Methods of forming a roughened surface through diffusion-enhanced crystallization of an amorphous material are disclosed. In one aspect, conductive hemispherical grain silicon can be formed through dopant diffusion-enhanced crystallization of one or more layers of amorphous silicon. To further enhance uniformity in the formation of the hemispherical grain silicon, the exposed surface of the amorphous silicon can be seeded before crystallization to further enhance uniformity of the surface structures formed in the hemispherical grain silicon.

Hemispherical grain silicon (commonly referred to as HSG silicon) is one example of a crystallized material with a roughened surface, i.e. a surface that is not smooth. Electrically conductive roughened surfaces are useful in the manufacturing of dynamic semiconductor storage devices requiring storage node capacitor cell plates large enough to maintain adequate charge, i.e., capacitance, in the face of parasitic capacitances and noise that may be present during operation of a circuit including the storage devices. Maintaining storage node capacitance is especially important due to the continuing increases in Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) array density.
Such DRAM devices, among others, rely on capacitance stored between two conductors separated by a layer of dielectric material. One method of increasing the capacitance of a capacitor formed using conductive polysilicon layers is to increase the surface area of the conductors. Using hemispherical grain (HSG) silicon for the first conductor is one method of increasing the surface area of the conductors because the later-deposited dielectric layer and second conductor will typically conform to the surface of the first deposited conductor.
Hemispherical grain silicon can be obtained by a number of methods including Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (LPCVD) at conditions resulting in a layer of roughened polysilicon. Another method includes depositing a layer of amorphous silicon, followed by high temperature seeding and/or annealing to cause the formation of hemispherical grain silicon.
The silicon layers to be converted into hemispherical grain silicon or deposited as hemispherical grain silicon are not, however, typically in situ doped during deposition because in situ doping of those layers can result in smaller grain size, thereby reducing surface area and capacitance. Furthermore, in processes where the HSG silicon layer is doped after formation, the roughness of the surface can be reduced by the post-formation doping processes. For example, diffusion doping of the HSG silicon may result in a layer of oxide that would need to be removed before deposition of the dielectric layer. The oxide layer may be removed using an etch process that could reduce the roughness of the HSG silicon layer. Ion implantation, another technique for doping an undoped layer of HSG silicon may also reduce the surface roughness of the HSG silicon.

Diffusion-enhanced crystallization of amorphous materials to improve surface roughness


A memory device is provided. The memory device includes a memory cell and a bit line connected to the memory cell. A negative voltage generator is connected to the bit line. The negative voltage generator, when enabled, is operative to provide a first write path for the bit line. A control circuit is connected to the negative voltage generator and the bit line. The control circuit is operative to provide a second write path for the bit line when the negative voltage generator is not enabled.

A common type of integrated circuit memory is a static random access memory (SRAM) device. A typical SRAM memory device includes an array of bit cells, with each bit cell having six transistors connected between an upper reference potential and a lower reference potential. Each bit cell has two storage nodes where information may be stored. The first node stores the desired information, while the complementary information is stored at the second storage node. SRAM cells have the advantageous feature of holding data without requiring a refresh.
The negative bit line technique, however comes with a price. For example, an increased number of transistors results in drop in a gate to source voltage (referred to as Vgs) of write driver transistors or multiplexer transistors. The drop in the Vgs results in smaller write current which may limit the Vccmin scaring.

Memory device having a negative voltage circuit

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


An on-site system construction support tool 11 has a display device that displays a configuration example of an on-site system of a plurality of machines 1601-1607, 1610, 1611. The display device opens a process window 1100 having a plurality of process buttons 1101-1112, which identify processes 1501-1511 required for the on-site system, when one of the process buttons is operated, causing the display device to open a setup window 1210, 1220, 1230, 1240, 1250, 1260 for specifying the machine to be used in the associated process. The burden that is imposed on the environment by the on-site system is calculated in accordance with information concerning the fuel consumption of the specified machine and the amount of work and displayed. This makes it possible to flexibly support the construction of the on-site system and calculate a value of the expected environmental burden.

A device for supporting an operation for disassembling home electric appliances and office automation products and acquiring reusable parts is disclosed in Patent Document 1. This device pre-stores data about a plant to be used and workers. When information specifying a waste article to be processed is input, this device calculates the cost and manpower required for the processing of the waste article and, for instance, the types and the number of parts recoverable from the waste article, and provides support for determining an appropriate cost required for processing and performing efficient processing operations.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-1998-222572

On-site system construction support tool and on-site system construction support device

Hitachi Construcation Machinery Co., Ltd.


A display sign of box-like construction has internal illumination and a face comprising a transparent or translucent sheet with advertising material applied thereto. The face is tensioned by means of a locking element to which the face is attached and which is then forced into the gap between two surfaces. The element is serrated and one of said surfaces includes a detent which co-operates with the serrations. The pull exerted by the tensioned face pulls the locking element into a position in which it lies skew to said surfaces and bears on both said surfaces with the detent between adjacent serrations. There can be one or more locking elements along each edge of the sheet, or one or more locking elements along one edge of the sheet only. The sheet can be tensioned by locking elements acting in two directions which are at right angles to one another.

One form of advertising sign comprises a rectangular frame with a flexible sheet of material stretched across the frame. The advertisement is on the sheet which is usually backlighted. The sheet must be tensioned to remove all wrinkles, wrinkles detracting from the appearance of the sign. Desirably, the sign is also able to compensate for dimensional changes in the sheet if the sheet is heated up. This is a particular problem in outdoor signs where the temperature of the sign changes considerably depending on whether or not it is being subjected to direct sunlight.


