A technique for identifying a consumer's electronic billers in which the consumer does not identify billers is provided. The consumer transmits, from a consumer station, a request for a service provider to identify his or her electronic billers. This request includes information identifying the consumer, but excludes any information identifying any biller. In response to the transmitted request, the consumer receives, at the consumer station, a listing of one or more electronic billers of the consumer. That is, these are electronic billers with which the consumer has a relationship. Also, the consumer has not previously requested to the service provider to electronically present bills of any of the electronic billers included in the listing.

Electronic billing and payment (EBP) is widely available today due to the proliferation of the Internet and ubiquity of consumer computing devices. However, EBP acceptance by consumers has generally been by early adopters. The remaining members of the potential consumer base are aware of EBP, but have not yet availed themselves of the advantages of electronic billing and payment. There are barriers that, if addressed, can substantially increase the number of both consumers making up the EBP consumer base and EBP transactions.
FIGS. 1A and 1B show current models of EBP services. FIG. 1A shows the Biller Direct model. FIG. 1B shows the Service Provider (SP) model. The Biller Direct model includes multiple electronic billers A′ through M′. Each of these electronic billers A′ through M′ maintains their own electronic billing enrollment and activation data, shown as databases 101 through 102. In the Biller Direct model enrollment and activation is a single process. A consumer 105 interacts with each of electronic billers A′ through M′ separately to begin receipt of electronic bills. Prior to enrollment and activation of electronic billing, each electronic biller A′ through M′ maintains information about each of their customers in databases 101 through 102. This is common information maintained by billers about customers. The consumer 105 must request to receive bills by providing enrollment and activation data, in addition to the information already maintained, to all electronic billers A′ through M′. Enrollment and activation data is provided via communications channels 106A through 106M. The consumer provided enrollment and activation data for electronic billers A′ through M′ is very similar, typically merely consumer identifying information such as the consumer's name, in addition to perhaps other consumer identifying information such as address, phone number, etc. Thus, the consumer 105 ends up providing the same or similar data to each of electronic billers A′ through M′.
The provided consumer identifying enrollment and activation data for electronic billing can include any or all of consumer name, phone number, billing address, and perhaps a service address, depending on the type of electronic biller. In addition, a consumer 105 may be required to provide an account number with each particular electronic biller from which electronic billing is being activated. Some electronic billers require an enrolling consumer to provide identity confirming information that is not typically publicly known, such as social security number (SSN) or mother's maiden name. Many electronic billers require the same identity confirming information. It will be apparent that in enrollment and activation via the Web the consumer 105 has to access Web sites hosted by each of these multiple electronic billers A′ through M′ to provide enrollment and activation data at every single electronic biller Web site. Typically, the only different (unique) piece of information required by each electronic biller is the account number, because, as known, these differ by biller.
FIG. 1A also shows the consumer 105 enrolling for making on-line (electronic) payments to biller A′ through biller Z′. Enrollment is shown via communications channels 108A through 108Z. Enrollment for making electronic payments is separate from enrollment for electronic billing in the typical Biller Direct EBP system. Required consumer supplied enrollment data for electronic payments is, here again, similar in nature among various electronic billers (payees), and typically includes funding account information. Each of electronic billers A′ through Z′ stores enrollment data for on-line payments in separate data repositories, 110 through 111, than those in which enrollment data for electronic billing is stored, 101 through 102. Typically, the enrollment data for making electronic payments is not linked to or otherwise shared with the enrollment data for receiving electronic billing, as shown by the separate electronic billing data repositories 101 through 102 and electronic payments data repositories 110 through 111. It should be noted that not all electronic billers offer electronic payments, and that not all billers offering electronic payments offer electronic billing.
In a Biller Direct model there are multiple ways that electronic payments can be performed. In one, an electronic biller A′ through Z′ provides all the functionality for completing the payment. That is, an electronic biller presents a user interface for payment via a communications channel 108A through 108Z, captures enrollment data for payments from the consumer 105, warehouses payment requests in data repositories 110 through 111, processes the payment requests, and issues all debits, credits, and remittance advice associated with payment requests.
In another way that electronic payments can be performed, an electronic biller A′ through Z′ shares the functionality for completing payments. An electronic biller presents the user interface, but outsources the actual payment processing to a service provider, not shown in FIG. 1A. There are multiple variations as to whether the electronic biller or the service provider captures enrollment data for payments and whether the electronic biller or the service provider warehouses payment requests. In any event, a service provider processes the payment requests and issues all debits, credits, and remittance advice associated with the payment requests.
Yet another way that electronic payments can be performed, an electronic biller A′ through Z′ can completely outsource the payment functionality, including the user interface. This variation is much like the SP model of EBP services, to be discussed below. A service provider manages everything from the gathering of payment enrollment data through completion of a payment.
In enrollment for on-line payment, the consumer 105 typically provides, for each payee (billers A′ through Z′), customer name, customer address, phone number, and information identifying a funding account from which payment will be made. With some billers it is not necessary for a consumer to provide name, address, and account number information if that consumer is already enrolled for electronic billing. The consumer need only supply funding account information. This same information is required for payment to each payee. The different piece of information, among payees, as above, is the consumer's unique account number associated with each payee. In the Biller Direct model of FIG. 1A, the consumer 105 has to enter similar or the same data for every electronic biller, whether electronic bill receipt or on-line (electronic) payment is desired. Thus, existing EBP enrollment and activation processes are very redundant.
Accordingly, a need exists for an efficient enrollment and activation technique in the Biller Direct model of electronic billing and payment.
Typically a funding account is a demand deposit account (DDA) which can be debited via the Federal Reserve's Automated Clearinghouse (ACH). Deposit account identifying information required for electronic payment includes a financial institution routing number (RTN) and an account number (DDA). RTN and DDA information is found at the bottom of a consumer's check. Consumer 105 is required to either memorize this information, or have a checkbook available at the time the information is supplied to a payee. Not only must the consumer 105 have a check available when entering RTN/DDA information, if not memorized, he or she must have a bill from a biller available when supplying account numbers, if account numbers are not memorized. Some billers accept payment from other types of accounts, such as credit card accounts and money market accounts. Money market accounts are also debitable via the ACH. It is known that oftentimes consumers enter RTN/DDA information and other account numbers incorrectly. For example, digits are often transposed. While an account number with a biller typically has to only be entered once, RTN and DDA, or other funding account information, information has to be entered multiple times, once for each biller.
Accordingly, a need exists for an enrollment technique for electronic billing and payment which reduces incorrect entry of enrollment and activation data.
Prior to even beginning an enrollment process the consumer 105 is required to locate Web sites of every one of these electronic billers A′ through M′ and/or payees A′ through Z′, whether this is through a search engine or a marketing message received by the consumer 105. Consumer 105 has to locate and access Web sites, determine if a particular biller offers the desired service (electronic billing and/or electronic payment), and then begin the enrollment process, which itself has deficiencies as discussed above. Thus, finding a particular biller and/or payee on the Web and determining if they offer electronic billing and/or electronic payment services takes time, effort, and initiative on the consumer's part.
Accordingly, a need exists for a technique to efficiently match consumers who desire electronic billing and/or electronic payment with billers who offer such services.
FIG. 1B shows an EBP model in which a service provider 120 is the primary connection for a consumer 115 to reach electronic billers and/or payees. This is known as a SP model. In the SP model enrollment and activation are separate processes. As shown in FIG. 1B, a consumer 115 communicates via communications channel 130 with a SP 120. The consumer 115 enrolls with SP 120, not individual electronic billers A through M. Shown from SP 120 are communications channels 142A through 142M to electronic billers A through M. Thus, one of the advantages for the consumer 115 in this model is that enrollment data is only entered once. Enrollment data is stored in enrollment database 135 by the SP 120. This core enrollment data includes the consumer's name and address and other key consumer identifying information. While the consumer 115 is only required to enter enrollment data once, the consumer 115 must enter activation data for electronic billing for each electronic biller. This activation data often includes part of, or even all of, the same data as required for enrollment.
Also shown in FIG. 1B is multiple instances of stored activation data 140A-140N. This reflects the fact that even though the consumer 115 has enrolled once with the SP 120, he or she is still required to activate receipt of electronic billing for each of electronic billers A through M separately. The consumer 115 has to enter activation data for each biller. Thus, for electronic biller A, consumer 115 is required to enter activation information such as social security number, mother's maiden name, etc. Further, consumer 115 has to continue to enter this information, or variations thereof, each time they activate a new e-Bill from a different electronic biller in this model. To begin activation, the SP 120 typically presents a list of all the billers for which the SP 120 presents bills. The consumer 115 selects those billers he or she wishes to activate. The service provider 120 then transmits an activation notice to each selected biller informing the biller to begin to provide bills to the SP 120 for presentment to the consumer 115.
Accordingly, a need exists for an efficient enrollment and activation technique in the SP model of electronic billing and payment.
In the SP model of EBP services the consumer 115 has the capability within one site to enroll for and review multiple electronic bills. This diagram also depicts a data store 150 associated with the SP 120 labeled "Other Subscriber Data". This reflects the fact that consumer 115 can also access the SP 120 to pay billers other than electronic billers A through M, because this "Other Subscriber Data" includes payment data.
Different SPs offer one or more of at least three different payment models. A first is a 'closed payee list—electronic biller' model in which only electronic billers presenting electronic bills through a SP can be paid. That is, the only payments available are payments of received electronic bills. A second model is a 'closed payee list—electronic biller and managed payee' model in which electronic billers as well as payees with which the SP has a relationship can be paid. A third model is an 'open payee list' model. In an 'open payee list' model, consumers who enroll for EBP services can pay any payee.
Not all electronic billers that the consumer 115 would want to receive e-bills from offer electronic billing through SP 120. In such a case, the consumer 115 has to enroll with those electronic billers via a Biller Direct model to be able to receive those e-bills, or perhaps even via another SP. Thus, consumer 115 would still have multiple locations in which to enter redundant information.
Referring back again to the Biller Direct Model, as discussed above, consumers have to enroll in multiple places to make electronic payments and/or receive electronic bills. In addition to the problems discussed above, consumers have to remember which sites at which they have enrolled, as well as multiple site access code (consumer ID) and password combinations. Because of different site requirements a consumer may not be able to obtain a desired ID/password combination. Also, a desired ID/password combination may be unavailable because it is already in use by another consumer. So, yet another barrier to the making electronic payments and/or the receipt of electronic bills is that consumers have multiple Web sites they have to access to make payments as well as multiple Web sites to access to see bills and/or payment history. Each of these sites requires a consumer ID and password. A consumer must have available the correct ID/password combinations upon each visit to a Web site.
One of the solutions to the problem of multiple user IDs and passwords is found in the on-line retail market. However, the solution only applies to electronic payments, not electronic billing. Today there is known a third party payment service provider which supplies payment services which are accessed via a payment link that is found in multiple Web sites operated by disparate on-line retailers. That is, multiple unrelated retail Web sites each have a link to a single payment service provider Web site. A consumer has to only enroll once for this third party payment service. The on-line retailers provide the link for the consumer to access this payment capability. Once the link is activated, the consumer's browser then is redirected to a third party hosted Web site in order to enter payment information.
In FIG. 2 are shown blocks 205A-205N, each representing one of multiple Web sites a consumer could go to make payments using this third party payment service. Shown are an auction Web site 205A, a retailer A Web site 205B, retailer B Web site 205C, retailer Web site C 205D, and a Web site of the third party payment service provider itself 205N. At each one of these Web sites 205A-205N there is a payment link 210A-210N that represents the third party payment provider. Once activated by a consumer, the consumer's browser is redirected to a Web site for payment 201 hosted by that third party provider and branded as the third party provider. Of course, with link 210N a consumer is already visiting a web site of the third party payment provider. The payment Web site 201 is not branded based on the site from which the consumer may be making a purchase, nor is any of links 210A, 210B, 210C, or 210D branded based upon the Web site at which each respective link is found. Once the consumer has entered payment information at the third party payment service provider, then it is up to the third party payment service provider to feed information associated with the payment back to a seller from which a purchase was made.
The third party payment service provider does provide a single view of all of transactions for a given consumer. The consumer can go directly to the third party payment service provider in order to see all of his or her payment history as well as make payments. This provides the same user experience no matter where the consumer is activating a payment link 210A-210N. However, it should be noted that the third party payment service provider only offers a closed payee list. That is, only certain payees can be paid, those having a business relationship with the third party payment service provider. This third party payment service has a one-time enrollment feature and the consumer uses the same user ID and password no matter the Web site from which the payment link 210A-210N is activated.
