosing meniscal injury. This problem is exacerbated by the low specificity of MRI, currently a mainstay of diagnosing this pathology. It has been shown that MRI will identify a meniscal injury in as many as 65% of asymptomatic people making MRI a questionable diagnostic tool and highlighting the lack of correlation between abnormal meniscal anatomy and knee pain. Lack of a clear correlation between abnormal meniscus anatomy and knee pain is particularly problematic in the elderly patient population many of whom develop osteoarthritis. Despite the overwhelming evidence questioning its utility (Moseley et al. 2002), knee arthroscopy is still performed an estimated 660,000 times per year in the U.S. alone (AAOS website).
There is clearly a need for providing a method of identifying patients who have sustained acute joint injury in order to provide them with the appropriate treatment. This invention addresses that need.

Method for diagnosing and treating acute joint injury


A system, apparatus and method are provided for controlling secondary treatment of multiple leg telecommunication sessions, such as for providing secondary treatment of outgoing call legs for a flexible alerting service, by an originating switch rather than a distant or terminating switch. The preferred system includes a home location register coupled to a mobile switching center. The home location register has, stored in a memory, a plurality of secondary directory numbers associated with a primary directory number, such as an ANSI compatible pilot directory number, and for each secondary directory number of the plurality of secondary directory numbers, further stored in the memory a corresponding originating no answer time parameter. The mobile switching center has an interface for receiving an incoming call leg designating the primary directory number and for differentially processing and routing each outgoing call leg associated with each secondary directory number, and the mobile switching center further providing secondary treatment of each outgoing call leg in accordance with its corresponding originating no answer time parameter. In the preferred embodiment, each corresponding originating no answer time parameter, for each outgoing call leg, is less than a corresponding terminating no answer time parameter which may be utilized by a terminating switch or end office.

With the advent of increasingly sophisticated telecommunication services, various proposals have been made to allow a single call, incoming to a telecommunication switch, to branch into multiple, independent outgoing calls (or legs) to different called parties, during the same period of time. These incoming and multiple outgoing calls may be wireline, such as PSTN (public switched telephone network), ISDN (integrated services digital network), or T1/E1 wireline calls, or may be wireless, such as cellular calls or other mobile service communications.
Once such proposal is included in the ANSI-41 specification promulgated by the American National Standards Institute for wireless telecommunication, such as cellular communication, and is referred to as "flexible alerting". The ANSI-41 flexible alerting specification, however, does not include any specific directions or guidelines for implementation and control of such independent, concurrent outgoing multiple leg calls.
Other prior art systems also do not provide for multiple outgoing calls, to different parties, during the same time period. Rather, such known systems provide for individual, sequential calls rather than multiple, concurrent outgoing calls. For example, the incoming call may first alert a home telephone having a first directory number; if the first call is unanswered, that call leg is dropped and a second telephone having a different, second directory number is alerted, such as a cellular phone. If the second call is unanswered, that second call leg is dropped, and a third line having a third directory number is alerted, such as a pager.
In such flexible alerting or other systems having multiple, independent outgoing call legs from a single incoming call leg, whichever outgoing call leg is first to answer will receive the call and be connected to the calling party, with the other call legs being released (i.e., dropped or torn down, with their corresponding alerting ceased). In addition, the end units or terminating customer premise equipment (such as wireline telephones and wireless or mobile telephones) of the subscriber receiving the outgoing call legs preferably also receive direct calls in addition to such flexible alerting calls. A particular difficulty with such multiple outgoing call legs arises because such a subscriber or other customer may have different requirements for direct calls rather than flexible alerting calls. For example, a subscriber may want direct calls forwarded to a voice mail system when the line is busy, but may want an outgoing call leg of a flexible alerting session to be released on busy, so that the call may be answered by another member of the flexible alerting group. As a consequence, such flexible alerting calls may require different treatment than that afforded by a distant switch implementing various end unit services, such as voice mail or call forwarding services.
As a consequence, a need remains for an apparatus, method and system to implement and control multiple, independent outgoing communication sessions (or call legs) originating from a single incoming call leg. Such an apparatus, method and system should also provide for control of secondary treatment by a distant or terminating switch for the multiple, independent outgoing communication legs or links. Such an apparatus, method and system also should be user friendly and user transparent.

Apparatus, method and system for controlling secondary treatment by a distant switch for multiple leg telecommunication sessions