The invention relates to a case for holding elongate objects, in particular, drills or other tools, comprising a housing shell and a lid hinged pivotably thereto via a hinge and at least two pivotable holding parts which while the case is closed are pivoted inward into the interior, while they are pivoted outward out of the said interior when the lid is being opened, wherein only the holding part close to the lid is mounted in a pivoting axis in the housing shell of the case, while the at least one additional holding part disposed in front of the holding part closest to the lid is detachably connected to the respective closest holding part. The advantage lies in the fact that the case can be modularly expanded, that the manipulation is improved, and that the manufacturing cost is reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The subject of the invention is a case for holding elongate objects, in particular, a case for holding drills or other elongate tools or similar items.
Insofar as the present description of the invention mentions a "drill case", this is not to be understood as a restriction. The invention relates to a all cases suitable for holding elongate objects and having one holding part or a plurality of holding parts for this type of elongate objects, wherein upon opening of the lid the case is automatically pivoted upwards to offer the objects for removal.
When the description of the later exemplary embodiment calls the elongate objects "drills", this is not to be understood as a restriction. The invention therefore relates to all elongate objects suitable to be kept in a case of this type.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A case described above for holding elongate objects has become known to the art, for example, with the subject of the patent application DE 1 955 897 A1. Herein, a container for twist drills with a lid is described wherein two pivotable holding parts are pivoted inward into the interior when the case is closed and outward when the lid is being opened.
The two holding parts are interconnected by means of a spring so that they are pivoted by spring force into their open position when the lid is opened. When the lid closes, on the other hand, the spring force of the said two holding parts has to be overcome and they have to be manually held down while the lid is being closed, in order to succeed in closing the case.
A disadvantage of the said arrangement therefore lies in the complex manipulation and, coincidentally, in the risk that if the lid is not completely closed, the two spring-loaded holding parts act against the lid in the direction of opening thus opening the case unintentionally.
With the subject of the patent application DE 82 21 225 U1, an additional case of the type described above has become known to the art, wherein, however, fixed holding parts are provided, said holding parts being firmly integrated in the lid and pivoted therewith.
There is therefore the disadvantage that the elongate objects held therein are only accessible with difficulty when the case is opened. In this instance, it is required to reach into the cavity in the lid, in order to pull the objects upward and out. This means increased complication of operation.
With the subject of the patent application DE 38 37 829 C1, an additional case for storing elongate objects has become known to the art, wherein a plurality of holding parts is provided, said holding parts being disposed on a common pivoting axis and firmly connected to one another, wherein the holding part closest to the lid has a coupling to the pivotable part of the lid.
In this way, the advantage is obtained that when the lid of the case is opened, the holding parts are pivoted into a widely fanned position for the removal of objects, thereby making the objects to be removed easy to reach.
A disadvantage, however, lies in the fact that the case cannot be expanded without difficulty, since the holding parts form a single pivoting axis and are mounted rotatably on the said pivoting axis. It is therefore not possible, for example, to take out one holding part and to exchange it for another or to use more than three holding parts, because the holding parts described are all mounted in one common axis.
When using a larger number of holding parts (e.g. 3 holding parts as shown in the patent application DE 38 37 829 C1), the additional advantage arises that a relatively high pivoting weight acts upon the single pivoting axis of the holding parts, when the holding parts are loaded up with particularly heavy objects. In this process, the pivoting axis is stressed in a particular way and has to be designed with large dimensions. It therefore also is subject to a certain wear.
Furthermore, the manufacturing cost of a case of this type is relatively high, because it is made of a metallic material, which makes it particularly costly to manufacture. The holding parts all have lateral tongues located together on the single pivoting axis. This also leads to high manufacturing cost for the holding parts.
Another disadvantage coincidentally lies in the fact that the holding parts described are riveted into the single pivoting axis so that the holding parts are connected to the housing shell of the case via a single pivoting axis in a way that they cannot be detached.
This however entails the disadvantage that the case cannot be universally expanded; it is, for example, not possible to remove the holding parts and to exchange them for other holding parts.
Based on the patent application DE 38 37 829 C1, the invention thus relates to the object of refining a case for holding elongate objects of the type described above in such a way that it can be modularly expanded in an improved manner, that the manipulation is improved, and that the manufacturing cost is reduced.
The stated object is achieved according to the invention as characterized by the enabling disclosure of claim 1.
An essential feature of the invention lies in the fact that only the holding part close to the lid is mounted in a pivoting axis in the housing shell of the case, while the additional holding parts disposed in front of the holding part closest to the lid are connected to the respective closest holding part in such a way that they can be detached and optionally pivoted.
The enabling disclosure given leads to the substantial advantage that only the holding part closest to the lid forms a pivoting axis in the housing shell of the case, while the remaining holding parts located in front thereof no longer form an independent pivoting axis with the housing-side pivoting axis. Rather, the invention provides for the said additional holding parts attached in front of the holding part closest to the lid to be connected detachably to the respective holding part, preferably via snap-on connections.
In this way, a so-called "piggyback principle" is protected, which means that only the holding part closest to the lid has a common pivoting axis with the housing shell, while all remaining holding parts are connected to the said holding part closest to the lid in a way to be detachable and, if warranted, also pivotable.
When using two holding parts, therefore, the frontal holding part is pivotably connected and detachably to the holding part closest to the lid.
When using three holding parts, the central holding part is—as described earlier—pivotably connected and detachably to the holding part closest to the lid, while the most frontal holding part is pivotably connected and detachably to the central holding part.
The parts thus are connected to one another in the sense of the above described piggyback solution.
This results in the advantage that the holding parts are easily and universally exchangeable, since a refinement provides that the holding part closest to the lid is mounted detachably in the pivoting axis on the housing shell.
In this way, a snap-on connection is created permitting the holding part closest to the lid to be quickly taken from the housing and exchanged for another.
In this context, coincidentally, for one refinement it is preferred to have all parts (case shell, lid, holding parts, and the pertaining elements) constructed from a synthetic material. The use of synthetic materials has the substantial advantage that it becomes possible to save on separately mountable parts. Therefore, for the present exemplary embodiment it is preferred to provide that the carrier plate (bracket) linked to the upper pivotable end of the holding part closest to the lid be connected as single-material to the said holding part via a film hinge.
Equally it is preferred to have the connection between the said carrier plate and the lid designed as snap-on connection so that the holding part closest to the lid can easily be removed from the housing and exchanged by another one.
The same features are also present for the remaining piggyback holding parts disposed detachably on the frontal side of the respective subsequent holding part detachable.
A first embodiment provides that the said holding parts are snapped onto the respective preceding holding part in a way to be simply detachable and not pivotable, which results in a particularly simple snap-on connection.
One refinement of the invention, however, provides that the said holding parts be linked to the respective preceding holding part in the form of a pivotable snap-on connection so that they are linked to the respective preceding holding part in the sense of the described piggyback solution in a way to be easily detachable, though pivotable.
In this way, a modular structure of the case results, wherein all holding cases are easily exchangeable so that, depending on the particular application, it will be sufficient to dispose one holding part or a plurality of holding parts, and, depending on the particular application, a plurality of holding parts can still be added, because all holding parts hang detachably together.


In an acoustic device for custom installation in which one can listen to music in a zone which is different from a zone where an acoustic device main unit, e.g., an audio amplifier or a CD player, is located, turning on or off of loudspeakers is remote-controlled in one zone. An remote control signal from a remote-controller is received by a remote controller signal receiver in that zone and transmitted to a switch control section (microcomputer). The switch control section identifies the particular zone in which the remote control signal has been produced and switches a transmission on/off switch to turn on or off the loudspeakers in that zone. The acoustic device also includes independent signal paths, selective mixed signal supply paths which selectively combines the remote control signals provided from the plural zones and supplies the selective combined remote control signal and all mixed signal supply path which combines all the remote control signals and supplies the combined remote control signal and a remote control signal can be supplied via one these signal paths depending upon the situation of use of acoustic devices whereby some acoustic devices can be controlled only from a single zone, others can be controlled from selected zones and still others can be controlled from all zones.