The third party payment service provider technique of FIG. 2 works well in the retail environment, however it does not work well for companies who feel like their brand is very important with their customers and would like a user experience to be the same whether the consumer is viewing an e-bill at the company's site, or doing anything else from the company's site, including paying a bill or making a purchase. In order to have a branded environment today, there are isolated silos of EBP activity such that a consumer has to go to multiple sites and have multiple user names and passwords in order for billers to have branded environments and otherwise control the user experience, as discussed above.
Other models of EBP functionality exist in the SP model context which address consumer desires to view electronic bills at a single location. One is known as 'scrape-and-pay'. Here a consumer still has to locate each electronic biller Website and set up a unique relationship with each electronic biller, including establishing ID/password combinations. The consumer provides each biller ID/password combination to a 'scrape-and-pay' service. The service, based upon the consumer-provided ID/password combination, gathers billing information from each electronic biller Web site and then presents this information to the consumer. In this approach, the consumer still must establish relationships with multiple electronic billers, and electronic billers have no control over the final presentation of electronic bills to consumers.
Another model of EBP functionality in the SP context also allows a consumer to view bills electronically and is known as 'scan-and-pay'. Here a consumer issues a directive to a biller to have his or her paper bills delivered to a 'scan-and-pay' service. The 'scan-and-pay' service, upon receipt of a redirected paper bill, merely digitizes at least part of the received paper bill and presents it electronically to the consumer. While this service does make paper bills electronically available, there are several problems with this service. First, a consumer must actively change his or her billing address to the address of the 'scan-and-pay' service provider. Thus, the consumer must take actions with each biller to receive electronic bills through a 'scan-and-pay' service. Also, as a result of the redirection of the paper bill, the biller loses a line of communication to the consumer. Thus, often times important information, such as changes to terms and conditions, are not communicated to the consumer because a 'scan-and-pay' service does not typically digitize the entire contents of the paper bill, including inserts. The redirection of the paper bill also means that the biller loses control of the presentment experience, albeit a paper presentment. It should be noted that the problems of loss of control of the presentment experience as well as loss of a line of communication are also present in 'scan-and-pay' services. Also a problem with paper bills being redirected, replacement credit cards have been directed to a scan 'scan-and-pay' service instead of the consumer, as often a biller does not know that an address to which paper bills have been redirected is not an address of a consumer.
In view of the above, a tension exists between consumer desires to view and pay bills available at multiple different sites from multiple different billers and make purchases at multiple different sites using the same user ID and password and via a one time enrollment process, and billers' desires to control the branding and user experience of the presentment and payment of bills and as well as Web site purchases.
As such, a need exists for a technique of EBP services in which a consumer can view electronic bills of various billers and make electronic payments to various payees utilizing a single user ID/password combination that allows billers and/or payees to control the branding and the user experience.
FIG. 3 depicts a precursor situation to enrollment for EBP services. In FIG. 3 is shown is a consumer 301 who is interacting with their e-mail inbox 305. The consumer 301 may be interested in paying bills on-line and/or receiving bills on-line, but he or she is not quite sure how to achieve this. Also in FIG. 3 is an actual physical mail box 315. The consumer 301 can receive a paper bill in their physical mail box 315 and they can pay that bill via conventional avenues, i.e. by check mailed to a biller. Perhaps consumer 301 has received an offer, perhaps within a paper bill, to participate in e-billing. Accordingly, an e-bill offer 320 is shown being delivered via the traditional mail box 315. This offer could come from either electronic biller A or electronic biller B. Thus, an electronic biller is sending out a paper bill to the consumer 301, and within the paper bill is an e-bill offer 320 to begin to receive that same paper bill in an electronic fashion. It is an offer to receive the bill on-line, and perhaps to even pay it on-line. Such offers are sent to all customers of a biller sending the offers. They are not targeted to those customers likely to act on them.
The consumer 301 has to take that offer and do something with it. He or she has to access the Web, locate the biller, and enroll. As also depicted, the consumer 301 may currently be enrolled with some sort of payment service to make electronic payments. Shown is SP 330 for making electronic payments. Thus, in this example, the consumer 301 is actually making electronic payments. As shown, the SP 330 pays electronic biller B on behalf of the consumer 301, but the consumer 301 has not enrolled for any e-bill service. While the consumer 301 may be interested in viewing and paying bills on-line, there is currently no technique to easily sign up for electronic billing, even in cases where the consumer makes electronic payments of received paper bills. The consumer 301 still must visit one or more Websites and enroll for and activate electronic billing, as discussed above.
Accordingly, a need exists for an EBP service which facilitates consumer enrollment.
FIG. 4 depicts yet another problem in enrollment for electronic billing. At the time of enrollment in today's systems, a consumer has to include payment account information, even though only e-billing services may be desired. Received enrollment information, including payment account information, is typically processed for identity verification. This processing often includes leveraging commercial identity verification services, such as Equifax. This processing also includes risk processing that relates to payments, not billing. Some customers fail this risk processing even though they only desire electronic billing. To support the identity verification and risk processing consumers are required to enter many fields of data. The required data is personal data that many consumers perceive as being extra sensitive. Examples of this data include drivers license information, mortgage, and other loan information. Additionally, this is a time consuming process.
FIG. 4 depicts Web sites 401A-401N associated with Biller A, Biller B, Biller C, and a SP. Each of these sites offers electronic billing as well as electronic payments. A consumer independently has to enroll at each of these sites, as discussed above. Even though a consumer may only wish to receive e-bills, that consumer would have to fully enroll, in which supplemental information for risk management in addition to identity verification must be provided. Thus, the enrollment process ties together information required to receive e-bills with bank account information required to pay bills.
In a SP model, once a consumer enrolls with a SP from site 401N the consumer has to activate individual e-bills 405A-405N, as discussed above. At the time of activation the consumer must enter specific information that billers may require. As also discussed above, a consumer could end up having to supply the same information multiple times in order to activate different bills.
In summary, from a consumer perspective, the consumer has to give the same information out four different times to enroll with Billers A through C and the SP. The consumer goes to the Biller Direct Web site 401A for biller A, and enters in their name, address, e-mail address, or other identifying information. When the consumer goes to the Biller B Biller Direct Web site 401B or the Biller C Biller Direct Web site 401C, as well as the SP Web site 401N, the consumer has to re-key much of the exact same data multiple times. This is also shown in FIG. 1A where biller A′ and M′ have their own databases storing enrollment data that is not leveraged anywhere else and in FIG. 1B with the siloed activation data.
As introduced above, EBP systems have achieved significant adoption in the marketplace, but have not yet lived up to their full potential. Getting consumers to enroll in EBP services is one hurdle, followed by getting the enrolled consumer to actually use the EBP system to pay bills and make other payments. Due to the effort required to set up payees, including billers, some enrolled consumers never activate a biller or payee and are eventually purged from a SP's customer base.
As shown in FIG. 5, current generation EBP systems require the consumer to manually enter payee information in order to set up and activate each payee for electronic payments. This includes entering biller (payee) name 501, payment account information 505, remittance center address 507, phone number 509, as well as other information. Entering this data for multiple payees usually requires a significant amount of time and effort on the part of a consumer. Additionally, most consumers need to have their paper bill available as a reference during payee setup, as introduced above. It has been the experience of the assignee of the present application that the effort required to set up payees is a major reason why enrolled consumers never become active users of EBP systems.
While an individual consumer may need to pay bills or make payments to only a small number of payees, these payees typically are already associated with or otherwise known to a SP. For example, a consumer may choose to set up Ameritech as a payee, yet a SP may have thousands of customers who have entered Ameritech as a payee. As a result, it is likely that the SP may already store some of the information required to set up Ameritech as a payee of this consumer. This is especially true for billers that have electronic (e-bill) connections to the SP.
Some EBP systems already provide consumers with a "pick list" of billers to choose from in payee set up, as well as for biller activation. However, this approach does not fully exploit various possibilities for providing lists tailored for individual consumers or for identifying specific billers as candidate billers payees. This approach also does not utilize techniques to provide assistance and help automate the payee set up process.
Accordingly, a need exists for a technique for making it easier and faster for consumers to set up payees and/or billers.
A "Web service" is a network accessible interface to application functionality built using standard Internet technologies. Note that the phrase 'standard Internet technologies' is what makes Web services interesting. Computer users have been accessing application functionality over a network for a long time. However, up until now, the various communications protocols used in accessing application functionality were almost exclusively proprietary and unique in nature. Web services defines a common infrastructure to be used by all network-based applications and the clients that use them.
A collection of software and tools that enable developers to create, deploy, and access Web services has been proposed. One such proposal has been made by the Microsoft Corporation. It is important to understand that even though Microsoft's software suite for enabling Web services, known as the .NET platform, is perhaps the most well known, it is by no means the only way to build or use Web services.
A large component of the Microsoft Corporation's .NET proposal is to offer to consumers (presumably for a fee) a suite of commonly used Web services. This bundle of remotely accessible application functionality, dubbed Microsoft .NET My Services, is expected to be publicly available sometime in 2002. Though the exact pricing, business model, and functionality of .NET My Services has not yet been made public, some proposed services include: .NET Profile, which associates a name and other personal profile information with a subscriber; .NET Contacts, which stores electronic relationships/address book for a subscriber; .NET Alerts, which provides subscriber alert subscription, management, and routing functionality; .NET Calendar, which provides time and task management; .NET Wallet, which provides storage for payment instructions as well as perhaps transaction records; and .NET Passport, which is an authentication service.
.NET Passport allows participating subscribers to create one sign-in name and password for use across participating .NET Passport sites. Additionally, subscribers can save time and avoid repetitive data entry by storing basic demographic information that can be shared with .NET Passport sites. When a subscriber signs in to a participating .NET Passport site, .NET Passport sends the subscriber's identifying information such as ZIP Code, country/region, and city information to the site upon request, or, alternatively the .NET data repository can be accessed by participants in the Web service. Subscribers can also choose to provide their nickname, e-mail address, age, gender, and language preference.
Clearly, universal adoption of .NET Passport would go a long way towards simplifying a consumer's Web experience by alleviating a great deal of data entry and removing the need to memorize a different set of authentication credentials (i.e. ID and password) for each Web site they visit.
.NET Alerts can be utilized in a number of interesting and divergent scenarios, including appointment and special events reminders, monthly bill or statement availability online notification, notification of excessive stock price movement; traffic alerts; notification of a bank account being overdrawn; or notification of a magazine article being available based on previously entered keywords. It should be noted that as of yet no specific proposals for utilizing .NET Alerts for online notification of electronic billing availability is known. At best, it is merely envisioned that .NET Alerts could support notification of a newly issued bill being available to a subscriber already receiving electronic bills from a biller issuing the newly available monthly bill.
.NET Alerts is envisioned to allow businesses to notify consumers of important events that the consumer can then, optionally, act upon. An alert is a short instant message that .NET Alerts providers can send to subscribers who opt to receive them. The alert is routed based on the subscriber's delivery preferences and can be delivered directly to desktops, mobile devices, and any e-mail address. As an example, a subscriber will commonly opt to have alerts routed to their Windows Messenger client when online and to an e-mail address when offline. Routing to pagers or to a telephone number is envisioned.
The Microsoft Corporation appears to envision .NET Alerts as a strictly "opt-in" service in which consumers subscribe only to alerts that they want and can unsubscribe at any time. This would avoid spam in .NET Alerts, which is spurious, unwanted, or undesired received communications. It is emphasized that subscribers will only receive the notifications that they want. .NET Alerts are envisioned to be free of spam.
.NET Wallet, yet another Web services data repository, is envisioned to provide a repository for a subscriber's various payment vehicles (e.g. credit card numbers, bank account information, coupons). Much like .NET Passport, the wallet service relieves the subscriber's of much repetitive (and error-prone) data entry.
It does not appear at this time that the Microsoft Corporation intends to provide payment processing functionality. Rather, it seems the intent is that merchants will query the .NET Wallet service for payment information such as a credit card number and it will then be up to the merchant (or perhaps a third-party) to actually ensure that a transaction is executed. Also, the current incarnation of .NET Passport Wallet (a precursor to .NET Wallet) does not capture bank account (RTN/DDA) information. Currently, it is exclusively credit card-based. Thus, .NET Wallet is merely a storage place for financial information, no substantial payment functionality is included.
Accordingly, a need exists for an EBP service which leverages Web services to support the entire EBP experience, including payment processing functionality, including payments based upon and made from subscriber's bank accounts, electronic bill location functionality, and electronic bill delivery functionality.