This invention relates to an acoustic device for custom installation, i.e., an acoustic device enabling listeners to enjoy music in plural zones such as rooms in a house and, more particularly, to such device in which switching on and off of loudspeakers by listeners has been facilitated.
A custom installation of acoustic devices has been increasingly adopted in some countries, particularly in U.S.A., and several systems for custom installation have been developed. It is generally an aim of the custom installation to enable a listener to listen to music in all rooms of his house and, for this aim, devices such as an amplifier and a CD player which require a power supply are installed only in a main room (a guest room is generally used as the main room) and in-wall loudspeakers and operation panel or receiver unit for an infrared remote controller are installed in each of plural sub-rooms.
FIG. 2 shows the simplest form of such prior art system in which music can be enjoyed in a main room 10 and a single sub-room 12. In the main room 10, there are installed a receiver 14 (an acoustic device consisting of a combination of an audio amplifier and a tuner) adapted for use for plural rooms and loudspeakers 16 and 17. In the sub-room 12, there are installed loudspeakers 18 and 19 and an infrared receiver 20. As receiver terminals of the receiver 14, terminals of system A and terminals of system B are provided. The loudspeakers 16 and 17 of the main room 10 are connected to the loudspeaker terminals of the system A of the receiver 14 through cables 30 and 31 and the loudspeakers 18 and 19 of the sub-room 12 are connected to the loudspeaker terminals of the system B of the receiver 14 through cables 32 and 33. In the main room 10, an infrared command signal 23 from a remote controller 23 is received by an infrared receiving section 24 of the receiver 14. In the sub-room 12, an infrared command signal 28 from a remote controller 26 is received by the infrared receiver unit 20 and applied to a received signal input terminal of the receiver 14 through a cable 34.
A key for commanding switching on and off of each of the systems A and B is provided in a corresponding one of the remote controllers 22 and 26. When switching on of the system A is commanded, the loudspeakers 16 and 17 of the main room 10 are turned on whereas when switching on of the system B is commanded, the loudspeakers 18 and 19 of the sub-room 12 are turned on. When switching on of both the systems A and B is commanded, the loudspeakers 16-19 of the rooms 10 and 12 are all turned on so that one can listen to music in the respective rooms.
FIG. 3 shows another example of the prior art systems which utilizes two power amplifiers connected to two different sources. In the main room 35, two power amplifiers 36(A) and 37(B) are provided. A CD player 38 is connected to the power amplifier 36 and a tuner 40 is connected to the power amplifier 37. The outputs of the power amplifiers 36 and 37 are set to a proper constant tone volume. In the main room 35, there are also provided loudspeakers 39 and 41 and an operation panel 42. The operation panel 42 includes a changeover switch 44 for switching between the outputs of the power amplifiers 36 and 37 and an attenuator 46 for adjusting tone volume. There are first and second sub-rooms 48 and 50. In the first sub-room 48, loudspeakers 52 and 54 and an operation panel 56 are provided and in the second sub-room 50, loudspeakers 58 and 60 and an operation panel 62 are provided. The operation panels 56 and 62 are constructed in the same manner as the operation panel 42 in the main room 35. The outputs of the power amplifiers 36 and 37 are supplied commonly to the operation panels 42, 56 and 62 and from these panels to the loudspeakers 39, 41, 52, 54, 58 and 60. According to this device, by manual operation of the operation panels 42, 56 and 62, either one of the outputs of the power amplifiers 36(A) and 37(B) can be selected independently for each of the rooms 35, 48 and 50 and a listener can listen to the selected music at a selected tone volume.
FIG. 4 shows another prior art in which an infrared re-transmitter called "repeater" is employed. In a main room 64, there are provided a receiver 66, loudspeakers 68 and 70, a loudspeaker on/off switch 72, a repeater receiving section 74 and a repeater re-transmitter section 76. In a first sub-room 78, there are provided loudspeakers 80 and 82, a loudspeaker on/off switch 84 and a repeater receiving section 86. In a second sub-room 88, there are provided loudspeakers 90 and 92, a loudspeaker on-off switch 94 and a repeater receiving section 96. By operating remote controllers 98, 100 and 102 from the respective rooms, infrared signals are received by the repeater receiving sections 74, 86 and 96. The received signals are collected to the repeater re-transmitting section 76 of the main room 64 and re-transmitted therefrom. The re-transmitted infrared signal is received by the receiving section 104 of the receiver 66 whereby the receiver 66 can be operated from the respective rooms 64, 78 and 88.
In the system of FIG. 2, turning on and off of the loudspeakers for each of the rooms 10 and 12 can be made by a remote control operation in each room 10 or 12. Since, however, this switching operation must be made for each channel, a listener must know which channel is assigned to his room. If he erroneously makes an operation of a wrong channel, loudspeakers of a wrong room will be turned on or off. Probability of such erroneous operation is particularly high in a case where there are acoustic devices located in many rooms (i.e., channels). Moreover, in this system, operation keys of respective channels must be provided on each remote controller so that each remote controller must have a large number of keys.
In the system of FIG. 3, turning on and off of the loudspeakers of the respective rooms 35, 48 and 50 must be made by a manual operation of the attenuator 46 in the operation panels 42, 56 and 62 provided in the respective rooms. This is inconvenient because switching of these loudspeakers by a remote controller cannot be made.
In the system of FIG. 4, as in the system of FIG. 3, turning on and off of the loudspeakers in the rooms 64, 78 and 88 must be made by a manual operation of the loudspeaker on/off switches 72, 84 and 94 provided in the respective rooms 64, 78 and 88. This is also inconvenient because switching by a remote controller cannot be made.
It is, therefore, a first object of the invention to provide an acoustic system capable of enabling a listener to enjoy music in plural rooms which has overcome the above described disadvantages of the prior art systems by enabling a listener to turn on and off loudspeakers of his room accurately by a very simple operation of a remote controller.
FIG. 8 shows another example of prior art acoustic devices for custom installation. The system of FIG. 8 is one applied to a house having a main room 310 and four sub-rooms 311-314. In the main room 310, there are provided, as an acoustic device main unit 16, a receiver 318 (a combination of a tuner and an amplifier), an automatic changer type CD player 320, a cassette tape recorder 322, a video tape recorder 324 and, if necessary, power amplifiers 326 and 328. There are also provided loudspeakers 330 and 332 and an infrared receiving unit 334. An acoustic signal from the acoustic device main unit 316 is supplied from an acoustic signal line 350 to the loudspeakers 330 and 332 through the infrared receiving unit 334. The infrared receiving unit 334 includes a photo-diode and receives an infrared command signal 338 (a signal for performing various operations in the acoustic device main unit 316) from an infrared transmitter 336 (remote controller) and transmits it through a command signal line 340. In the infrared receiving unit 334, there is provided a loudspeaker relay so as to turn on and off the loudspeakers in the main room 310 by the system on/off command from the infrared transmitter 336.
In the first through fourth sub-rooms 311-314, there are provided loudspeakers 330 and 332 and infrared receiving units 334 and an acoustic signal from the acoustic device main unit 316 is supplied through acoustic signal lines 351-354. A command signal from the infrared transmitter 336 received by the infrared receiving units 334 in the respective sub-rooms 311-314 is transmitted to the main room 310 through command signal lines 351-354.
A command signal input/output unit 356 is provided in the main room 310. This unit 356 receives command signals from the rooms 310-314 transmitted through the command signal lines 340-344, combines all of these command signals and outputs a combined signal. This combined signal is supplied to re-transmitting LEDs 361-364 through a command signal line 360 for re-transmission. The re-transmitted signal is received by respective infrared receiving sections of the acoustic devices 318, 320, 322 and 324 for execution of the command.
According to the system of FIG. 8, the acoustic device main unit 316 can be controlled freely from the rooms 310-314 by using the infrared transmitter 336 but it is not possible in this system to simultaneously listen to different sources in different rooms.
As a system which has improved this problem and is enabling listeners to simultaneously listen to different sources in different rooms, there is a prior art system shown in FIG. 9. In this system, receivers 318-0 to 318-4 are provided in an acoustic device main unit 316, each receiver being used exclusively for a corresponding one of plural rooms. Received signals (command signals) from the respective rooms are supplied independently to re-transmission LEDs 361-0 to 361-4 for re-transmission and the re-transmitted signal is received by the exclusive receivers 318-0 to 318-4 for an individual control. A command signal input/output unit 356 combines command signals from the respective rooms by means of an adder 366 and supplies a combined output to the re-transmitting LEDs 362-364 through a command signal line 368 for re-transmission. The re-transmitted signals are received by source devices 320, 322 and 324 whereby these source devices are controlled from the respective rooms. For preventing receiving of a re-transmitted infrared command signal by an acoustic device other than an object device, the re-transmission LEDs 361-0 to 361-4 and 362 to 364 are attached directly on the receiving sections of the respective acoustic devices.
According to the system of FIG. 9 in which an exclusive receiver is provided for each room, listeners can simultaneously listen to different sources in different rooms, for example, a CD player 362 in the main room 310, a cassette tape recorder 363 in the first sub-room 311 and a video tape recorder 364 in the second sub-room 312.
In the system of FIG. 9, listeners can simultaneously listen to different sources in different rooms but they cannot simultaneously listen to the same kind of source in different rooms, e.g., simultaneously listen to different Compact Discs. If two CD players are provided, it is of course possible to simultaneously listen to different Compact Discs in two different rooms but, even in this case, there sometimes arises inconvenience. Let it be assumed that there is provided a CD player for exclusive use of parents in addition to a CD player which can be used commonly by all members of a family including two children. Since each source device can be controlled commonly from each room, there arises a case in which the two children use the two CD players simultaneously and the parents cannot use their own CD player.
Aside from this problem, there is a demand for an arrangement according to which a particular device can be controlled from a particular room only (e.g., the video tape recorder can be controlled only from the main room and the parents' room). In the system of FIG. 9, however, the source devices 320, 322 and 324 can be controlled commonly from all rooms and, accordingly, it is not possible to satisfy such demand.
It is, therefore, a second object of the invention to provide an acoustic device capable of limiting a controllable zone depending upon the situation of use of the respective acoustic devices whereby the acoustic device can be more conveniently used.


A liquid droplet ejecting head includes a vibrating plate on which a first terminal group having first and second terminals and a second terminal group having third and fourth terminals are formed, a reservoir forming substrate which has a first wiring forming portion having first and second inclined surfaces and a second wiring forming portion having third and fourth inclined surfaces, a first wiring which is formed on the first inclined surface and is electrically connected to the first terminal, a second wiring which is formed on the second inclined surface and is electrically connected to the second terminal, a third wiring which is formed on the third inclined surface and is electrically connected to the third terminal, and a fourth wiring which is formed on the fourth inclined surface and is electrically connected to the fourth terminal.

A liquid droplet ejecting apparatus which includes a liquid droplet ejecting head ejecting liquid droplets is used for, for example, image formation or manufacturing of wiring of a micro device.
For example, a piezoelectric driving liquid droplet ejecting head includes a reservoir which stores ink, a plurality of pressure generation chambers which communicate with the reservoir, a plurality of nozzles which respectively communicate with the plurality of pressure generation chambers, a plurality of piezoelectric elements which respectively change pressure in the plurality of pressure generation chambers, and a driver IC which drives the plurality of piezoelectric elements.
In this liquid droplet ejecting head, in general, as disclosed in JP-A-2006-281763, the piezoelectric elements and a reservoir forming substrate (wiring substrate) on which the reservoir is formed are bonded to one surface of a flow channel forming substrate (base substrate) on which the pressure generation chambers are formed. The driver IC is bonded to the surface of the reservoir forming substrate opposite to the flow channel forming substrate and electrically connected to the piezoelectric elements through wirings provided on the reservoir forming substrate.
A step occurs between the driver IC and the piezoelectric elements due to the thickness of the reservoir forming substrate, and it is necessary to electrically connect the driver IC and the piezoelectric elements through this step. Accordingly, in the liquid droplet ejecting head described in JP-A-2006-281763, the lateral surface of the reservoir forming substrate is an inclined surface, and wirings which electrically connect the driver IC and the piezoelectric elements are formed on the inclined surface.

Wiring structure, method of manufacturing wiring structure, liquid droplet ejecting head, and liquid droplet ejecting apparatus


Pharmaceutical compositions for continuous release of a physiologically active substance in which the physiologically active substance comprises a polypeptide covalently conjugated to a water soluble polymer show particularly desirable release characteristics. Polypeptides for use in the pharmaceutical compositions include G-CSF and solution stable derivatives thereof, human calcitonin and interleukin-2. The material of the composition may be a polylactide or biodegradable hydrogel derived from an amphipathic block copolymer.. The compositions enable a therapeutically effective polypeptide to be continuously released over a prolonged period of time following a single administration of the pharmaceutical composition to a patient.

It has long been appreciated that the continuous release of certain drugs over an extended period following a single administration could have significant practical advantages in clinical practice, and compositions have already been developed to provide extended release of a number of clinically useful drugs, after oral dosing (see, for example Remington's Pharmaceutical Sciences, published by Mack Publishing Company, Easton, Pennsylvania, USA, 15th Edition, 1975, pages 1618-1631), after parenteral administration (ibidem, pages 1631-1643),and after topical administration (see, for example, United Kingdom Patent Number 1,351,409). A suitable method of parenteral administration is the sub-dermal injection or implantation of a solid body, for example a pellet or a film, containing the drug, and a variety of such implantable devices has been described. In particular, it is known that, for many drugs, suitable implantable devices or injectable microparticle suspensions for providing extended drug release may be obtained by encapsulating the drug in a biodegradable polymer, or by dispersing the drug in a matrix of such a polymer, so that the drug is released as the degradation of the polymer matrix proceeds.
Suitable biodegradable polymers for use in sustained release formulations are well known, and include polyesters, which gradually become degraded by hydrolysis when placed in an aqueous, physiological-type environment. Particular polyesters which have been used are those derived from hydroxycarboxylic acids, and much prior art has been directed to polymers derived from alpha hydroxycarboxylic acids, especially lactic acid in both its racemic and optically active forms, and glycolic acid, and copolymers thereof-see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,773,919 and 3,887,699; Jackanicz et al., Contraception, 1973, 8, 227-234; Anderson et al., ibidem, 1976, 11, 375-384; Wise et al., Life Sciences, 1976, 19, 867-874; Woodland et al., Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 1973, 16, 897-901; Yolles et al., Bulletin of the Parenteral Drug Association, 1976, 30, 306-312; Wise et al., Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, 1978, 30, 686-689 and 1979, 31, 201-204.
It is to be appreciated that "sustained" or "extended" release of a drug may be either continuous or discontinuous. For example, the release of a polypeptide from a polylactide polymer as described in UK Patent Specification No. 1,325,209 is often preceded by a significant induction period, during which no polypeptide is released, or is biphasic, and comprises an initial period during which some polypeptide is released, a second period during which little or no polypeptide is released, and a third period during which most of the remainder of the polypeptide is released. By contrast, it is an object of the present invention to provide compositions of polypeptides from which, apart possibly from a relatively short initial induction period, the polypeptide is released continuously, with no periods during which little or no polypeptide is released. The words "continuous release" are used in this specification solely to describe a release profile which is essentially monophasic, although it may have a point of inflection, but certainly has no "plateau" phase when cumulative release of drug is plotted as a function of time.
In our European Patent No. 58,481 we describe continuous release pharmaceutical compositions which enable essentially monophasic release of acid stable polypeptides to be obtained. These compositions, in general, comprise a polylactide, which is a polymer of lactic acid alone, a copolymer of lactic and glycolic acids, a mixture of such polymers, a mixture of such copolymers or a mixture of such polymers and copolymers, and an acid-stable (as hereinafter defined) polypeptide, which is not significantly hydrolysed under the conditions encountered within the composition during the period of use envisaged, which composition, when placed in an aqueous physiological-type environment (as hereinafter defined), releases the polypeptide into the aqueous physiological-type environment in continuous manner, giving a release profile which is essentially monophasic, although it may have a point of inflection, but certainly has no "plateau" phase, over a period of at least one week.
As stated above European Patent Publication No 58,481 relates to formulations of polypeptides which are stable under the conditions encountered within the claimed formulation. Certain polypeptides, however, such as native [Met.sup.-1 ] human G-CSF are inherently unstable under such conditions, suffering from a range of instability problems including inter alia the tendency to aggregate. The present invention is based on the discovery that conjugation with a water soluble polymer may overcome or at least ameliorate problems of instability present in certain polypeptides that would not otherwise be stable under the conditions encountered within the depot and would therefore not release adequately. The present invention is also based on the discovery that the use of a physiologically active substance in which a physiologically active polypeptide is covalently conjugated to a water soluble polymer, improves release profile over the corresponding unconjugated polypeptide in continuous release pharmaceutical compositions.
Recently Hora M. S. et.al have published in Proceed. Intern Symp. Control. Rel. Bioact. Mater. 16, (1989) No 268 on pages 509-510 the development of a controlled release microsphere formulation of interleukin-2. Hora M. S. et al demonstrate that a triphasic release pattern is obtained when pegylated interleukin-2 (IL-)2 covalently conjugated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) and referred to hereinafter as PEG IL-2) in the presence of foetal calf serum is released from poly (DL-lactide-co-glycolide) microspheres and further that a 5- to 15- day long lag or induction period is encountered. Hora M. S. et al seek to overcome the identified problems by attempting to improve the wetting and resolubilisation of the PEG IL-2 by the use of human serum albumin (HSA). This attempt introduces a further problem, that is the presence of solubilising protein. The presence of such protein in a pharmaceutical formulation is disadvantageous, inter alia because it enhances the risk of adverse side reaction and impedes analytical accuracy.
Furthermore the Hora M. S. et al publication referred to above fails to define either the solubility characteristics of the poly (Dl-lactide-co-glycolide)polymer (specifically whether the polymer is soluble or insoluble in benzene) or the polydispersity (as hereinafter defined). In the absence of these facts and in the absence of the method of preparation the work could not be repeated and the publication is thus not enabling. It is further noted that the publication additionally fails to define the molecular weight of the polyethylene glycol (PEG) or the level of pegylation, both of which factors are necessary if the published work is to be repeated.
In view of the poor continuous release results obtained by Hora M. S. et al with pegylated IL-2 it is particularly surprising that in accordance with the present invention such a good release profile should be obtainable by the use of physiologically active polypeptides covalently conjugated to a water soluble polymer.

Continuous release pharmaceutical compositions


An electrostatic drive type MEMS device and a manufacturing method thereof are provided, in which flattening the surface of a driving side electrode, improving performance, and furthering the improvements of the degree of freedom of designing in the manufacturing process are implemented. In addition, a GLV device using this MEMS device is provided, and further a laser display using this GLV device is also provided. The electrostatic drive type MEMS device includes a substrate side electrode and a beam having a driving side electrode driven by electrostatic attraction force or electrostatic repulsion force that acts between the substrate side electrode and driving side electrode, in which the substrate side electrode is formed of an impurities-doped conductive semiconductor region in a semiconductor substrate.