Technique for presenting matched billers to a consumer


The present invention provides a translucent solar cell and a manufacturing method thereof. The translucent solar cell comprises, in stacking order, a substrate, a first electrode layer, a photoconductive layer and a second electrode layer. The translucent solar cell is characterized in that there are formed a plurality of first light-transmissive apertures on the second electrode layer and the plurality of first light-transmissive apertures are further extended in a depth direction to the photoconductive layer to form a plurality of second light-transmissive apertures corresponding to the first light-transmissive apertures. A projected area of each of the second light-transmissive apertures is equal to or smaller than that of a corresponding first light-transmissive aperture.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a translucent solar cell and a manufacturing method thereof, and more particularly, to a translucent solar cell which has improved light transmissibility and can avoid short-circuit during a manufacturing process thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Thin-film solar cells include various thin films deposited on a substrate. These thin films are partitioned by laser-cutting into a number of individual and series-connected unit cells. The thin films deposited on the substrate sequentially includes, in a bottom-up direction, a front electrode layer, a photoconductive layer and a back electrode layer. The front electrode layer can be made of SnO2, ITO, ZnO, AZO, GZO, IZO, etc. The photoconductive layer can be made of IV group semiconductors or III-V, II-VI or I-III-VI group compounds. The back electrode layer can be made of Ag, Al, or Cr.
In general, the front electrode layer may be formed by sputtering or chemical vapor deposition (e.g. APCVD or LPCVD). The photoconductive layer may be formed by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The back electrode may be formed by sputtering or physical vapor deposition (PVD). In the prior art of translucent solar cell, U.S. Pat. No. 4,795,500 discloses a solar cell, as shown in FIG. 1A. The solar cell includes a substrate 1, a photoelectric conversion element 2 (including a front electrode layer 3, a photoactive layer 4 and a back electrode layer 5), and a resist layer 8. In fabricating the solar cell, the resist layer 8 is used as a mask in an etching process to form a desired light-transmissive region 6.
Besides, U.S. Pat. No. 6,858,461 discloses another solar cell. Referring to FIG. 1B, the solar cell 110 includes a substrate 114, a front electrode layer 118, a photoactive layer 120 and a back electrode layer 122. A plurality of transparency scribes 140 are formed on the solar cell 110 by laser cutting in a direction perpendicular to the grooves 128 for partitioning the solar cell into separate and series-connected unit cells 112. Meanwhile, the metal back electrode layer 122 is removed to form a light-transmissive region, so that a light source 116 can transmit through the solar cell module 110, thereby producing a transparent effect. In addition, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0112987 discloses another solar cell (not shown), which employs a laser to remove a back electrode layer or the back electrode layer and a photoconductive layer to create a plurality of holes, such that a plurality of light-transmissive regions are formed over the entire solar cell module to produce a transparent effect on the entire solar cell module.
In the prior art cited above, while forming the light-transmissive regions, no matter whether a laser or an etching process is used to remove the film material such that holes or scribe lines are formed on the film layer, incomplete removal of film material from the holes or scribe lines can easily occur when the film layer is being cut due to a thermal effect, thus causing bridging of the conductive layers and hence a short-circuit therebetween. In addition, if the region to be removed is a hole, and given that the hole size is rather small, a large number of holes must be formed to produce a translucent solar cell module which allows light to transmit therethrough. As a result, each time the film material is removed during the process, the risk of having a short-circuit increases. And the occurrence of short-circuit can be reduced only by reducing the number of times of film material removal. Furthermore, if a laser is used, variation of the shape and size of the resulting hole is limited due to the limitation of laser beam itself. If holes of different shapes or of a larger size are desired, a laser with higher specification or higher power is required, thus increasing the manufacturing cost.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Translucent solar cell and manufacturing method thereof