With the advances in microscopic manufacturing technology, much attention has been focused on so-called micro-machine (MEMS: Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, ultra-miniature electric, mechanical compound) devices and miniature devices in which MEMS devices are incorporated.
A MEMS device is a device that is formed on a substrate such as a silicon substrate, glass substrate or the like as a microscopic structure, and electrically and further, mechanically unites a driving body outputting mechanical driving force with a semiconductor integrated circuit or the like that controls the mechanical body. A basic feature of the MEMS device is that a mechanically structured driving body is incorporated in a part of the device, and the driving body is electrically driven by the use of coulombic attraction force between electrodes or the like.
FIGS. 13 and 14 show a typical composition of an optical MEMS device that is applied to an optical switch and a light modulation device by taking advantage of the reflection or diffraction of light.
An optical MEMS device 1 shown in FIG. 13 includes a substrate 2, a substrate side electrode 3 formed on the substrate 2, a beam 6 having a driving side electrode 4 that is disposed in parallel to oppose the substrate side electrode 3, and a support part 7 for supporting one end of the beam 6. The beam 6 and substrate side electrode 3 are electrically insulated by a void 8 therebetween.
A required substrate such as a substrate with an insulation film formed on a semiconductor substrate of, for example, silicon (Si), gallium arsenic (GaAs) and the like, or an insulative substrate such as a glass substrate is used for the substrate 2. The substrate side electrode 3 is formed of a polycrystalline silicon film by doping impurities therein, metal film (Cr deposited film, for example), and the like. The beam 6 is composed of, for example, an insulation film 5 such as silicon nitride film (SiN film) or the like and the driving side electrode 4 serving as a reflective film consisting of, for example, Al film of 100 nm or so in thickness. The beam 6 is formed in a so-called cantilever fashion with its one end supported by the support part 7.
In the optical MEMS device 1, the beam 6 displaces itself in response to electrostatic attraction force or electrostatic repulsion force generated between the substrate side electrode 3 and driving side electrode 4 by an electric potential that is applied to the substrate side electrode 3 and driving side electrode 4, and as shown by a solid line as well as a broken line in FIG. 13, for example, the beam 6 displaces itself into a parallel state or inclined state relative to the substrate side electrode 3.
An optical MEMS device 11 shown in FIG. 14 is composed of a substrate 12, a substrate side electrode 13 formed on the substrate 12 and a beam 14 that straddles the substrate side electrode 13 in a bridge-like fashion. The beam 14 and substrate side electrode 13 are insulated by a void 10 therebetween.
The beam 14 is composed of a bridge member 15 of, for example, a SiN film that rises up from the substrate 12 and straddles a substrate side electrode 13 in a bridge-like fashion and a driving side electrode 16 of, for example, an Al film of 100 nm or so in thickness that, serving as a reflective film, is provided on the bridge member 15 to oppose the substrate side electrode 13 in parallel to each other. The substrate 12, substrate side electrode 13, beam 14 and the like may employ similar compositions and materials to those explained in FIG. 13. The beam 14 is formed in a so-called bridge-like fashion in which the both ends thereof are supported.
In the optical MEMS device 11, the beam 14 displaces itself in response to electrostatic attraction force or electrostatic repulsion force generated between the substrate side electrode 13 and driving side electrode 16 by an electric potential that is applied to the substrate side electrode 13 and driving side electrode 16, and as shown by a solid line and a broken line as well in FIG. 14, for example, the beam 14 displaces itself into a parallel state or fallen state relative to the substrate side electrode 13.
With these optical MEMS devices 1, 11, light is irradiated on the surfaces of the driving side electrodes 4, 16 serving as a light reflective film, and by taking advantage of differences in the direction of reflected light depending upon positions into which the beams 6, 14 are driven, these MEMS devices can be applied to an optical switch having a switch function by detecting the reflected light of one direction.
Further, the optical MEMS devices 1, 11 are applicable as a light modulation device for modulating the strength of light. When light reflection is taken advantage of, the strength of light is modulated by vibrating the beams 6, 14 according to the amount of reflected light in one direction per unit time. This light modulation device runs on a so-called time modulation.
When light diffraction is taken advantage of, a light modulation device is composed of a plurality of beams 6, 14 disposed in parallel relative to the common substrate side electrodes 3, 13, and by varying the height of, for example, driving side electrodes serving as a light reflective film with the movements of every other beam 6, 14 such as moving closer to or moving away from the common substrate side electrodes 3, 13, the strength of reflected light from the driving side electrodes is modulated by means of light diffraction. This light modulation device runs on a so-called space modulation.
FIG. 15, consisting of FIGS. 15A and 15B, shows a composition of the GLV (Grating Light Valve) device developed by SLM (Silicon Light Machines) as a light strength modulation device for a laser display, that is, a light modulator.
In a GLV device 21, as shown in FIG. 15A, a common substrate side electrode 23 of a refractory metal, for example, tungsten or titanium film or a nitride film thereof, or of a poly-silicon thin film is formed on an insulation substrate 22 such as a glass substrate or the like, and a plurality of beams 24, in this example, six beams [241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246] straddling across the substrate side electrode 23 in a bridge-like fashion are disposed in parallel. The compositions of the substrate side electrode 23 and beams 24 are the same as those explained in FIG. 14. Namely, as shown in FIG. 15B, a reflective film cum driving side electrode 26 of an Al film of 100 nm or so in thickness is formed on the surface, which is in parallel to the substrate side electrode 23, of a bridge member 25 of a SiN film, for example.
The beam 24 composed of the bridge member 25 and reflective film cum driving side electrode 26 provided thereon is a portion conventionally called a ribbon.
The aluminum film (Al film) used as the reflective film cum driving side electrode 26 is a suitable metal as the material for optical components because of the following reasons: (1) it is a metal that can be comparatively easily formed into a film; (2) the dispersion of reflectance with respect to wavelengths in a visible light range is small; (3) alumina natural oxidation film generated on the surface of the Al film functions as a protective film to protect a reflective surface.
Further, the SiN film (silicon nitride film) composing the bridge member 25 is formed by the use of the low-pressure CVD method, and the SiN film is selected by reason of the physical values of its strength, elasticity constant, and the like being suitable for mechanically driving the bridge member 25.
When a voltage is applied between the substrate side electrode 23 and reflective film cum driving side electrode 26, the above-mentioned beam 24 moves closer to the substrate side electrode 23 according to the above-mentioned electrostatic phenomenon, and when the application of the voltage is stopped, the beam 24 moves away from the substrate side electrode 23 and returns to an original position.
The GLV device 21 alternately varies the height of the reflective film cum driving side electrode 26 with the movements of the plurality of beams 24 such as moving closer to or moving away from the substrate side electrode 23 (that is, those movements of every other beams), and modulates the strength of light reflected on the driving side electrode 26 by means of the diffraction of light (one beam spot is irradiated on the whole of six beams 24).
Mechanical characteristics of the beam driven by taking advantage of electrostatic attraction force and electrostatic repulsion force are almost predicated on the physical properties of the SiN film formed by the use of the CVD method or the like, with an Al film mainly functioning as a mirror.
By the way, as described above, the substrate side electrode in the MEMS device is formed on an insulation layer of a semiconductor substrate made of silicon, GaAs, or the like, or an insulative substrate such as a glass substrate or the like. As for materials of the electrode, a polycrystalline silicon film or metal film, in which impurities are doped, is used. However, since these materials have a crystalline structure, unevenness occurs on the surface thereof. For example, in the case of a polycrystalline silicon electrode, according to an analysis by AFM (an atomic force microscope), controlling the relative roughness RMS (root mean square) value of a surface can be achieved by strictly carrying out temperature control in the manufacturing process, and it is a well known fact that a surface relative roughness of 20 nm or more easily occurs after the implementation of a conventional film forming process and a semiconductor manufacturing process that have been practiced so far. The degree of the roughness depends on materials and film forming methods as well.
This surface unevenness does not pose a serious problem in terms of the electric characteristics as well as the operating characteristics of the MEMS device, but it often has become problematic in the manufacturing process of an optical MEMS device. Namely, the substrate side electrode of the above-mentioned MEMS device is usually positioned under the reflective film cum driving side electrode. In this case, surface unevenness of a lower layer film becomes sequentially transcribed to an upper layer film in the manufacturing process, thereby resulting in the forming of a driving side electrode with piled-up transcribed surface unevenness, that is, the forming of a reflective film therewith on the uppermost layer that is an optically important film surface.
For example, the MEMS device 1 mentioned above in FIG. 13 is manufactured in such a manner that the substrate side electrode 3 is formed on a substrate, and after forming the support part 7, a sacrificial layer (not shown) to form a void is provided on a surface including the substrate side electrode 3, and further, a beam is formed on the sacrificial layer, followed by forming a void 8 between the substrate side electrode 3 and the beam 6 by removing the sacrificial layer. Silicon (polycrystalline silicon, non-crystalline silicon, or the like) or a silicon oxide film is used for the sacrificial layer. When the sacrificial layer is made of silicon, it can be removed by, for example, a mixture of nitric acid and fluoric acid, or gas etching employing a gas containing fluorine (F), and when the sacrificial layer is made of an oxidized layer, it is conventionally removed by an oxygen fluoride solution, or by etching employing fluorinated carbon gas.
That is, with the optical MEMS device that is manufactured to be composed of three layers of: a substrate side electrode (a), a void forming a sacrificial layer (b), and a reflective film cum driving side electrode (c), assuming that the maximum values of surface unevenness that are observed in each of the respective layers are Rmax (a), Rmax (b), Rmax (c), there is a possibility that when the three layers are laminated, the amount of surface unevenness on the surface of the uppermost layer adds up to the sum of these maximum values.
Expressing the performance of optical components, in the MEMS device, in which aluminum (Al) is made to serve as a reflective film, 92% of reflectance of the Al film may possibly be obtained if the film is a bulk Al film. However, if there is no control on the amount of this surface unevenness, the reflectance will deteriorate by more than several percentage points, so that only 85% or so thereof can barely be obtained. In an extreme case, it is observed that the surface appears to be clouded up. Such an optical MEMS device becomes a problem when its performance as a optical device is concerned.
Further, there remains a problem concerning design. While a MEMS transducer, that is, the resonant frequency of a beam is designed by taking account of the mass of resonance, the tensile force of films in respective regions that support the driving part, and the like, in the present circumstances the values of physicality of the respective films are conventionally computed and designed by using the values of physicality where films are in an ideal thin state. However, when a RMS value is 20 nm, for example, and the thickness of a film for use becomes smaller in comparison therewith, it becomes impossible to disregard a swell from the standpoint of a film structure, thereby necessitating a redesign for a MEMS device, including a mechanical modification of the swell structure thereof, which is extremely difficult to achieve by means of tools for design that are available in the circumstances, when computing time and the accuracy of the tools are taken into account.
As shown in FIG. 16, when the substrate side electrode is formed of, for example, polycrystalline silicon, surface unevenness is expanded and transcribed onto the surface of the driving side electrode (Al film) 4 that constitutes the beam (Al/SiN laminated layer) 6, resulting in the deterioration of the light reflectance of the driving side electrode 4 functioning as a mirror.
Meanwhile, the MEMS device has a packaging process, as shown in FIGS. 17A and 17B, for the purpose of protecting the beam serving as an operating part. In this packaging process, a columnar support part 18 is formed with, for example, an oxidized silicon layer on the substrate 2, and a transparent substrate, for example, a glass substrate 9 is joined onto the columnar support part 18. Since a power supplying wiring 10 for driving the MEMS device 1 is formed at the same time as the substrate 3 is formed, a part of the columnar support part 18 takes the form of creeping over the wiring 10, so that stepped differences occur on the surface of the part of columnar support part 18 due to the wiring 10. Consequently, the glass substrate 9 of a package member is unable to be placed in close contact with the overall surface of the columnar support part 18, and surface unevenness is transcribed to a surface 18a of the columnar support part, which becomes an obstacle when the surface 18a of the columnar support part 18 is joined with the glass substrate 9 by means of, for example, the anode bonding method.