An inter-wound spiral center tapped inductor includes a first and second spiral inductor trace arranged in a plane in an inter-nested pattern with a center tap connection. The inter-wound traces implement the two halves of a center-tapped inductor over a common area to provide a practical inductor element for use in balanced and differential circuits.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to spiral inductors and more particularly to a structure of, and a method for forming, spiral inductors on a semiconductor substrate. Spiral inductors relate to analog high frequency electronic circuits within, but not limited to, receiver and transmitter portions of wireless telecommunications devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, and Personal Communications Services (PCS) products.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are various geometries and structures existing in the art relevant to spiral inductors. These structures, however, have shortcomings in their electrical performance, cost, and/or physical size.
One type of conventional spiral inductor, illustrated in FIG. 1, is commonly implemented using an integrated circuit (IC) process over an insulating, semi-insulating, or semi-conducting substrate, having an optional ground plane.
For the design of balanced circuits, however, two inductor elements are needed, as illustrated in FIG. 2, items L1 and L2. Therefore, using the conventional art, two separate FIG. 1 inductors are needed, which consumes significant physical area. Further, because of a potential mismatch in inductance, the conventional separate inductors have potential problems with circuit balance. Still further, this conventional arrangement lowers the operating frequency range of the inductors, since one terminal of each inductor is at AC ground potential.
Other methods of implementing inductors are described by Jamison et al., "Inductively Coupled Push-Pull Amplifiers For Low Cost Monolithic Microwave ICs", 1982 GaAs Symposium, (Jamison '82), and Selmi, et al., "Design of an X-Band Transformer-Coupled Amplifier Circuit With Improved Stability and Control", IEEE Journal Of Solid State Circuits, Vol. 28, No. 6, June 1993, (Selmi '93).
Jamison '82 and Selmi '93, however, are inter-wound primary-secondary coils of coupling transformers and do not comprise inter-wound halves of a center-tapped inductor. This can be seen referring to Jamison '82 where the FIG. 1 schematic shows a left primary and a right secondary coil, each appearing center-tapped in a schematic sense because of their common point of electrical connection. However, looking to FIG. 2 of Jamison 82, the schematic's depicted center-tap of both the left inductor pair and the right inductor pair are physically the connection of two separated independent inductors. The interwound traces comprise the top half of the left (primary) pair interwound with the top half of the right (secondary) pair. Selmi '93 shows a similar arrangement of inter-wound primary and secondary traces. Hence, what is depicted as a center tapped inductor in both Jamison '82 and Selmi '93 consumes separate, and hence substantial, area for the two halves.

Interwound center-tapped spiral inductor

Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties, Inc.


A bus interface unit is provided for intermediate switching in a two-wire current loop, wherein the bus interface unit has a transformer for potential-free decoupling of an alternating current signal modulated with digital receive data and/or for coupling in of an alternating current signal to be modulated with digital send data. The alternating current signal is modulated onto a direct current signal of a two-wire current loop. The bus interface unit has a bidirectional modem unit connected on the secondary side to the transformer for output of the receive data on a data bus and for input of the send data from the data bus. The transformer has two primary windings, which are interconnected such that the magnetic fields generated by the two-wire loop current flowing through it cancel each other out. A lowpass and/or a highpass filter for the alternating current signal is connected upstream from the at least one primary winding.

In the simplest case the bus interface unit is a circuit board with corresponding inputs and outputs for connection to the two-wire current loop and to a data bus. The modem unit of the bus interface unit can for example be a CAN bus interface with a CAN bus transceiver, an I2C interface or quite generally a serial or parallel interface. The modem unit can for example be a compact integrated electronic component.
The transducer and the position controller are typically employed in plant and automation technology, especially in the chemical industry, petrochemicals and mining. The analog input module as well as the analog output module are especially provided for plugging into a control center computer or process computer. The latter can for example be Personal Computers (PC). Alternatively the analog input and output modules can be components of a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). They can alternatively be embodied as decentralized input and/or output components for fitting to a top-hat rail.
Transducers, such as type SITRANS P from Siemens, and also position controllers, such as type SIPART PS2 from Siemens, are operated for transmission of a measured value or a setpoint value to a two-wire current loop. Such a transducer and position controller is also supplied with electrical energy for feeding the electronic switching circuits via the same two-wire current loop. The feeding distant end can be an analog input module or an analog output module of a control center computer, a process computer or a PLC.
A position controller is usually a device for positioning valves in automation technology. It is primarily used in the process industry in order to check the production sequences. The position controller can have a linear drive or a rotation drive, to enable it to actuate linked system components, such as pushers, brake elements, air valves and such like. In general a position controller converts an electrical input signal into a corresponding output signal. Furthermore all position controller types have position feedback which serves to determine the actual position.
The range of measured values of a measured value to be transmitted, such as a temperature, a force, a pressure value or similar, is usually transferred in an assigned current value range of the two-wire current loop of 4 mA to 20 mA (4/20 mA Standard). The impressed current involved is a direct current. The range of measured values to be transmitted is mapped in such cases into a current value range of 16 mA, so that a permanent power supply of the signal circuit of the transducer and of a sensor or an actuator connected to it, such as of a valve, of the position controller is possible.
The direct current or normal signal transmitted over the two-wire current loop is relatively insensitive to electromagnetic disturbances. The maximum length of the two-wire current loop, with corresponding compensation of the line losses, meaning with corresponding raising of feed voltage, can amount to 1000 m and more. At least one measurement resistance in the range 50 to 250 Ohm is connected in the two-wire current loop. This is needed for the transducer in order to impress a current value corresponding to the measured value into the two-wire current loop by means of a closed control loop. With the position controller this measurement resistance is needed to enable the setpoint value transmitted by the analog output module to be read out. The same also applies for an analog input module or analog output module.
The analog field bus standardized on the basis of the 4/20 mA two-wire current loop can be expanded using a so-called HART® (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) communication. HART® is a standardized, widely-used communication system for setting up industrial digital field busses. It allows digital communication between a number of user (field devices) over a common digital field bus via the two-wire current loop according to the older 4/20 mA standard. Existing lines according to the 4/20 mA standard can be used directly and both systems can be operated in parallel.
In accordance with the HART® protocol an alternating current signal with a current amplitude in the range of 0.8 mA to 1 mA is modulated onto the standard signal, i.e. the direct current signal of the two-wire loop current. The modulation is undertaken by means of an FSK (Frequency-Shift-Keying) method.
In such cases, for the binary 0/1 sequence of a data word to be transmitted, a modulation frequency of 2200 Hz for the value "0" and 1200 Hz for the value "1" is used according to its binary values. To guarantee a reliable reception, in accordance with the HART®-protocol an overall resistance of the two-wire current loop inclusive of the line resistance in the range between 230 Ohm and 1100 Ohm is specified.
Because of the spatial distribution and different feeding of the field devices, such as the transducers and position controllers for example, a potential separation between the two-wire current loop and the data bus side of the bus interface unit is frequently necessary. This avoids possible negative influences on the data transmission, such as inductive coupling-in earth loops or EMC couplings into the current loop.
Usually a transformer is used for potential separation. From the technical standpoint this is a transformer with one or more primary-side or secondary-side windings. In such cases the loop current flows permanently with its predominant direct current component in the range of 4 mA to 16 mA through the primary winding and magnetizes the core of the transformer. The transformer core is thus to be designed for the maximum loop current in respect of signaling transmission behavior. The exterior dimensions of the transformer are correspondingly large by comparison with the integrated modem unit.

Bus interface unit for interposing in a two-wire current loop, as well as a transducer, position controller and analog input and output module with such a bus interface unit


A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes the steps of forming a trench on a semiconductor substrate to define a first and a second element regions; burying a first oxide film in the trench; forming a second oxide film on surfaces of the first and second element regions; performing a first ion doping using a first mask which is exposing a first region containing the first element region and a part of the first oxide; performing a second ion doping using a second mask which is exposing a second region containing the second element region and a part of the first oxide film; and removing the second oxide film formed in the first element region and the second element region by etching, and the first oxide film is selectively thinned using the first or second mask after performing the first or second ion doping.

In a manufacturing process of a semiconductor device including transistors, i.e., MOS transistors, oxide films (hereinafter referred to as "sacrifice oxide film") may be deposited on surfaces of element regions in order to prevent damage to a semiconductor substrate by well implementation or channel implementation.
The sacrifice oxide film is removed with chemical solution, i.e., hydrofluoric acid (HF) prior to forming a gate insulator. However, a chemical solution such as HF also etches the oxide film for demarcation of the element regions (hereinafter referred as to "buried oxide film"), thus the buried oxide film differs in height after removing the sacrifice oxide film compared to before removing the sacrifice oxide film.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication 2001-24055 discloses a planarization technology for the buried oxide film, i.e., a method for leveling the buried oxide film protruded from the surface of the element region to the element region's height. With this approach, firstly, an oxide film (hereinafter referred as to "thermal oxidized film") is formed on the surface of the element region by thermal oxidation method. Then, the buried oxide film and the thermal oxidized film are coated with photoresist. Thereafter, the thermal oxidized film is exposed by etching the photoresist and the buried oxide film at an even rate. Next, the buried oxide film and the thermal oxidized film are etched by wet etching at the even rate to expose the element regions. Thus the buried oxide film is leveled to the element region in height.
The etching rate of the buried oxide film with the chemical solution such as HF differs according to the type of implemented ion, an amount of the ion's atomic weight or implementation dosage. As such, where plural types of transistors are implemented together, the etching rates of the buried oxide film vary by region of a semiconductor substrate. Thus, where the sacrificed oxide film is removed with the chemical solution such as HF after well/channel implementation, the surface of the buried oxide film may be unleveled.

Method of manufacturing semiconductor device on which a plurality of types of transistors are mounted


Novel gene, rin2, and encoded protein are disclosed which can inhibit the functional response induced by Ras-dependent signaling pathways are disclosed. Methods of inhibiting or enhancing Ras-dependent signaling and methods of treatment utilizing Rin2 are also disclosed.

The Ras family of small guanine-nucleotide binding proteins plays a pivotal role in many intracellular signal transduction pathways, including those which regulate cellular growth and differentiation and those which contribute to cell activation (Bourne et al., Nature 348:125-132 (1990); Marshall, FASEB J. 9:1311-1318 (1995)). Moreover, many different receptors expressed on the surface of diverse cell types can result in the activation of signal transduction pathways that are importantly influenced by Ras, and these pathways in turn determine whether, and to what extent, these cells respond to such cell surface receptor-dependent activation by proliferating, differentiating (i.e., developing new functional characteristics), and/or expressing specific functions (FIG. 1).
Depending on the circumstances, these "down-stream" consequences of the activation of Ras-dependent signal transduction pathways can have either adaptive (physiological) or maladaptive (pathological) consequences. For example, controlled Ras-dependent cellular proliferation is required for wound healing, whereas poorly regulated Ras-dependent cellular proliferation can result in the development of cancer and other neoplasms. Similarly, appropriate Ras-dependent cell secretion of histamine, serotonin, cytokines and other mediators can be important for host defense against parasites and other pathogens, whereas the inappropriate activation of these same pathways, for example, by a reaction to a bee-sting in patients who are allergic to components of bee venom, can lead to fatal anaphylaxis. Thus, Ras represents a major regulator of many of the most fundamental biological processes involved in both health and disease.
The mechanism by which Ras regulates such processes, through interactions with other intracellular molecules, is quite complex. Ras proteins are membrane-associated proteins that cycle between an active GTP-bound form and an inactive GDP-bound form. As illustrated in FIG. 1, evidence is accumulating for the existence of many different classes of positive or negative regulators of Ras and positive or negative Ras signaling effectors, all of which, by definition, are thought to interact directly with the active GTP-bound form of Ras to influence cellular signaling for growth, differentiation and expression of function (Boguski and McCormick, Nature 366:643-654 (1993); Marshall, FASEB J. 9:1311-1318 (1995); Marshall, Curr. Opin. Cell Biol 8:197-204 (1996)). For example, some of the best-characterized Ras regulators include the GTPase activating proteins (GAPs) and guanine nucleotide exchange factors (Boguski and McCormick, Nature 366:643-654 (1993)). The GAPs represent a family of Ras-binding proteins which stimulate the intrinsic rate of Ras GTP hydrolysis and thus negatively regulate the Ras-induced signaling by accelerating the conversion of active GTP-bound form of Ras to the inactive GDP-bound form. Recent studies have identified several GAPs specific for Ras proteins, which include p120-Ras GAP, neurofibromin (the protein encoded by the neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) gene), Gap1, Ral-GDS, Rsbs 1, 2, and 4, Rin1, MEKK-1, and phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase (PI3K) (Boguski and McCormick, Nature 366:643-654 (1993)).
In contrast to Ras regulators, which function primarily by influencing the amount of Ras which is in the GTP-bound active, as opposed to the GDP-bound inactive, form, Ras effectors are thought to influence the ability of active, GTP-bound Ras to initiate signaling (FIG. 1). In the case of many Ras-interacting proteins which can influence the intensity of Ras-dependent signaling, it is not yet clear to what extent they function as effectors as opposed to regulators; such proteins can therefore be called Ras regulators/effectors (Boguski and McCormick, Nature 366:643-54 (1993); Han and Colicelli, Mol. Cell. Biol. 15:1318-1323 (1995); Marshall, FASEB J. 9:1311-1318 (1995); Marshall, Curr. Opin. Cell. Biol. 8:197-204 (1996)).
A large number of cell types demonstrate the importance of Ras in critical cell signaling events. For example, mast cells are important effector cells in IgE-dependent immune responses and allergic diseases (Galli, New Engl. J. Med. 328:257-265 (1993)), and mast cells also contribute to host defense against parasites and bacteria (Echtenacher et al., Nature 381:75-77 (1996); Malaviya et al., Nature 381:77-80 (1996); Galli and Wershil, Nature 381:21-22 (1996)). Mast cells reside in virtually all vascularized tissues and express on their surface the high affinity receptor for IgE (Fc.epsilon.RI). Aggregation of Fc.epsilon.RI in mast cells by the interaction of receptor-bound IgE with specific multivalent antigen triggers the functional activation of mast cells, which results in the release of a spectrum of biologically active mediators (Ravetch and Kinet, Ann. Rev. Immunol. 9:457-492 (1991); Galli, New Engl. J. Med. 328:257-265 (1993); Beaven and Metzger, Immunol. Today 14:222-226 (1993)). Thus, mast cells activated by Fc.epsilon.RI-dependent mechanisms undergo degranulation, resulting in the release of preformed mediators, such as serotonin (5-HT) and/or histamine, the metabolism of arachidonic acid, leading to the release of newly synthesized lipid mediators, and the transcription, translation and secretion of several cytokines (Gordon et al., Immunol. Today 11:458-464 (1990); Galli, New Engl. J. Med. 328:257-265 (1993); Paul et al., Adv. Immunol. 53:1-29 (1993)).
Knowledge of the signaling pathways which result in the Fc.epsilon.RI-dependent secretion of mast cell mediators is increasing. In mast cells and basophils, a type of circulating leukocyte which shates many biochemical and functional characteristics with mast cells (Galli, New Engl. J. Med. 328:257-265 (1993)), the Fc.epsilon.RI receptor is a tetrameric complex comprised of a single 45 kDa .alpha. chain, which binds the Fc portion of IgE, a single 30 kDa .beta. chain, and a homodimer of two 10 kDa .gamma. chains (Ravetch and Kinet, Ann. Rev. Immunol. 9:457-492 (1991); Beaven and Metzger, Immunol. Today 14:222-226 (1993)). The .beta. and .gamma. chains contain immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs (ITAM) which couple the receptor to the src family of protein tyrosine kinases (PTK) p56lyn and p72syk (Beaven and Baumgartner, Curr. Opin. Immunol. 8:766-772 (1996)). The Fc.epsilon.RI-dependent activation of these PTKs in turn activates various downstream effector pathways, including those involving PLC.gamma.1 and the MAP kinase pathway (Beaven and Baumgartner, Curr. Opin. Immunol. 8:766-772 (1996)).
Recent studies have shown that the crosslinking of Fc.epsilon.RI in mast cells by IgE and specific antigen also results in the activation of Ras and of the associated Shc-Grb2-Sos pathway, which precedes Ras activation, and that the activation of this pathway is dependent on Syk (Jabril-Cuenod et al., J. Biol. Chem. 271:16268-16272 (1996)). These results suggest that in Fc.epsilon.RI-activated mast cells, as in T cells and B cells (the major types of lymphocytes responsible for cellular and humoral immunity) which have been activated via the T cell receptor or B cell receptor, respectively, the Shc-Grb2-Sos pathway can activate the MAP kinase pathway via the activation of Ras.
An effector pathway of Ras mediated by the Raf-1/Erk-activating kinases (MEKs)/Erk-MAP kinases cascade has been well-characterized in numerous systems (Treisman, Curr. Opin. Cell Biol. 8:205-215 (1996)), and this Ras-mediated pathway is important in the mast cell activation and mediator secretion that is induced by IgE- and antigen-dependent aggregation of Fc.epsilon.RI in these cells (Tsai et al., Eur. J. Immunol. 23:3286-3291 (1993); Offermanns et al., J. Immunol. 152:250-261 (1994); Hirasawa et al., J. Immunol. 154:5391-5402 (1995)). In addition, recent studies with rat RBL2H3 mast cells have shown that the Fc.epsilon.RI induction of Ras activation leads to transcriptional activation mediated by the transcription factors Elk-1 and the nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) (Turner and Cantrell, J. Exp. Med. 185:43-53 (1997)). These Ras-dependent signaling pathways in mast cells appear to be complex. Thus, activation of the Raf-1/MEK/Erk cascade appears to be necessary and sufficient for the activation of Elk-1 activity in mast cells. However, the induction of NFAT by Fc.epsilon.RI in mast cells is also mediated in part by Rac-1, which is a putative Ras effector and a member of the Rho family of GTP binding proteins (Turner and Cantrell, J. Exp. Med. 185:43-53 (1997)) . Thus, the specific signaling pathways involved in Fc.epsilon.RI-mediated mast cell activation are still unclear.