Electrostatic drive type MEMS device and manufacturing method thereof, optical MEMS device, light modulation device, GLV device, and laser display


Systems and methods for providing protection from failure events in a digital audio amplification system. One embodiment of the invention comprises a system having a digital amplifier controller, an amplifier output stage coupled to the controller and configured to receive audio signals from the controller, one or more sensors coupled to the output stage and one or more low-pass filters coupled to receive sensor signals from the one or more sensors. The low-pass filter is configured to filter the sensor signals and to provide the filtered sensor signals to the controller, which provides a programmable response to the filtered sensor signals. The response may range from not taking any action, to limiting the amplification of audio signals, to shutting down the system.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to audio amplification systems, and more particularly to systems and methods for detecting a variety of potential failure conditions in a digital amplification system and providing a programmable response to the detected failure conditions.
2. Related Art
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) or Class D signal amplification technology has existed for a number of years. PWM technology has become more popular with the proliferation of Switched Mode Power Supplies (SMPS). Since this technology emerged, there has been an increased interest in applying PWM techniques in signal amplification applications as a result of the significant efficiency improvement that can be realized through the use of Class D power output topology instead of the legacy (linear Class AB) power output topology.
Early attempts to develop signal amplification applications utilized the same approach to amplification that was being used in the early SMPS. More particularly, these attempts utilized analog modulation schemes that resulted in very low performance applications. These applications were very complex and costly to implement. Consequently, these solutions were not widely accepted. Prior art analog implementations of Class D technology have therefore been unable to displace legacy Class AB amplifiers in mainstream amplifier applications.
Recently, digital PWM modulation schemes have surfaced. These schemes use Sigma-Delta modulation techniques to generate the PWM signals used in the newer digital Class D implementations. These digital PWM schemes, however, did little to offset the major barriers to integration of PWM modulators into the total amplifier solution. Class D technology has therefore continued to be unable to displace legacy Class AB amplifiers in mainstream applications.
One of the problems is that prior art means for protecting the PWM amplifier circuitry are not very efficient or effective. Because PWM amplifiers handle high currents and voltages, there is a danger that the amplifiers may fail in a catastrophic manner. For example, the amplifiers may be driven until they overheat and burn up their circuitry.
Existing protection schemes make use of traditional analog-based circuits. These circuits have a number of shortcomings. For instance, prior art protection circuits conventionally have to be characterized and adjusted in a laboratory environment. Once the design of a protection circuit is finalized, it is not possible to adjust the circuit in a particular amplifier. As a result of manufacturing tolerances, the actual operation of the circuit can vary significantly from one amplifier to another. The RC circuits that provide the time constant mechanisms in the design are particularly vulnerable to manufacturing tolerances. The circuit may therefore operate as intended in one device, while initiating a response to a failure condition either too quickly or too slowly in another device.
Another of the shortcomings of conventional protection circuits is that the response to a particular failure condition is fixed. Typically, the response will simply be to shut down the amplifier upon detecting the failure condition. While this response may be appropriate for a condition such as excessive current in the amplifier (which could destroy the amplifier's circuitry), it may not be appropriate for a condition such as a temperature that is slightly elevated, but that would not cause immediate damage to the system.
Still another of the shortcomings of conventional protection schemes is that they typically require a separate circuit to handle each of the potential failure conditions. The need for separate circuitry increases the complexity of the overall system design and consequently increases the likelihood of related problems, such as component failures, power consumption, heat build up, and the like.
It would be desirable to provide a protection schemes for a digital PWM amplification system that did not suffer from these shortcomings.

Systems and methods for protection of audio amplifier circuits


The present invention relates to a liquid crystal aligning agent composition for forming a liquid crystal alignment film exhibiting excellent alignment and electrical characteristics and simultaneously having excellent film strength, a method for preparing a liquid crystal alignment film using the same, and a liquid crystal alignment film and a liquid crystal display device using the same.

In a liquid crystal display device, a liquid crystal alignment film plays a role of aligning liquid crystals in a certain direction. Specifically, a liquid crystal alignment film serves as a director in the arrangement of liquid crystal molecules, and thus, when the liquid crystals are moved due to an electric field to form an image, it helps them to orient in an appropriate direction. Further, in order to obtain uniform brightness and a high contrast ratio in a liquid crystal display device, it is essential to uniformly align the liquid crystals.
As one of the conventional methods for aligning a liquid crystal, a rubbing method of coating a polymer film such as a polyimide onto a substrate such as glass and rubbing the surface thereof in a predetermined direction using fibers such as nylon or polyester has been used. However, the rubbing method may cause serious problems during manufacture of a liquid crystal panel because fine dust or electrostatic discharge (ESD) may occur when the fiber and polymer film are rubbed.
In order to solve the problems of the rubbing method, a photo-alignment method of inducing anisotropy of polymer films by light irradiation rather than the rubbing, and aligning liquid crystals using the anisotropy, has been studied recently.
As materials that can be used for the photo-alignment method, various materials have been introduced, among which a polyimide is mainly used for various superior performances of liquid crystal alignment films. However, the polyimide is poor in solubility in a solvent, so it is difficult to apply it directly to a manufacturing process of forming an alignment film by coating in a solution state.
Accordingly, after coating in the form of a precursor such as a polyamic acid or a polyamic acid ester having excellent solubility, a heat treatment process is performed at a temperature of 200° C. to 230° C. to form a polyimide, which is then irradiated with light to perform an alignment treatment.
However, due to a larger size of a panel, a column space (CS)-sweeping phenomenon occurs in the manufacturing process, and haze is generated on the surface of the liquid crystal alignment film, which causes a galaxy problem. Thus, there was a limitation in that the performance of the panel cannot be sufficiently realized.
Therefore, there is a need to develop a liquid crystal aligning agent composition for preparing a liquid crystal alignment film having high film strength required in display fields.

Liquid crystal aligning agent composition, method for preparing liquid crystal alignment film using same, and liquid crystal alignment film using same


A system comprises a memory storage configured to store at least a portion of a frame of a video and a hardware motion estimation search processing unit configured to perform at least a portion of a motion estimation search for the video for a plurality of different block sizes. The hardware motion estimation search processing unit is configured to perform the motion estimation search using a plurality of source sub-blocks of a first block size to determine a first type of comparison evaluation values for the first block size. A combination of values included in the first type of comparison evaluation values is utilized to determine at least one second type of comparison evaluation values for a second block size, wherein the second block size is larger than the first block size.

Video encoding involves expensive and resource intensive operations. In particular, one significantly challenging step in video encoding is motion estimation. Comparing source data to reference data to determine motion vectors can require considerable data bandwidth and processor computation, among other requirements. Moreover, as the target audience of the video increases, the number of supported video formats significantly increases.

Unified search window to support multiple video encoding standards


A tire includes an annular decoration printing portion, at least a portion thereof being provided on an outer surface of a side portion further toward a tire radial direction outer side than a tire maximum width position. The decoration printing portion includes an annular design portion and an annular gradation portion provided at least on the tire radial direction outer side of the design portion. The gradation portion incrementally decreases in value outward in the tire radial direction, with a value of 100% being a pure color and a value of 0% being pure black in an HSV color space.

Techniques are known for displaying marks on the outer surface of a side portion that includes a sidewall and a bead portion. The marks are composed of characters, graphics, symbols including barcodes, or the like that indicate a company or brand name, tire size, time of manufacture, or other information. With these techniques, all of the marks have typically been formed by a raised/recessed surface including at least one of a protrusion, a depression, or a ridge.
When marks are thus formed by a raised/recessed surface of the outer surface of the tire side portion, air resistance increases when the tire is rotated with load applied thereon, causing the undeniable problem of a decrease in fuel economy when the vehicle is driven at high speed. Furthermore, the marks are the same color as the ground color of the tire, causing the problem of poor visibility of the marks.
Therefore, a technique has been proposed to print marks on the outer surface of the tire side portion using a printing device such as that disclosed in Patent Literature 1.
In this printing device, a plurality of fixed position upper press rolls, disposed in the circumferential direction of the tire side portion at equivalent angular intervals, press an area between the outside diameter and the printing surface of the tire side portion, and with the tire printing surface being flattened indirectly due to the upper press roles, ink is sprayed from inkjet printer heads while rotating the tire. This printing device can thus print marks of a desired color on the outer surface of the tire side portion. Note that when using this device, it is possible to form not only marks but also decoration by printing on the tire side portion.


A process to substantially reduce fluid loss in which an appropriate amount of a non-flowing gel of sufficient strength is emplaced to substantially eliminate or reduce loss of the drilling fluid. The gel composition of the process includes: (1) a non-cellulose containing copolymer having vinyl phosphonate co-monomer units which may be incorporated into the polymer by copolymerization with the other co-monomer(s) comprising the polymer or by grafting upon an already existing polymer or co-polymer, (2) a crosslinking agent active upon the phosphonate groups, (3) a crosslinking initiator comprising a Bronsted Lowry base or Lewis base and (4) an aqueous solvent.