Rin2, a novel inhibitor of Ras-mediated signaling


A non-metallic medical device treated with a antimicrobial agents is provided. Different combinations of antimicrobial agents can be used for different types of non-metallic medical devices depending on the types of infections related to each device. The combination of different antimicrobial substances has a synergistic effect against certain bacteria and fungi. An antimicrobial agent can be used to treat a non-metallic medical device by mixing the antimicrobial agent with an acid solution and glycerol and exposing the non-metallic medical device to the resulting mixture such that an enough of the antimicrobial agent binds to a portion of the non-metallic medical device to inhibit the growth of bacterial and fungal organisms.

Indwelling medical devices such as catheters are becoming essential to patient care. The benefit derived from these catheters, orthopedic devices, and other types of medical implants, however, is often offset by infectious complications.
Some of the common organisms causing infectious complications associated with indwelling medical devices are Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus aureus. In the case of vascular catheters, these two organisms account for almost 70-80% of all infectious organisms, with Staphylococcus epidermidis being the most common organism. Gram-negative bacilli cause about 15-20% of the infections, and Candida species, a fungal agent, accounts for about 10-15% of the vascular catheter infections. Other gram-negative bacteria and fungal organisms (Candida) account for the remaining one-third of cases.
Another common hospital-acquired infection is a urinary tract infection (UTI). The majority of UTI cases are associated with the use of urinary catheters, including transurethral foley, suprapubic and nephrostomy catheters. These urinary catheters are inserted in a variety of populations, including the elderly, stroke victims, spinal cord-injured patients, postoperative patients and those with obstructive uropathy. Despite adherence to sterile guidelines for the insertion and maintenance of urinary catheters, catheter-associated UTI continues to pose a major problem. In the U.S. alone, about 1 million cases of hospital-acquired cases of UTI occur annually. For instance, it is estimated that almost one-quarter of hospitalized spinal cord-injured patients develop symptomatic UTI during their hospital course. Gram-negative bacilli account for almost 60-70%, enterococci for about 25% and Canada species for about 10% of cases of UTI.
Colonization of bacteria on the surfaces of the implant or other parts of the device can produce serious patient problems, including the need to remove and/or replace the implanted device and to vigorously treat secondary infective conditions. A considerable amount of attention and study has been directed toward preventing such colonization by the use of antimicrobial agents, such as antibiotics, bound to the surface of the materials employed in such devices. In such attempts, the objective has been to produce a sufficient bacteriostatic or bactericidal action to prevent colonization.
Various methods have previously been employed to prevent infection of medical devices. A simple method is to flush the surfaces of a device with an antimicrobial solution. Generally, this flushing technique requires convenient access to the implantable device. For example, catheters are generally amenable to flushing with a solution of rifampin and minocycline or rifampin and novobiocin. For use in flushing solutions, the effective concentration of the antibiotic range from about 1 to 10 mg/ml for minocycline, preferably about 2 mg/ml; 1 to 10 mg/ml for rifampin, preferably about 2 mg/ml; and 1 to 10 mg/ml for novobiocin, preferably about 2 mg/ml. The flushing solution is normally composed of sterile water or sterile saline solutions.
Other methods of coating surfaces of medical devices with antimicrobial agents are taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,566 (a medical device substrate carrying a negatively charged group having a pKa of less than 6 and a cationic antibiotic bound to the negatively charged group); U.S. Pat. No. 4,917,686 (antibiotics are dissolved in a swelling agent which is absorbed into the matrix of the surface material of the medical device); U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,121 (constructing the medical device with ionogenic hydrogels, which thereafter absorb or ironically bind antibiotics); U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,306 (laminating an antibiotic to a polymeric surface layer of a medical device); U.S. Pat. No. 4,952,419 (applying a film of silicone oil to the surface of an implant and then contacting the silicone film bearing surface with antibiotic powders); and U.S. Pat. No. 4,442,133.
These and other methods of coating medical devices with antimicrobial agents appear in numerous patents and medical journal articles. However, these methods also have significant drawbacks in that they can alter the integrity of non-metallic medical devices or result in residual antimicrobial material precipitating within the device.
Accordingly, there is a need for a non-metallic medical device treated with an antimicrobial agent to provide a broad range of antimicrobial activity while minimizing the harmful side effects noted above. Further, there is a need for a method that results in low residual coating material left on the surface of the medical device, which reduces complications arising from precipitation of coating material within the device. There is also a need to enhance the versatility of the treatment to accommodate higher concentrations of antimicrobial agents if needed.

Method for treating medical devices using glycerol and an antimicrobial agent


A lens driving device provided with a stator having a cylindrical shape, for generating a magnetic field therein; a rotor located within the stator and being rotation-driven by a magnetic field created by the stator; a lens holder located further inside the rotor, for holding a plurality of lenses with a small lens thereof being located at an arrangement end of the plurality of lenses; a converting mechanism for converting the direction of force of rotation driving of the rotor into direction along the optical axes of the lenses and transmitting the force in the direction thus converted to the lens holder; and a rotation stopper mechanism formed beside the small lens, for preventing the rotation of the lens holder.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a lens driving device for driving lenses in a direction along their optical axes, and an imaging device for acquiring image data representing object light.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is now prevalent that an imaging device for acquiring a digital image of an object is incorporated in small-sized devices such as a cellular phone and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). Since the small-sized device is equipped with the imaging device, the user can easily take a photograph at any time without labor of carrying a digital camera or video camera. These small-sized devices, which usually previously incorporate a data communication function using radio wave or infrared rays, has an advantage of being capable of instantaneously transmitting a picked up image to another cellular phone or a personal computer.
However, since the imaging device incorporated in these small-sized devices, such as the cellular phone, is much smaller than an ordinary digital camera, the size of its components such as a lens and CCD (Charge Coupled Device) and the space for housing these components are greatly limited. Thus, in order that these small-sized devices are used in place of the digital camera, they are insufficient in the imaging function and image quality of the image. Their use is limited to taking a picture or image not requiring image quality, e.g. taking the picture in place of making a note, or taking the picture for a waiting screen of the cellular phone.
In view of these circumstances, in recent years, a small-sized CCD with high a density of pixels and a small-sized lens with high contrast have been developed. Correspondingly, realization of high quality of the picture taken using the small-sized device such as the cellular phone or the PDA has advanced rapidly. As regards the fulfillment of an imaging function which is an unsolved problem, these small-sized devices are desired to incorporate an auto-focusing function and a zooming function which are usually incorporated in the digital camera.
The auto-focusing function and the zooming function can be realized by moving a plurality of lenses in a direction along their optical axis (hereinafter referred to as a back-and-forth direction) within the imaging device. In the digital camera or digital video camera, previously known lens driving techniques use rotation by a DC motor or stepping motor, and use contraction/extension of a piezoelectric element. Where these techniques are applied to the small-sized devices such as the cellular phone, from the viewpoint of downsizing the device and accuracy of movement control of the lenses, a technique of using a hollow stepping motor is preferred in which a hollow cylindrical rotor encircling the outer periphery of a lens mirror cylinder with lenses held is rotated by applying a pulse current to a stator encircling the outer periphery of the hollow rotor. As this lens driving technique using the hollow stepping motor, proposed is driving the lens mirror cylinder along the optical axis through a moving mechanism such as a cam mechanism located between the lens mirror cylinder and the rotor (see e.g. JP-A-56-147132, JP-A-59-109006 and JP-A-59-109007); moving the lens mirror cylinder by the rotor itself (see e.g. JP-A-60-415, JP-A-60-416 and JP-A-60-417); and integrating the lens mirror cylinder and the rotor (see e.g. JP-A-62-195615). Among these techniques, according to the techniques described in JP-A-60-415, JP-A-60-416 and JP-A-60-417, and JP-A-62-195615, provision of any specific moving mechanism is not required, thereby downsizing the entire device. However since the lens mirror cylinder is moved in the back-and-forth direction while being rotated, the image may shift due to eccentricity of the lenses. On the other hand, according to the techniques described in JP-A-56-147132, JP-A-59-109006 and JP-A-59-109007, since the rotating force of the rotor is converted into force in the back-end-force direction by the moving mechanism arranged between the rotor and lens mirror cylinder, by providing a rotation stopper for limiting the movement of the lenses in the rotating direction, the lenses can be moved in the back-and-forth direction without being rotated, thereby avoiding inconvenience due to the eccentricity of the lenses.
Further, the imaging device using the hollow stepping motor is constructed of a plurality of components such as a stator and a rotor which are housed within a strong enclosure capable of enduring external stress. By using such an enclosure, even when external stress is applied, inconveniences that the components hit each other and the rotation of the rotor rattles can be avoided, thereby permitting the lenses to be accurately driven.
However, the techniques described in the above Patent References have been accomplished so that they are applied to a digital camera having an ordinary size, or the like. Thus, if these techniques are applied, as they are, to the small-sized device much smaller than the digital camera, there occur inconveniences that the lenses are not driven or a sufficient space for housing the components cannot be assured. For example, in the techniques described in JP-A-56-14713.2, JP-A-59-109006 and JP-A-59-109007, it is difficult to assure the space for providing the rotation stopper.


A control circuit for a half-wave brushless motor. The control circuit includes n circuit branches, each with an electronic power switch connected in series with the respective winding or phase of the motor across the terminals of a voltage source in parallel to the other n-1 circuit branches, a pilot circuit for providing enabling signals to render the power switches selectively conductive, current recirculation elements for dissipating transient current that flows in each phase of the motor whenever the associated power switch is turned off, and a voltage limiter for limiting, to a predetermined threshold voltage, the voltage surge due to the transient current.

The present invention relates to a control circuit for a half wave brushless motor.
Each time the electronic power switch (typically a MOSFET transistor) associated with a winding or phase of the motor is disabled, a high over voltage is created in this winding due to the energy inductively stored in this winding during the preceding period when the power switch is turned on.
To limit this voltage surge it is known to utilise, for example, Zener diodes disposed between the output electrode and the input electrode of the power switch (or between the output electrode and earth). This arrangement allows the voltage surge to be limited to a fixed threshold value.
This arrangement is not entirely satisfactory.
In fact, the amplitude of the voltage or back electromotive force developed in each winding or phase of the motor varies with variation of the speed of rotation thereof. This amplitude is particularly modest at low speeds, and higher at high speed. The fixed voltage threshold to which the voltage surge is limited with the known arrangements is however established on the basis of the value which this voltage surge assumes at high speed. Consequently at low speed, and therefore with relatively low back electromotive force values, rather high surge voltage peaks are allowed relative to the average amplitude of the back electromotive force. This leads to the generation of an unpleasant acoustic noise in operation.

Control circuit for a half-wave brushless motor with a surge limiter


A method for fabricating a semiconductor device comprises forming active regions on a semiconductor substrate, forming a gate stack over the active regions and regions adjacent to the active regions, depositing a layer of conductive material over the active regions and the substrate, patterning a first mask over the conductive material, etching to remove exposed portions of the conductive material and form conductive contacts, patterning a second mask over portions of the gate stacks and conductive contacts, and etching to remove exposed portions of the gate stack.

The present invention relates to semiconductor devices, and more specifically, to fabricating semiconductor devices having close ground rules.
Semiconductor devices such as, field effect transistor devices are often arranged on a semiconductor substrate. Methods for fabricating such devices include forming gate stacks on the substrate and active source and drain regions adjacent to the gates stacks. The gate stacks are often arranged in parallel crossing a number of active regions. During fabrication, the gate stacks may be cut or trimmed to form a desired arrangement on the substrate.
Often an insulator or dielectric layer is deposited over the active regions of the devices. Cavities are formed in the insulator layer to expose the active regions, the cavities are filled with a conductive material and planarized to form conductive contacts.

Forming semiconductor device with close ground rules

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


An encoding methodology encodes an instance document describing multimedia content by determining a context node in the content description and using a schema associated with the context node to determine the maximum number of children attributes and elements of the context node. Values for required attributes and elements are encoded into required attributes and required elements sections, respectively. Values for each optional attribute and optional element present in the content description are encoded into corresponding optional attributes and optional elements sections. In one aspect, a mask is encoded that indicates which of the optional attributes or optional elements are present in the content description. In another aspect, a count of the optional attributes or optional elements is used in place of the mask. A corresponding decode methodology extracts the values of the attributes and elements from the encoded instance document to re-create the content description.

Digital audiovisual information is becoming widely distributed through broadcast transmission, such as digital television signals, and interactive transmission, such as the Internet. The information may be in still images, audio feeds, or video data streams. The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) has promulgated a Multimedia Content Description Interface standard, commonly referred to as MPEG-7, to standardize the description of audiovisual information when it is transmitted from a system that generates the information to a system that presents the information to a user.
An MPEG-7 description defines a generic structure for particular types of multimedia content. For example, the structure for a standard movie could include scenes, shots within scenes, titles for scenes, and time, color, shape, motion, and audio for shots. The corresponding description would contain a "descriptor" component that describes one of the features of the content, such as color, shape, motion, audio, title, etc., and a "description scheme" component that describe relationships among two or more descriptors, e.g., a shot description scheme that relates the features of a shot. A description scheme can also describe the relationship among other description schemes and between description schemes and descriptors, e.g., a scene description scheme that relates the different shots in a scene and relates the title of the scene to the shots.
A Schema is designed based on descriptors and description schemes used to describe the features of multimedia content, which is encoded into an instance document using a Description Definition Language(DDL). Each descriptor entry in the schema specifies the syntax and semantics of the corresponding feature. Each description scheme entry in the schema specifies the structure and semantics of the relationships among its children components. The DDL for MPEG-7 multimedia content descriptions is based on the XML (extensible markup language) standard. The descriptors, description schemes, semantics, syntax, and structures of the content description are coded as XML elements. XML attributes can be used to specify additional information about the elements. Some of the XML elements and attributes may be optional.
An instance of a content description, such as a particular movie, is specified in an XML "instance document" that references the appropriate schema and contains a set of "descriptor values" for the required elements and attributes in the schema and for any necessary optional elements and/or attributes. An instance document is typically encoded into a binary form for transmission between the system that generated the instance document and a system that will present the multimedia content and the descriptions described in the instance document.
The more complex the multimedia content descriptions, the larger the instance document and the longer the transmission time between the generating and presentation systems. While standard compression techniques can be employed to reduce the size of the instance document when it is converted into its binary form, such techniques do not reduce the amount of data sufficiently to enable practical transmission of large instance documents over slower connections.

Efficient binary coding scheme for multimedia content descriptions


A transmission space diversity method which is effective also for a communication system wherein different carrier frequencies are used for transmission and reception is disclosed. Such reception space diversity control that a controlling signal from terminal station 10 is received by two antennas 1 and 2 and receivers 3 and 4 of a base station and the two received controlling signals are compared with each other by reception space diversity controlling signal generation circuit 6 and then that signal which exhibits a higher reception level is provided to switch circuit 8. Furthermore, the reception space diversity controlling signal is utilized for transmission space diversity control of antenna selection wherein the output of transmitter 5 is emitted by one of the antennas. A terminal station transmits, when the reception level thereof drops, a signal for requesting reversal of the switching direction of the antennas to the base station, then the base station reverses the transmission space diversity controlling signal in response to the request signal from the terminal station.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to transmission space diversity, and more particularly to a transmission space diversity transmission method and a transmission space diversity apparatus suitable for use with a duplex communication system for different transmission and reception frequency signals.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a radio communication system, a diversity system is adopted in order to prevent deterioration in communication quality caused by an obstacle to radio wave propagation between transmitting and receiving stations.
Particularly, for a propagation path in which an obstacle to radio wave propagation is caused by the influence of shadowing caused by an obstacle to an antenna and multi-path fading caused by composite attenuation by a direct wave and a reflected wave or the like, a reception space diversity system is usually utilized as a countermeasure to the obstacle to radio wave propagation.
However, in a time division multiple access (TDMA) radio communication system wherein a plurality of terminal stations communicate with one base station like a mobile communication system, the reception space diversity system cannot sometimes be utilized from a demand for miniaturization or cost lowering of a terminal station apparatus. In such an instance, a transmission space diversity system is adopted wherein a plurality of antennas are provided on the transmission side and one of the antennas with which a terminal station can receive a radio wave with a comparatively high quality is selected to transmit a radio wave.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional example wherein such a transmission space diversity system as described above is applied to a TDMA communication system of mobile communication (Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. Heisei 5-29992).
The circuit shown in FIG. 1 includes two antennas 21 and 22 each for use during transmission and reception, receivers 23 and 24 corresponding to antennas 21 and 22, respectively, error detection circuits 29 and 30 for received signals, error bit comparison circuit 26, reception output selection switch 28, transmitter 25, and change-over switch 27 for switching the output of transmitter 25. The space diversity system adopts a system wherein a signal of a same carrier frequency is alternately transmitted and received in a predetermined period and the reception diversity and transmission diversity are operated at the base station side.
A mobile station performs control overhead and data to for the base station within a time slot to the base station, and the base station receives the overhead and the data through antennas 21 and 22 and the received information is provided to the corresponding receivers 23 and 24 and to the respective error detection circuits 29 and 30, and so forth. The base stations performs the reception space diversity control by comparing the reception bit error rate of the two reception signals through antenas 21 and 22 by the bit error comparison circuit 26 and outputs a received signal which exhibits a lower error rate through selection switch 28. Furthermore, whenever the base station transmits to the mobile station, transmission diversity control to utilize the antenna which received the lower error rate on the latest reception.
While the present system is characterized in that an antenna which is less influenced by a waveform distortion caused by frequency selective fading is selected, it is based on the presumption to employ a transmission-reception system that uses the same carrier frequency wherein the correlation between a signal from a terminal station and a signal from a base station is high and the reversibility of a transmission path is provided.
As described above, in the conventional transmission space diversity system, such control as described above is performed under the condition that the same carrier frequency is used for both reception and transmission. However, where an FDD (frequency division full duplex) communication system wherein different carrier frequencies are used for transmission and reception is adopted, or in a system wherein, while a TDD (time division duplex) communication system is adopted, carrier frequencies in transmission and reception may not necessarily be same as each other, since the manner in which multi-path fading occurs is different depending on the carrier frequencies, an effective effect of space diversity cannot be obtained by the controlling method described above.
This is described in connection with interference between a direct wave and a reflected wave when multi-path fading occurs with reference to FIG. 2. If it is assumed that the distance between a transmission point and a reception point is x=50 m, a reflection plate is located at a middle point, the angle with respect to the reflection plate is .theta.=20.degree., and the reflection coefficient of the reflecting plate is 1, the phase difference in wavelength at the reception point can be calculated from a difference in distance between the direct wave and the reflected waves dividing the distances by the wavelength. Accordingly, for example, where the transmission frequency is 20.10 GHz, the numbers of times wavelengths at the transmission and reception points are approximately 3,350.00 times wavelength with the direct wave and approximately 3,565.00 times wavelengths with the reflected wave and the difference between the wavelengths is approximately 215.00 times wavelengths. Consequently, it can be recognized that the direct wave and the reflected wave are composed substantially fully in the same phases with each other. On the other hand, where the transmission frequency is 19.96 GHz, the wavelengths at the transmission and reception points are approximately 3,326.67 times wavelengths with the direct wave and approximately 3,540.16 times wavelengths with the reflected wave, so the difference between of the distances divided by the wavelength is approximately 213.49 times wavelengths. Consequently, it can be recognized that the direct wave and the reflected wave are composed substantially fully in the inverse phases with each other. Consequently, it cannot be said that, even in fading arising from two waves, the phase of the direct wave and the reflected wave composed with a frequency difference of 140 MHz in the proximity of 20 GHz coincide with each other. Consequently, where different carrier frequencies are used for transmission and reception, improvement in communication quality against multi-path fading cannot be anticipated at all even if the space diversity system of the conventional example wherein a result of reception space diversity is used for transmission space diversity control is adopted. Therefore, where the carrier frequencies in transmission and reception are different from each other, the transmission space diversity system described above is not adopted.