A drilling fluid is circulated from an earthen surface down through a drilled out wellbore to a drilling face and back to the surface when drilling into a subterranean formation in pursuit of economically recoverable hydrocarbons. Drilling fluids are specifically designed to perform a number of functions, including cooling and lubricating the drill bit, removing drill cuttings from the wellbore, supporting a part of the weight of the drill pipe and drill bit, providing a hydrostatic head to maintain the integrity of the wellbore walls and control the well, preventing significant flow of fluids across the wellbore face into the wellbore and vice versa, and minimizing or eliminating damage to the reservoir.
A common problem encountered during drilling operations is "lost circulation", which is the excessive flow of drilling fluids out of the wellbore. The drilling fluids are either lost to the formation matrix or to voids in direct communication with the wellbore. Lost circulation is undesirable from an economic standpoint because it requires one to continually replenish the wellbore with costly drilling fluid. Lost circulation is also undesirable from an operational and safety standpoint because it can destabilize permeable formations and damage the pay zone, and in extreme cases it can result in a blowout of the hydrocarbon zone followed by a well fire.
After drilling, the well construction operations move into a "completion" phase wherein the drilling fluid may continue to be used in the well or it may be displaced and a completion fluid or completion brine emplaced to take over some of the roles of the drilling fluid, especially well control, while enabling other functions for which the drilling fluid may not be ideally suited. The well control aspect described above, of course, must be addressed continuously to avoid destabilizing permeable formations, damaging the pay zone, and leading in extreme cases to a blowout of the hydrocarbon zone followed by a well fire. During completion operations, the need to avoid losses of fluid during circulation continues, but it also broadens to include the need to avoid excessive fluid loss during periods in which fluids are no longer circulated. The term used to cover this broadened functionality is "fluid loss control" but it should be emphasized that fluid loss control and lost circulation control are very similar technologies. Therefore, the teachings in accordance with the present invention can be utilized in fluid loss control during completions in much the same fashion and using much the same materials as in lost circulation during drilling.
Drilling fluids are typically formulated to contain one or more viscosifiers, such as polymeric additives, which, among other things, can help to control lost circulation. Often specific substances are administered—either as additional components of the drilling fluid or as distinct fluids—to inhibit the flow of drilling fluids from the wellbore into the formation; these are termed "lost circulation materials" or "lost circulation treatments".
Unfortunately many lost circulation treatments known in the art are unsatisfactory because of operational limitations restricting their utility. For example, some lost circulation treatments are ineffective in the presence of high salt concentration brines. Others undergo thermal degradation when subjected to high operational temperatures. The most significant shortcoming of conventional lost circulation treatments is their inability to effectively control lost circulation encountered when drilling through voids occurring in the formation.
Thus, a need exists for a lost circulation treatment using a material that effectively prevents or reduces lost circulation of drilling fluids, particularly in cases where conventional lost circulation materials are ineffective. Further, a need exists for a lost circulation treatment which has sufficient strength and integrity to minimize lost circulation into voids in direct communication with the wellbore, such as fractures, fracture networks, vugs, washouts, cavities, and the like.

Prevention and treatment of lost circulation with crosslinked polymer material


An implantable cardiac device returns activations of corresponding right and left chambers of a heart to inter-chamber synchrony. A sensing circuit senses intracardiac signals representing right and left chamber ventricular electrical activity. A detector determines if a predetermined characteristic of the electrogram signals indicates dissociation of the corresponding right and left chambers. If dissociation is indicated, a pulse generator stimulates at least one of the corresponding chambers to restore inter-chamber synchrony.

A dysrhythmia is an abnormal heart beat pattern. One example of a dysrhythmia is a bradycardia wherein the heart beats at an abnormally slow rate or wherein significant pauses occur between consecutive beats. Other examples of dysrhythmias include tachyarrhythmias wherein the heart beats at an abnormally fast rate. With atrial tachycardia, the atria of the heart beat abnormally fast. With ventricular tachycardia (VT) the ventricles of the heart beat abnormally fast. Though often unpleasant for the patient, a tachycardia is typically not fatal. However, some tachycardias, particularly ventricular tachycardia, can trigger ventricular fibrillation wherein the heart beats chaotically such that there is little or no net flow of blood from the heart to the brain and other organs. Ventricular tachycardia, if not terminated, is fatal. Hence, it is highly desirable to prevent or terminate dysrhythmias, particularly ventricular tachycardias.
One technique for preventing or terminating dysrhythmias is to overdrive pace the heart wherein an implantable cardiac stimulation device, such as a pacemaker or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), applies electrical pacing pulses to the heart at a rate somewhat faster than the intrinsic heart rate of the patient. For bradycardia, the cardiac stimulation device may be programmed to artificially pace the heart at a rate of 60 to 80 pulses per minute (ppm) to thereby prevent the heart from beating too slow and to eliminate any long pauses between heart beats. To prevent tachyarrhythmias from occurring, the cardiac stimulation device artificially paces the heart at a rate of at least five to ten pulses per minute faster than the intrinsic tachyarrhythmia heart rate of the patient. In other words, a slight artificial tachycardia is induced and maintained in an effort to prevent an actual tachycardia from arising. If an actual tachycardia occurs, such as a supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) wherein the heart beats at 150 beats per minute or more, the cardiac stimulation device senses tachycardia and immediately begins pacing at a rate of at least five to ten pulses per minute (ppm) faster than the tachycardia and then slowly decreases the pacing rate in an effort to slowly reduce the heart rate back to a normal resting rate, thereby terminating the tachycardia.
Many patients who suffer from tachyarrhythmias have had episodes of ischemia wherein blood flow to the ventricular myocardium is reduced or blocked due to narrowing or occlusion of a coronary artery. This causes myocardial scarring, believed to present re-entrant circuits that can be triggered into sustained ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation by introduction of premature ventricular contractions (PVCs). A PVC is a ventricular contraction which is not preceded by a coupling atrial contraction (P wave). It is also at times assumed that a clinical episode of monomorphic ventricular tachycardia is also initiated by spontaneous PVCs. This assumption is reinforced by the known relationship between PVCs and sudden cardiac death. It would thus be beneficial if implantable cardiac devices could prevent PVCs from triggering ventricular tachyarrhythmias.
It is believed that dissociation between the left ventricle and the right ventricle may be responsible for PVCs. Further, it is believed that changes in the QRS complex on a surface electrocardiogram is the result of a dissociation in inter-chamber delay as, for example, the inter-ventricular delay (VR-VL Delay) or inter-atrial delay (AR-AL Delay). For example, the widening of the QRS complex (as is sometimes seen in monomorphic VT) may be the result of an increase in the VR-VL Delay. Furthermore, alternating amplitude of the QRS complex (as is sometimes seen in polymorphic VT) or P waves may be the result of a more significant dissociation in the VR-VL Delay or AR-AL Delay, respectively. It is further believed that if the VR-VL Delay becomes too great, then total dissociation between the left and right ventricles of the heart will result in a ventricular fibrillation and perhaps sudden cardiac death and that if the AR-AL Delay becomes too great, then total dissociation between the left and right atria of the heart will result in atrial fibrillation. It is still further believed that significant variability of inter-chamber delay, either of the ventricles or the atria, may also be prone to the development of ventricular fibrillation.

Implantable cardiac device for restoring inter-chamber synchrony and method


A motion detecting device for enhancement of the image quality at ultra-low bit rates is disclosed, which permits quantization of the prediction error with the highest possible degree of accuracy, taking into account the amount of information which is generated by a motion vector generated by a motion vector generator. A difference vector corresponding to a difference between the motion vector and a motion vector of an already encoded reference pixel block located near the current pixel block to be encoded in said current frame is obtained. An output resulting from a motion detection of the difference vector so as to obtain the minimum step size from said difference vector, through the use of the number of generated bits and the number of bits of said difference vector, is encoded.