Transmission space diversity controlling method and transmission space diversity apparatus


An abrasive product having an abrasive surface, a belt of an abrasive product, a roll of an abrasive product and a method for manufacturing an abrasive product. An abrasive product includes a backing and an abrasive surface. The abrasive surface includes at least a first abrasive area and a second abrasive area, wherein abrasive properties of the first abrasive area are different from abrasive properties of the second abrasive area.

Abrasive product is used for surface treatment. Surface is treated in order to achieve a desired result, which may relate to surface smoothness, roughness, structure or design, for example. Different desired results may require different kind of abrasive products. Several abrasive products and several processing phases may be required in order to get the desired result.

Abrasive product and a method for manufacturing such


A circuit for monitoring the functionality of an electrical element. A primary power supply provides direct current to the electrical element at a current sufficient for the electrical element to operate. A Schottky diode is disposed between the primary power supply and the electrical element, wherein the electrical element draws its operational current through the Schottky diode when in operation. A reverse bias power supply is provided. An opto-isolator is disposed between the reverse bias power supply and the electrical element. The electrical element draws a secondary current from the reverse bias power supply through the opto-isolator. The opto-isolator creates an output signal that is indicative of the secondary current. The output signal is used to control a remote failure indicator. When the electrical element fails, the current flowing through the opto-isolator stops. This triggers the failure indicator and informs a user as to the failed status.

1. Field of the Invention
In general, the present invention relates to systems and methods that monitor the functionality of electric elements, such as incandescent bulbs and light emitting diodes. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods that are capable of monitoring the failure of an electrical element even if that electrical element were to fail when powered off.
2. Prior Art Description
Many machines, such as automobiles, appliances, industrial equipment, and the like include small electrical elements such as lights. Some of the lights, especially the lights used to illuminate control panels, are important in the proper and safe operation of the machine. Take, for example, an automobile. The automobile has many obvious lights such as the headlights and brake lights. However, the automobile also has numerous safety system lights that the vehicle owner may never see. The safety system lights include the check engine light, the low oil light, and numerous other safety system lights that indicate that some system of the automobile is in danger of failing. Should one of the safety system lights fail, the driver of the automobile may have no indication that some system has failed. This may result in catastrophic failure. For example, if the low oil light in an automobile fails and the automobile has an oil leak, the driver may be unaware of the condition until the engine seizes for lack of oil. Likewise, consider a light failure in an airplane that prevents a pilot from detecting a potential engine stopping condition.
In the prior art, there are many circuits that have been designed to indicate to a person that a specific electric element has failed. Many of these circuits use complex transistor configurations to monitor the flow of current through a light. Accordingly, the cost of such monitoring circuits is significant and the economics limits the use of such circuits. Such complex prior art circuits are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,613 to Hormel, entitled, Lamp Failure Indicator Circuit.
Other complex prior art circuits optically detect whether or not a lamp emits any light when activated. Such prior art circuits are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 6,963,170 to Higgins, entitled Lamp Monitor And Lamp. These light detector circuits also have significant costs that limit their application.
A problem associated with both types of prior art monitoring systems is that a broken electrical element, such as a safety light, cannot be detected until that light is powered on and fails to light. In many machines, electrical elements, such as lights, fail when the electrical element is powered off. Failure of a light may be due to corrosion, vibrational fatigue, water damage, or even terrorist sabotage. If such a failure occurs, the operator of the machinery has no warning of the failure until it is too late. For example, suppose the reverse lights on a tractor-trailer fail due to vibrational damage while the truck is in transit. The driver of the truck would have no way of knowing that the lights have failed until the driver puts the truck into reverse. At that point, the driver may be committed to backing the truck in reverse and now has to do so with no light.
A need therefore exists for a simple, low cost circuit that can warn a person about the failure of an electrical element at the moment of the failure, regardless of whether the electrical element is powered on or off. This need is met by the present invention as described and claimed below.

Monitoring circuit for determining if an electric element has failed before the electric element is powered


A system and method for state-based execution and recovery in a payment system is presented. A payment system uses a state machine to track completed sub-tasks using a state progress identifier and completion state data. When a failure occurs, stored completion state data and the state progress identifier indicate the last successfully completed sub-task. As such, when the payment system resumes payment operation execution after a failure, the state machine retrieves the stored completion state data and state progress identifier, and resumes execution based upon the retrieved information. As a result, the payment system continues payment operation execution at a point as to not duplicate the payment operation's previously completed sub-tasks.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system and method for state-based execution and recovery in a payment system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for using a state machine to track a payment operation's completed sub-tasks and continue execution, after a failure, at a point within the payment operation as to not duplicate the payment operation's previously completed sub-tasks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Software-based payment systems today rely upon common techniques to orchestrate financial transactions between external payment providers (e.g., credit card companies). These payment systems perform various jobs in order to successfully handle payment operations associated with an order. Payment operations include, but are not limited to, order processing, payment-related events, data management, transaction management, and error handling.
While performing a payment operation, a payment system may experience a failure do to reasons such as a lack of network connectivity or temporary payment processor downtimes. When a failure occurs in the middle of executing a payment operation, a challenge found is that the payment system has to re-execute the entire payment operation, regardless of whether the payment operation was almost complete.
In addition, the payment operation may have interacted with an external payment provider by sending financial transaction requests and receiving financial transaction results (e.g., validation, payment, etc,). In these cases, when the payment system re-executes a payment operation from the beginning, the payment operation sends duplicate financial transaction requests to the payment provider. A challenge found is that payment providers may not allow a payment system to "roll back" or cancel a financial transaction. Furthermore, a challenge found is that the payment system typically requires manual intervention in order to correct problems when a payment operation partially completes.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method for executing a partially completed payment operation without re-executing previously completed payment operation steps.

System and method for state-based execution and recovery in a payment system

International Business Machines Corporation


For machinery comprising rotary components attached to at least one drive shaft, at least one rotary bearing to position the drive shaft with a rotational freedom of movement about a drive shaft axis and associated stationary components, apparatus that comprises: a rotary backup bearing sleeve attached to the drive shaft proximate the bearing comprising a rotary radial surface relative to the drive shaft axis and a rotary axial surface relative to the drive shaft axis; and a stationary backup bearing collar mounted to one of the stationary components proximate the rotary backup bearing sleeve comprising a stationary radial surface relative to the drive shaft axis proximate the rotary radial surface with a predetermined axial clearance and a stationary axial surface relative to the drive shaft axis proximate the rotary radial surface with a predetermined axial clearance.

Rotating equipment is used in many relatively service-free applications, such as electric motors for fans, blowers and pumps. Although relatively service-free, bearings for such rotating machinery have a limited service life. Particularly in the case of such rotating machinery subject to unfavourable environments, such as those with ambient contamination or temperature extremes, and such machinery that employs sealed bearings, the service life of these bearings may at times be less than predicted. In such instances, the bearings may be subject to catastrophic failure whilst in service. Such failure may cause damage to the machinery and adversely affect ambient conditions, such as due to sparks, smoke, heat and odour.