The present invention relates to a motion compensation image encoding device which performs motion compensation and encodes and transmits a motion vector and its prediction error.
For the purpose of application, for example, to mobile video communications by the PCS and portable telephone systems and monitor image transmissions over telephone circuits as well as to a dynamic image transmission on the Internet, there is a demand for a high-quality image compression technique that achieves an ultra-low bit rate below 20 kbps as a video rate.
In this field, too, the most popular image compression technique is one that utilizes a motion compensation DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) system as typified by ITU-T Recommendation H. 263. Conventional motion compensation systems perform motion detection from a viewpoint of minimizing a prediction error, and transmit a motion vector and the prediction errors in coded form.
In conventional ultra-low bit rate image coding scheme typified by Recommendation H. 263, the motion detection takes place through block matching which is carried out for each macro block. For example, TMN5 takes into account the precedence of zero vector but basically involves vector detection intended to minimize the prediction error.
FIG. 10 is a block diagram depicting an example of a conventional motion compensation image encoding device, in which image signals input via an input terminal 1 are sequentially stored in a current frame memory 2 and a previous frame (reference frame) memory 3. A motion vector from a motion vector generator 4 is provided to a motion compensation circuit 5, wherein it is used for motion compensation of a previous frame signal from the previous frame (reference frame) memory 3, then a difference between a current frame signal from the current frame memory 2 and its motion-compensated output is detected by a subtractor 6, and the difference is fed to an encoder 26 and a motion prediction error detector 21. A minimum prediction error decision circuit 22 decides a minimum prediction error based on the motion vector fed from the motion vector generator 4 and the motion prediction error from the motion prediction error detector 21. This minimum prediction error is delayed, for example, by a one-block delay circuit 23 and is stored, as a next left block, in a motion vector memory 24, and a difference motion vector, which corresponds to a difference between the minimum prediction error and an output from the motion vector memory 24, is obtained by a substracter 25 and provided to an encoder 27.
That is, letting xt (i, j) and xtxe2x88x921 (i, j) represent pixel values of current and previous frames, respectively, a value SAD (Sum of Absolute Differences) is given by the following equation (1).                     SAD        =                              ∑            j                                                        ∑              i                                                  "LeftBracketingBar"                                                                    x                    t                                                                          (                                          i                      ,                      j                                        )                                                  -                                                      x                                          t                      -                      1                                                                                (                                          i                      +                                              mv                                                  x                          ,                          j                                                                    +                                              mv                        y                                                              )                                                              "RightBracketingBar"                                                          (        1        )
The motion vectors mvx and mvy which minimize the value SAD are detected for each macro block.
At medium to high bit rates above 100 kbps, the amount of information about the motion vector is substantially negligible as compared with the amount of information on the prediction difference signal; hence, the minimization of the value SAD is a key factor in the quantization of the prediction error signal with the highest precision.
In the motion detection at ultra-low bit rates, however, the proportion of the amount of motion vectors to a current bit rate increases. Table 1 shows respective occupation of bit rates and the proportions of the motion vectors in an image xe2x80x9cCarphone.xe2x80x9d
The frame rate is fixed at 5 fps, and the number of motion vector bits is a mean value for each processed frame. From this table, it is understandable that the number of geberated bits from the motion vector is substantially constant irrespective of the bit rate. Accordingly, as the bit rate decreases, the proportion of the motion vector increases; the latter exceeds 20% at ultra-low bit rates below 20 kbps.
As described above, the conventional motion compensation image encoding device performs the motion detection by block matching so that the power (square sum) of the prediction error block or its value SAD is minimized.
In the conventional device, the current frame is divided into blocks, and for each block, a position where the square sum or the value SAD of an error (a prediction error) relative to an immediately previous frame (a reference frame) stored in the frame memory is minimized is detected in the range of search, and the position detected is used as a motion vector.
In the actual motion vector transmission, a difference between the motion vector of each block and that of the left or upper block is sent since the motion vector has a strong correlation to the neighboring blocks.
The prior art makes the motion detection solely for the purpose of minimizing the prediction error as mentioned above, and hence it does not ever take into consideration the amount of information on the motion vector. On this account, no sufficient amount of information is assigned to the motion prediction error, so that the quantization step size for the motion prediction error increases, inevitably incurring the degradation of the image quality.
An object of the present invention is to provide a motion compensation image encoding device which obviates the problems of the prior art and, for enhancement of the image quality at ultra-low bit rates, permits quantization of the prediction error with the highest possible degree of accuracy, taking into account the amount of information generated from the motion vector.
To attain the above object, the motion compensation image encoding device according to the present invention comprises:
first encoding means for encoding motion prediction error information corresponding to a difference between an image signal of a current frame and a compensated output of an image signal of a reference frame preceding the current frame, obtained by motion-compensation by the use of a motion vector generated by a motion vector generator; and
second encoding means for obtaining a difference vector corresponding to a difference between said motion vector and a motion vector of an already encoded reference pixel block located near the current pixel block to be encoded in said current frame, and for encoding an output resulting from motion detection of said difference vector so as to obtain the minimum step size from said difference vector, through the use of the number of bits generated, which is estimated from the magnitude of a motion prediction error contained in said motion prediction error information, and the number of generated bits of said difference vector.

Motion compensation image encoding device


A multi-layer woven scrim, having two or more layers made of thermoplastic tapes, has its layers attached together by means of layer-connecting tapes interwoven with mutually perpendicular tapes of adjacent layers. The points of attachment may be at spaced intervals and in the machine or cross-machine directions. The scrim is flexible, dimensionally stable and has high tensile and tear strength. It can be coated and used as an industrial fabric.

It is known in the field of industrial strength fabrics to make a woven scrim from thermoplastic tapes. Such tapes, commonly made of polyolefins such as high density polyethylene, stretched in the course of manufacture, are flexible, weavable and have high tensile strength. Scrims woven of such tapes have substantial mechanical strength and are used as a structural element of industrial fabrics such as tarpaulins, building covers, wrapping materials for industrial goods, and for similar uses. The strength of such scrims is limited by the number of tapes per unit area that can be woven together and the tensile strength of the individual tapes.
To produce higher strength scrims it is known to attach two or more layers together, typically by laminating or stitching. There are problems with both of these prior art methods that reduce the strength of the product. When laminating is carried out, due to the thickness of the scrims, it is difficult to cool down or temper the laminating layer, and consequently the scrim may be damaged by excessive heat, reducing its tensile strength. Alternatively, if scrim layers are stitched and sewn together, the stitches tend to create tears and splitting of the tapes and hence reduce tensile strength.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,367,513 (Cain) discloses a strengthened-scrim comprising a plain weave scrim wherein the warp and wefts ends comprise two or more superimposed tapes. However, when folded, the scrim may bend at the edges of the superimposed tapes, which, for a coated scrim, may result in cracking of the coating at the bends. Further, where more than two tapes are placed one on top of the other, difficulties arise in controlling the tension of the tapes in the middle and in adjusting the pick count according to the thickness of the ends, the number of superimposed tapes determining thickness of each end.
It is therefore desirable to provide a scrim that is woven in a multi-layer structure and wherein the aforementioned limitations are overcome, without reducing the strength of each layer and while avoiding additional processes such as laminating or sewing together of the layers, or process sophistications such as tension control in superimposing tapes.


A process for producing 2,3,3′,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride (a-BPDA), comprising dehydrating 2,3,3′,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic acid in an inert gas atmosphere under heating at 180 to 195° C. is disclosed. This process produces high-purity a-BPDA which is suitable for production of a polyimide.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for producing 2,3,3′,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride which is useful as a raw material for polyimide; particularly to a process for producing efficiently the powder product of high purity from a reaction mixture formed by a dimerization reaction of an o-phthalic acid diester.
2. Description of the Related Art
3,4,3′,4′-Biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride (hereinafter, may be abbreviated as s-BPDA) and 2,3,3′,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride (hereinafter, may be abbreviated as a-BPDA) are each known as a monomer raw material for production of aromatic polyimide. In particular, a polyimide produced from s-BPDA as a monomer component is superior in properties such as heat resistance, electrical insulation, film strength, film dimensional stability, solvent resistance and the like. Accordingly, because of a high demand for s-BPDA, an efficient process for producing a high purity s-BPDA has been intensively investigated. However, as to a-BPDA, there is no known process for producing a high purity product efficiently. Further, even if polymerized with the same aromatic diamine, a-BPDA and s-BPDA produce polyimides having entirely different properties. Hence, as to a-BPDA, a high-purity product containing no s-BPDA is needed.
For example, JP-B-1994-2715 (patent literature 1), discloses a process which comprises removing unreacted monomers and high-boiling products from a reaction product mixture of a dimerization reaction of an o-phthalic acid diester, and then subjecting the resulting mixture to a crystallization operation in an alcohol solvent such as methanol or the like, thereby high-purity 3,4,3′,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic acid tetraester (hereinafter, may be abbreviated as s-BPTT) is obtained by the isolation from its isomer, i.e. 2,3,3′,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic acid tetraester (hereinafter, may be abbreviated as a-BPTT). s-BPTT can be converted into s-BPDA by being heated in the presence of concentrated sulfuric acid in a water-free state, as described in, for example, JP-B-1994-96570 (patent literature 2). In the patent literature 1, however, there is no description on a process for obtaining high-purity a-BPDA from a by-product, a-BPTT.
With respect to the process for obtaining a 2,3,3′,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic acid tetraester (a-BPTT) as a main product, there is, in JP-A-2003-113143 (patent literature 3), a description that a reaction mixture of high a-BPTT/s-BPTT ratio can be obtained by dimerization of an o-phthalic acid diester in the presence of a particular catalyst. In the literature, there is further described that a-BPDA can be obtained by hydrolyzing a-BPTT and then heating the hydrolyzate at a high temperature for dehydration thereof; however, there is no specific description on the process for obtaining this a-BPDA.

Process for production of 2,3,3′,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride