Premise-based policies can be applied in the management of mobile devices and other computing devices within a system. A computing device is detected using close proximity wireless communication and location information is sent to the computing device using close proximity wireless communication. Policies applied to the computing device can be based at least in part on the location information.

Bring your own device (BYOD) is a business policy of employees being allowed to bring personally owned computing devices, including mobile devices, to their place of work for use in lieu of or to supplement company-provided computing devices. Organizations allowing BYOD often allow these personal devices to be used to access enterprise networks and software systems, privileged company resources such as email, file servers and databases, in addition to the personal applications and data present on the personal device. Further, "consumerization of information technology" (CoIT) is the growing tendency for new information technology to emerge first in the consumer market and then spread into business and government organizations.
With rising incidence of BYOD and CoIT, enterprise security managers and administrators face an increasingly difficult task in ensuring compliance with legal, administrative, and organizational policies, including security policies. As examples, a doctor using their own tablet to access patient records, a travelling salesperson using their own device to store price lists and other company sensitive information, and employees using a cloud storage and retrieval service to access and share work-related items from outside the office can compromise other efforts to ensure compliance with relevant policies of an organization.


In accordance with certain embodiments consistent with the present invention, diamond nanoparticles are mixed with polymers. This mixture is expected to provide improved properties in interlayer dielectrics used in integrated circuit applications. This abstract is not to be considered limiting, since other embodiments may deviate from the features described in this abstract.

Polymers are candidates for use as inter-level and intra-layers dielectric materials in integrated circuits (ICs) and as bonding layers in packaging applications and in three-dimensional integration (3-D) of ICs. Polymer materials are typically poor thermal conductors and as a result act a thermal barrier to heat flow to more thermally conducting layers or structures. In addition polymers commonly suffer from thermal stability problems when the dielectric is heated during subsequent processing of the integrated circuit or during packaging.
In the inter-level and intra-level dielectic applications of polymers, candidate materials should possess a low dielectric constant (k) in order to minimize the impact of capacitive coupling on the performance of the IC especially as IC dimensions are reduced through scaling. Often the polymer chains are modified to add chemical functional groups such as fluorine to lower their k. Due to the higher level of fluorine content in such candidate low-k polymers such as bisbenzocyclobutene (BCB), perfluorocyclobutane (PFCB), poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE), adhesion to prior and subsequent layers is often a problem.
As IC feature sizes are scaled to smaller dimensions and the ICs operate at higher frequencies, devices are projected to generate more heat and subsequently experience higher temperatures during operation. As a result, the thermal conductivity of polymers used as inter-level and intra-level dielectrics and as adhesives for bonding and mounting should be improved in order to conduct heat away from the integrated circuit.

Polymer nanocomposite structures for integrated circuits


A sunroof is automatically and precisely positioned to a mounting position by an apparatus including a floating plate movably mounted to a base member. A secondary lift structure is mounted to the floating plate and a centering cylinder unit is disposed between the secondary lift structure and the floating plate such that the centering cylinder unit aligns the floating plate to the sunroof mounting position on the vehicle body.

Typically, installation of a sunroof on a vehicle body requires moving the vehicle body to a sunroof mounting station, e.g., by a conveyor system. Upon arrival of the vehicle body, a worker manually retrieves the sunroof assembly from a pallet and, after positioning it on a sunroof mounting loader, manually moves the sunroof mounting loader and sunroof to a mounting position on the vehicle body.
Subsequently, the sunroof mounting loader lifts the sunroof to a working height and the worker manually installs the sunroof assembly on the vehicle. When installation of the sunroof assembly is complete the worker lowers the sunroof mounting loader and manually returns the sunroof mounting loader to its original position.
Typically, a vehicle body that arrives at the sunroof mounting station has longitudinal and/or transverse deviations from a predetermined standard position. In addition, when the sunroof mounting loader is moved toward the vehicle it also has such deviations from a predetermined position. Therefore, when the position of the vehicle body is excessively deviated from its target position the sunroof loader does not properly align the sunroof with the vehicle body and it becomes difficult for the worker to install the sunroof. Furthermore, the sunroof assembly is often a heavy object which further increases the difficulty in manual installation of the assembly.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of the understanding of the background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement of any form or suggestion that this information forms the prior art that is already known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Apparatus for positioning a sunroof on a vehicle body


A computing system, comprising includes a first central processing unit (CPU) and a second CPU coupled with the first CPU and with a host processor. The second CPU and the host processor may both request the first CPU to generate keys that have access rights to regions of memory to access specific data. The first CPU may be configured to, in response to a request from the second CPU, generate a unique key with a unique access right to a region of memory, the unique key usable only by the second CPU, not the host processor.

Rapid advances in electronics and communications technologies, driven by consumer demand, have resulted in the widespread adoption of data-driven devices, including those for handling and converting third-party media content. Third-party customers or clients want their content handled with security such that the content is not copied or used outside of certain permission levels. Systems that stream content digitally for multiple media providers to consumers seek to include higher levels of security so that competitor providers cannot access each other's secrets. In a large system on a chip (SOC), a single security central processing unit (SCPU) may perform security functions.

Data and key separation using a secure central processing unit


Upon receiving a supply start instruction, each vehicle (2, 3, 4) transmits its own identification ID to other vehicles (sequence SQ12, SQ14, SQ16). A vehicle (2) determining that it is a master itself performs notification of master to the vehicles (3, 4) (sequence SQ20) and begins generation of an AC voltage conforming to its own period (sequence SQ22). Each vehicle (3, 4) generates an AC current synchronized with a voltage reference which is the AC voltage generated from the vehicle (2) (sequence SQ26a, SQ26b). In this way, the vehicles (2, 3, 4) cooperate to begin power supply to a power load.

Recently, in consideration of environmental issues, vehicles using electric motors as driving power sources such as electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles have been attracting attention. Such a vehicle is provided with a rechargeable electric storage unit for supplying electric power to an electric motor and for converting kinetic energy to electric energy at the time of regenerative braking and for storing the same.
Use of an electric vehicle with such an electric storage unit as an electric power source of a house or the like has been proposed. By way of example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-008380 discloses a power management system that allows transmission of electric power between a house and a battery mounted on an electric vehicle. In the power management system, amount of electric power supplied from the electric vehicle to the house is managed in accordance with the power supplied from the mains to loads in the house.
Electric vehicles such as represented by hybrid vehicles are rapidly becoming common due in part to lower costs enabled by technical innovation. Along with the widespread use of electric vehicles, it is fully expected that a large number of households own a plurality of electric vehicles.
The power management system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-008380 considers only a configuration in which one electric vehicle is electrically connected to one house, and not a configuration in which a plurality of electric vehicles are electrically connected to one house.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-008380, the electric power supplied from an electric vehicle to the house is not DC power but AC power, so as to enable power supply to loads in the house in coordination with mains power (AC power). Generally, in order to implement coordination among a plurality of AC power sources, voltages, frequencies and phases must be matched with each other. Therefore, it has been difficult to realize the configuration in which a plurality of electric vehicles are electrically connected to one house.

Power system and method for supplying AC power


A method and apparatus for implanting a semiconductor substrate with boron clusters. A substrate is implanted with octadecaborane by plasma immersion or ion beam implantation. The substrate surface is then melted, resolidified, and annealed to completely dissociate and activate the boron clusters.

As semiconductor technology progresses, devices formed on semiconductor substrates grow smaller. As devices grow smaller, manufacturers are continually challenged to develop productive processes for making the devices. Currently, manufacturing processes are being deployed to make devices having critical dimension of 45 nm. Researchers are busy developing next generation processes for devices having critical dimension of 20 nm or less. At these extreme dimensions, implanting dopants in a substrate becomes forbidding. In a traditional boron doping process, for example, boron atoms are directed toward a substrate with sufficient energy to penetrate the crystal lattice to a desired depth, and the substrate is then annealed to distribute the boron and activate it (attach it to the crystal network). As device dimensions grow smaller, control of implantation depth becomes more critical. Next generation devices are expected to have junctions no more than about 50 atomic layers deep.
Implantation problems arise as junction depth diminishes. Because the ions must travel more slowly to avoid implanting too deeply, the repulsive charge among like-charged ions forces them to diverge from their intended path. To compensate for this effect, fast-moving ions are magnetically decelerated near the surface of the substrate. Beam deceleration, however, results in "energy contamination," arising from exchange of charge between fast-moving ions and fugitive neutral particles during or prior to deceleration. The fast-moving neutralized particles are unaffected by the beam decelerator and implant deeply into the substrate.
Small ions also channel through the crystal lattice. Because the crystal lattice has open spaces large enough for many ions to pass unimpeded, more ions will travel down these "channels", resulting in highly variable implant depth. To reduce the tendency to channel, many manufacturers have resorted to "pre-amorphizing" the substrate surface to remove any opportunity for channeling. Pre-amorphization may also improve implant dose by opening more space within the solid matrix for ions to penetrate. Pre-amorphized substrates require more annealing, however, to activate dopants because the crystal structure is completely disrupted to a considerable depth and must be repaired. This leads to unwanted dopant diffusion and residual EOR damage.
Thus, there is a continuing need for better methods of implanting dopants in a shallow junction with high dopant dose and activation, low sheet resistance, and even distribution of dopants.

Defect-free junction formation using laser melt annealing of octadecaborane self-amorphizing implants


An elastic covering cap for a foot-pedal of a motor vehicle which can be produced economically, while functioning well and having a pleasing aesthetic effect. For this purpose, the covering cap includes, on its foot-rest surface, a multiplicity of studs which have a mushroom-like shape and over the mushroom heads of which a perforated ornamental plate can be snapped on so as to be form-lockingly fitted underneath the mushroom heads.

The invention relates to a covering for a foot-pedal, and in particular to a covering for a foot-pedal of a motor vehicle.
A covering for a foot-pedal of a motor vehicle should have a non-slip profile with a good grip on the foot-rest surface. Furthermore, a visually pleasing appearance is often desirable.
A covering for a foot-pedal of a motor vehicle is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 4,176,562, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
An object of the present invention is to provide a covering which may be simply assembled, which can be efficiently and economically manufactured, and which is aesthetically attractive. These and other objects have been accomplished according to the present invention by providing a covering for a foot-pedal of a motor vehicle, comprising an elastic covering cap including a plurality of connection studs on a foot-rest surface; and a perforated plate having a plurality of perforations which correspond to said connection studs, such that said perforated plate can be snapped over said connection studs.
According to the present invention, the covering for the foot-pedal is advantageously made in two parts. An elastic support body, which can be fitted onto the foot-pedal, is provided with connection studs extending outwardly from a base portion (foot-engagement surface). A perforated ornamental plate can be simply snapped over the connection studs of the elastic support body.
In order to obtain a positive form-locking connection between the perforated plate and the elastic support body, the connection studs are designed with a lower leg portion, and an upper head portion which extends laterally from said leg portion, such that said head portion includes a downwardly facing support surface. In one preferred embodiment, the connection studs are formed in a mushroom-shaped manner. The perforated plate is provided with perforations which correspond in spacing to the connection studs, and which have a periphery smaller than the periphery of the head portions of the connection studs. In one preferred embodiment, the periphery of the perforations essentially corresponds to a periphery of the leg portions of the connection studs. Since the connection studs are made of an elastic material, the perforated plate can be snapped over the upper head portions of the connection studs such that the perforated plate is held in a form-locking manner by the lower leg portions of the connection studs and/or the downwardly facing support surfaces of the connection studs. The thickness of the perforated plate is essentially equal to the distance between the downwardly facing support surfaces of the heads of the connection studs and the base portion.
A foot-pedal covering designed according to the invention can be given aesthetically highly attractive appearance by use of different materials and different colors of the studs and of the ornamental plate. The elastic support body may be made of any suitable elastic material, for example, of rubber or an elastic polymer. The perforated ornamental plate may be made of various suitable materials, for example, of metal, plastic, or even wood. When a metal perforated plate is used, the pedal acquires a very sporty and pleasing appearance.

Covering for a foot-pedal of a motor vehicle


In a flyback transformer having a focus pack, in order to facilitate the manufacture and assembly of the focus pack, the focus pack mounted on the flyback transformer is constituted by an outer case portion and an inner case portion, and the outer and inner case portions are coupled to each other by a coupling portion and integrally formed. The inner case portion contains a circuit board having a resistor circuit for setting a focus adjusting voltage and a screen adjusting voltage. A focus insertion hole and a screen insertion hole are formed in the coupling portion. A focus shaft for variably setting a focus adjusting voltage is rotatably fitted in the focus insertion hole. A screen shaft for variably setting a screen adjusting voltage is rotatably fitted in the screen insertion hole. An insulating casting resin is injected between the gaps between the outer and inner case portions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flyback transformer having a focus pack.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A television receiver requires various voltages ranging from a low voltage to a high voltage. In order to obtain such voltages, the receiver uses a flyback transformer which is designed such that a DC voltage of 100 V produced by a power supply circuit is received at the primary winding, and a high voltage of 30 kV and a low voltage of 10 to 200 V are respectively obtained from the secondary and tertiary windings.
A high voltage (e.g., 25 kV) generated by the flyback transformer is applied to the anode of a cathode-ray tube. At the same time, this high voltage is appropriately decreased across a resistor to obtain a focus voltage (e.g., 10 kV) to be applied to an electron beam focusing electrode arranged in an electron gun, and a screen voltage (e.g., 1 kV) to be applied to a screen electrode for color adjustment.
FIG. 1 shows a typical flyback transformer. In order to obtain a focus voltage and a screen voltage from a high voltage generated by the flyback transformer, a unit called a focus pack, denoted by reference numeral 2, is used.
FIG. 1 shows a flyback transformer 1 and the focus pack 2. The flyback transformer is designed such that a core 1a is inserted in the center of a bobbin having windings wound therearound, and the bobbin is entirely housed in a transformer case 1b. The focus pack 2 is mounted on an outer surface of the flyback transformer 1. A high voltage generated by the flyback transformer 1 is applied to an anode cap (not shown) through a lead 1c and to a high-voltage application point (to be described later) in the focus pack 2.
The focus pack 2 has outer and inner cases 21 and 22, each consisting of a resin, as shown in FIG. 3. A ceramic board 20 on which a high-voltage resistor portion 20a and variable resistive elements 20b and 20c are printed as wiring patterns is arranged in the inner case 22, as shown in FIG. 2. A high voltage from the flyback transformer 1 is applied to a high-voltage application point A on the board 20, and a point B on the board 20 is grounded through a terminal 2b. As is apparent from FIG. 1, a focus shaft 3 and a screen shaft 4, both serving to perform voltage adjustment, are arranged on the front surface of the outer case 21, and sliders S1 and S2 (see FIG. 2) are respectively pivoted by the focus shaft 3 and the screen shaft 4 to slide on the variable resistive element 20b for focus voltage adjustment and on the variable resistive element 20c for screen voltage adjustment. One end of each of the sliders S1 and S2 is connected, through a corresponding one of printed wiring patterns 20d and 20e on the board 20, to a terminal (not shown) extending through the rear surface of the board 20.
As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the focus pack 2 of the flyback transformer 1 of this type has the outer and inner cases 21 and 22. A focus insertion hole 5 and a screen insertion hole 6 are formed in the outer case 21. A focus shaft retaining cylinder 7 and a screen shaft retaining cylinder 8 extend from the inner case 22. When the focus shaft retaining cylinder 7 and the screen shaft retaining cylinder 8 are respectively inserted in the focus insertion hole 5 and the screen insertion hole 6, the outer and inner cases 21 and 22 are fitted together.
The focus shaft 3 is inserted in the focus shaft retaining cylinder 7. The screen shaft 4 is inserted in the screen shaft retaining cylinder 8.
The outer case 21 is fitted in a transformer case 1b. In this state, an insulating casting resin 10 such as an epoxy resin is injected into the transformer case 1b, so that the interior of the transformer case 1b and the gap between the outer and inner cases 21 and 22 of the focus pack are filled with the insulating casting resin 10. As a result, the resistor circuit formed on the board 20 is insulated from the outside by the outer and inner cases 21 and 22 and the insulating casting resin 10.
According to the focus pack 21, however, since the outer and inner cases 21 and 22 are integrally assembled by fitting the retaining cylinders 7 and 8 for the focus and screen shafts 3 and 4 in the insertion holes 5 and 6, the outer and inner cases 21 and 22 must be independently manufactured. For this reason, the work efficiency in the manufacture/assembly of the apparatus is low. In addition, when the insulating casting resin 10 is injected between the outer and inner cases 21 and 22, the insulating casting resin 10 leaks from gaps 9 between the retaining cylinders 7 and 8 and the insertion holes 5 and 6.


An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is configured to be coupled to a power source at an input node and to a load at an output node. The UPS is synthetically loaded (e.g., to a maximum rated load) by transferring current from the output node to the input node. Concurrent with synthetically loading the UPS, a temperature of an electrical conductor of the UPS is monitored. The monitoring of the temperature of the electrical conductor may include receiving a temperature sensor signal representative of the temperature of the electrical conductor from a temperature sensor (e.g., a self-powered wireless temperature sensor) mounted on the electrical conductor. The invention may be embodied as methods, apparatus and computer-readable media.

The invention relates to power supply systems, methods and computer program products for operation thereof and, more particularly, to uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, methods and computer program products for operation thereof.
A typical UPS includes power conductors (e.g., bus bars) that are used to conduct relatively high currents. For example, bus bars may be used in a high-capacity UPS for AC input and output busses that connect to AC sources and loads, respectively, as well as for intermediate DC busses that connect rectifier and inverter components of the UPS.
As a preventive maintenance measure, such light-current conductors may be periodically monitored to detect for "hot spots" or other thermal characteristics that may be associated with certain failure modes. Typically, such thermal monitoring may involve a technician removing protective panels or other coverings of the UPS and measuring conductor temperature using a handheld infrared temperature detector.
There may be several shortcomings to such an approach. Removal of protective covers and similar assemblies may expose maintenance personnel to increased risk of electrical shock or other injuries. In addition, removal of such covers may disrupt normal airflow, such that the temperature readings obtained while the covers are off may not be an accurate representation of normal operating conditions. Moreover, the manual nature of the testing may make it difficult to obtain data sufficient to identify trends. The testing also may not provide consistent and meaningful data, as the UPS may be loaded at non-uniform levels over a series of measurements and may not reflect, for example, thermal characteristics at full load.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,145,322 to Solveson et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 7,253,602 to Shvach et al. describe self-powered wireless temperature sensing devices that are configured to be attached to power bus bars in circuit breakers, motor controllers and other devices that include conductors that carry current. Such devices may be used to measure conductor temperature and transmit the temperature measurements over a wireless data link.

Temperature monitoring in uninterruptible power supply systems using synthetic loading


There is provided an apparatus having a card holding mechanism which can hold two cards at the same time. The apparatus has a card holding mechanism comprising:                a first card housing section which can hold one end of a first card,        a second card housing section which can hold one end of a second card, and        a sliding holding section which can hold the end opposite to the one end of the first card housed in the first card housing section and the end opposite to the one end of the second card housed in the second card housing section simultaneously.

(i) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus having a card holding mechanism, particularly, a card holding mechanism which can hold two cards at the same time.
(ii) Description of the Related Art
Of electronics including portable telephones and hone video cameras, some are operated with cards housed and held therein. For example, some portable telephones are operated with a data storage card, such as a SIM card (which enables a telephone call when inserted into a portable telephone), MMC card, SmartMedia or memory stick which has data about the contract of a sender, housed and held therein. Heretofore, each of these cards has been held by an independent holding mechanism.
However, when an independent holding mechanism is provided to each card, considerable space is required for the holding mechanisms. This can be a significant problem in reducing the size of the apparatus.


A multiple-layer microstrip assembly having an inter-layer connection for transitioning electrical signals between analogous surfaces of separate layers, comprising a plurality of layers, each having a top surface and a bottom surface; first top circuitry disposed on the first top surface of a first layer; first bottom circuitry disposed on the first bottom surface of the first layer; connecting means for electrically connecting the first top circuitry to the first bottom circuitry; second top circuitry disposed on the second top surface of a second layer; and binding means to hold the two layers together, wherein the first bottom circuitry is sufficiently adjacent and overlapping the second top circuitry to form an electrical connection therebetween, thereby forming a signal transition between the first top surface of the first layer and the second top surface of the second layer.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a multiple-layer microstrip or stripline assembly and, more specifically, to transitioning electrical signals between two or more separate layers. A microstrip is a type of waveguide comprising a conductor, typically in a flat, rectangular shape, separated from a single ground plane by a dielectric substrate material. A buried microstrip is a variation on the basic microstrip wherein the single conductor is embedded in a dielectric substrate material. A stripline is similar to a buried microstrip, except that a stripline has two ground planes--one located along each major surface of the dielectric substrate material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many systems utilize multiple-layer microstrip assemblies in which various circuit elements are sandwiched between separate layers of dielectric material and laminated together to form a single composite structure. The types of various circuit elements to be used may include both passive and active components, as well as transmission lines (equivalently referred to as feedlines). One reason for using multiple-layer construction is to avoid electromagnetic interference between the signals present in the feedlines and circuit elements by isolating them from one another. In one frequently used configuration, the feedlines are arranged on the top surface of the bottom-most layer, separated by a dielectric substrate material from a ground plane located on the bottom surface of the bottom-most layer, while the various other circuit elements are distributed among the upper layers of the assembly.
When the feedlines and circuit elements which comprise a system are distributed over a plurality of separate layers, however, it becomes necessary to route signals back and forth between different layers to interconnect the various circuitry. For example, to implement a certain circuit function it may be necessary to connect a feedline on a first layer to a circuit element on a second layer. Additionally, i may be necessary to route several signals, originating on different layers, to appear on a single layer to facilitate connection to an external device.
The routing of signals between layers, however, presents problems. First, the process of constructing a microstrip assembly with inter-layer connections is time and labor intensive and burdensome due to the low tolerances for error. A known technique for constructing a multiple-layer microstrip assembly with inter-layer connections requires several steps as described below with reference to FIGS. 1A through 1E.
As illustrated in FIG. 1A, a ribbon 101 is connected by means of soldering to first top circuitry 103, for example, a circuit element or feedline, on a first layer 105.
Next, as shown in FIG. 1B, a second layer 107 must be brought into precise alignment with the first layer 105 such that the ribbon 101 may be passed through a hole 109 in the second layer 107. The task of aligning layers and feeding-through connecting ribbons requires a great deal of precision and is aggravated by the fact that, typically, several connections between the two layers, with each requiring a ribbon and alignment with a hole, must typically be made between the two layers.
As shown in FIG. 1C, the first layer 105 is then joined to the second layer 107 by means of a first laminate layer 111 therebetween. The first laminate layer 111 holds the ribbon 101 in a fixed position relative to the hole 109 in the second layer 107 and prevents disturbing the precise alignment achieved in the step performed as shown in FIG. 1B.
Next, as shown in FIG. 1D, the ribbon 101 passing through the hole 109 in the second layer 107 is connected by means of soldering to second top circuitry 113, for example, a circuit element or feedline, on the second layer 107. The ribbon 101 forms an ohmic electrical connection between the first top circuitry 103 on the first layer 105 and the second top circuitry 113 on the second layer 107 and completes the structure necessary to transition signals between analogous surfaces of two separate layers of a multiple-layer microstrip assembly.
Finally, as shown in FIG. 1E, an optional second laminate layer 115 may be disposed on top of the second layer 107 to cover the second top circuitry 113. The second laminate layer 115 insulates the second top circuitry 113 from unwanted ohmic short-circuits and holds the ribbon 101 firmly in position.
Although the above-described construction method provides a multiple-layer microstrip assembly capable of transitioning signals between separate layers, it has several drawbacks. Among the drawbacks, the prior method is time and labor intensive due to the need for a precise alignment step. Furthermore, the prior method presents a low tolerance for error due to the difficulty in aligning the small-sized hole and ribbon. Additionally, because the above-described structure requires a ribbon to be connected between two separate layers, the ribbon is subject to stress, possibly causing failure or an impedance mismatch, from any relative movement between the two layers during construction.
Another problem associated with routing signals between layers is that the interconnections may result in degradation of the signal due to reflections caused by impedance mismatches. It is for this reason that a prior multiple-layer microstrip assembly with inter-layer connections was likely to have diminished radio-frequency (RF) performance as compared to a single-layer microstrip assembly which did not require inter-layer connections.
Clearly, an apparatus and construction method for multi-layer microstrip assemblies that addresses these deficiencies is desirable.

Multiple-layer microstrip assembly with inter-layer connections


A toolbox for a truck bed has a box with at least five walls, including a floor and four side-walls rising vertically from the floor. The box has an open top-end. Extension walls fit within the box next to each of the vertical walls of the box. The extension walls are joined together. A cover is attached with a hinge affixed at the top of one of the extension walls and it rotates between a closed position and an open position. The closed position prevents access to the box and the open position enables access to the storage volume in the box. The extension walls are slidably engaged to the box in extensible guide rails so that the extension walls can be moved vertically from a lowered position to an elevated position and vice versa within the box.

A toolbox is a container that may also be known as a toolkit, tool chest or workbox. The toolbox helps to organize, transport, and protect the owner's tools. Tools are a necessity for many craftsman and non-commercial hobbyists. The tools and contents of a toolbox vary as does the purpose sought to be filled by the owner.
One of the most important purposes in a commercial setting is the safety and security of a tradesman's tools. Without tools, the tradesman can no longer earn a living and provide for his or her family. Most working tradesmen that have a pickup truck usually have a conventional truck toolbox mounted in the bed of the truck.
Modern toolboxes are predominantly made of metal or plastic, but may also be made of wood. Diamond plate metal toolboxes are rugged and long lasting, typically made of steel, including stainless steel, and aluminum. When weight and elimination of rust is a goal, plastic toolboxes have found application. Wood toolboxes are typically a thing of the past, but are known to be used by those seeking to minimize costs and those desiring the distinctiveness of hardwoods.

UETT Associates, Trustee for Upwardly extensible truck toolbox CRT Trust


An embedded test and repair (ETR) scheme and interface for generating a self-test-and-repair (STAR) memory device using an integrated design environment. User interface and supporting program code is operable to provide a dialog box for defining a memory group that includes one or more memory instances, each having corresponding fuse element requirements based on its configuration data. BIST elements and a processor compiler for providing ETR functionality are also specified via suitable portions of the integrated GUI. A fuse equation is employed for computing the number of fuses for each memory instance, which equation is derived based on the memory configuration. Fuse information for each memory instance is automatically passed to a fuse compiler that generates a fuse box having an appropriate number of fuses that can accommodate the fuse requirements of the memory instances of the group.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to semiconductor memories. More particularly, and not by way of any limitation, the present invention is directed to an embedded test and repair scheme and interface for compiling a memory assembly with redundancy.
2. Description of Related Art
Silicon manufacturing advances today allow true single-chip systems to be fabricated on a single die (i.e., System-On-Chip or SOC integration). However, there exists a "design gap" between today's electronic design automation (EDA) tools and the advances in silicon processes which recognizes that the available silicon real-estate has grown much faster than has designers' productivity, leading to underutilized silicon. Unfortunately, the trends are not encouraging: the "deep submicron" problems of non-convergent timing, complicated timing and extraction requirements, and other complex electrical effects are making silicon implementation harder. This is especially acute when one considers that analog blocks, non-volatile memory, random access memories (RAMs), and other "non-logic" cells are being required. The gap in available silicon capacity versus design productivity means that without some fundamental change in methodology, it will take hundreds of staff years to develop leading-edge integrated circuits (ICs).
Design re-use has emerged as the key methodology solution for successfully addressing this time-to-market problem in semiconductor IC design. In this paradigm, instead of re-designing every part of every IC chip, engineers can re-use existing designs as much as possible and thus minimize the amount of new circuitry that must be created from scratch. It is commonly accepted in the semiconductor industry that one of the most prevalent and promising methods of design re-use is through what are known as Intellectual Property ("IP") components—pre-implemented, re-usable modules of circuitry that can be quickly inserted and verified to create a single-chip system. Such re-usable IP components are typically provided as megacells, cores, macros, embedded memories through generators or memory compilers, et cetera.
It is well known that memory is a key technology driver for SOC design. Although providing high quality embedded memory IP in SOC applications poses several challenges, the total density of embedded memory has been increasing rapidly. It should be appreciated that without the use of redundancy, the fabrication yields of SOC devices and other embedded memory systems will be very low.
Several techniques exist for providing redundancy in conventional memory design methodologies. In fact, such redundancy techniques have been largely responsible for the ever-increasing densities of the single-chip memories. Incorporating conventional redundancy schemes in embedded memory IP applications, however, has numerous deficiencies. First, such schemes provide a cost-effective solution only when the memory density is greater than a certain minimum number of bits. If the support circuitry needed for redundancy occupies more than 5% of the memory array area, the design is generally considered area-inefficient.
It should be apparent that such area requirements pose a significant difficulty in the field of embedded memory design. For example, the embedded memories are typically provided in various sizes (i.e., densities) and aspect ratios, and are distributed throughout the system (i.e, several memory instances may co-exist). The requirement of redundancy in smaller memory instances, accordingly, would result in an unacceptably large redundancy overhead (i.e., high area-inefficiency).
Further, conventional redundancy techniques typically involve placing fuse elements within the memory array for effectuating row or column redundancy. In general, they are placed in row decoders, storage areas for faulty addresses, column fuse banks, et cetera. Those skilled in the art should recognize that such schemes give rise to inefficient layouts because routing over fuse areas is not permitted, thereby causing routing congestion and related "place and route" problems. Also, because of the routing bottlenecks around the fuse areas, creating multi-level power grids may not be feasible in SOC circuits.
In addition, where laser-activated fuse technology is used, there are limits to how small such a fuse element needs to be. Accordingly, the size of fuse elements does not scale in correspondence with the size of memory core cells. Relatedly, the pitch of fuses normally does not match the pitch of memory cells. As a result, it would be very difficult to tile fuses and connect them appropriately in a dense periphery layout.
To address these and other redundancy-related issues, memory design techniques have been developed by the assignee of the present patent application wherein memory compilers are provided with the capability to configure fuse elements or other volatile storage elements outside the memory core that are capable of storing a repair signature. Such a repair signature can be used for hard repair (via fuse element data) or for soft repair (via volatile storage element data) of faulty locations. Although such techniques provide significant advantages, fuse compilers associated therewith for compiling an array of fuses with respect to one or more memory instances are beset with certain drawbacks. First, the fuse compiler system and user interface associated therewith are not easily adaptable to variable memory configurations. As is common in the semiconductor memory art, end users implementing a particular memory application by way of a compiler design may sometimes have to reconfigure the memory instances, including the redundancy requirements, in order to customize the application. When such modifications are made, the fuse count should also track the corresponding changes in the redundancy structures. Otherwise, an inaccurate fuse count will result, which renders the devices only partially functional at best or defective in general. Accordingly, the overall device yield will be negatively impacted. It should further be appreciated that because the performance requirements are stringent in all memory applications, even a single fuse missing in the required fuse count for a memory device will have significant consequences. In addition, more importantly, existing fuse compiler design techniques are not integrated with embedded memory test and repair methodologies in a satisfactory manner. Finally, some of these aforesaid concerns are also prevalent in situations where the repair signatures are stored in volatile registers for soft repair.

Embedded test and repair scheme and interface for compiling a memory assembly with redundancy implementation


An automatic system for treating water, which consists of two treatment tanks adapted to be operated alternately. The tanks are interconnected with each other by a unique isolation valving system that permits one tank to be in use while the other is on standby. They are also connected to a single brine tank and alternate by being controlled with a novel, photo/electric water sensor, which reacts to a predetermined flow of water through the tanks. This system is very environmentally friendly by reducing the amount of water and salt used in the regeneration of the minerals compared with other systems operating today.

Hard water has been a plague and a nuisance for a long time. Nitrates in the water have been a health problem, especially for infants. By removing these contaminants, soaps and detergents perform better, and much less use of these products are necessary for proper cleaning. Also, by eliminating the calcium in the water, plumbing pipes, water heaters, etc. have a much longer life. When removing these dangerous nitrates, through the ion exchange system, the water becomes safe for human and animal consumption.
Certain devices have been invented to remove the undesired minerals from the water. The most common type of "water-treatment" device is an ion-exchange system, which is readily rechargeable. These devices operate principally by causing untreated water to flow through a bed of treated material. During that flow, the undesired cations in the water are removed and replaced by less objectionable materials. When the bed of material becomes charged with the undesirable ions, it is regenerated by a solution—usually brine—which can be passed through the bed of mineral. We use a reverse flow of the brine through the bed of materials, although a direct flow may be—and commonly is—used in systems today. We also use air as a final rinse to better agitate and loosen the "clumps" of mineral, thereby permitting a much better regeneration of the mineral.
This reverse flow performs four functions: First, the mineral bed becomes recharged with sodium that reacts with the undesired cations by exchanging the ions; second, the bed is physically raised by the reverse flow through it; third, any coarse material filtered out of the water by the treatment bed may be flushed away and fourth, by drawing air and water into the mineral tank, as a final rinse, after it has been saturated by the brine, the mineral is completely loosened from the "clumps" as a series of minor explosions appear to happen within the mineral tank when air/water is drawn into the tank through the injector during the final rinsing of the tank mineral. This causes a much better regeneration and permits additional removal of contaminate than if the air is not used.
The systems that exclusively use a single tank and time/clock do not perform satisfactorily or efficiently in treating water for contaminates. As water use is not the same during a given time period, the mineral bed is either regenerated needlessly (i.e., too soon), causing waste, or the bed will become contaminated before the regeneration time is selected, thus permitting the untreated water to pass through the treatment system without being treated. Also, this system needs to be regenerated when water use is not expected, usually during the wee hours of the morning. When this type of system is regenerated, it automatically goes on "bypass" as it cannot treat the water and regenerated at the same time. If the time clock is not set to the correct time, regeneration can take place during periods of water use at any time of the day.
With our treatment device, we provide a system in which the time of regeneration is immaterial. This is possible because we use two tanks, one of which can be regenerated while the second tank is in operation. Thus, we do not have to be concerned about regeneration at any particular time. We measure the flow of water from the mineral tank through a photo-electric sensor to control the regeneration, based on the gallons of water used: The amount of water that can be passed through a given amount of mineral, based on the contaminate level is commonly known, and by selecting the contaminates of the water and the amount of mineral in the tank, we can select how much water can be safely passed through the mineral before regeneration of the mineral is necessary. This eliminates waste of water and salt for regeneration. It also eliminated the problem of allowing untreated water to flow through the system. By use of various strategically located pressure operated valves, we provide alternate routes of water flow through the tanks so that while one is being regenerated, the second tank is being used. Also, because we have a source of treated water, we can regenerate the spent mineral with contaminate free water, permitting additional gallons of water through the tank after it has been regenerated.
These valves and the circuits they control can best be understood by reference to the following description and figures as follows:


An LED lamp includes a base, a bracket, a knob pivotably interconnecting the base and the bracket, and a reflector facing the base. The bracket includes two perpendicular arms on which multiple first LED modules and second LED modules are mounted. The first LED modules emit warm light, and the second LED modules emit cold light. The first LED modules and the second LED modules are selective to lighten by manipulating a button attached to the base.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a light emitting diode (LED) lamp and, more particularly, to an LED lamp capable of emitting two lights with different color temperatures.
2. Description of Related Art
LEDs have been available since the early 1960's. Because of the relatively high light-emitting efficiency of LEDs, LED usage has been increased in popularity in a variety of applications, e.g., residential, traffic, commercial, industrial settings. With development of the semiconductor technology, nowadays LEDs could emit various colorful light, wherein white light is most preferable in general illumination for its color mostly similar to the sunshine. However, pure white light is not always popular in general illumination, sometimes the LEDs are designed to emit nonsolid white light for meeting particular color temperature requirements of some occasions. For example, orange-white light is more favorable in residential illumination for its warm color, while blue-white light could refresh people so it is widely used in office illumination.
A typical LED lamp often employs multiple white LEDs as the light source thereof. For ensuring a color consistency of the light output from the lamp, the LEDs used in the lamp are always selected to have the same spectrum, whereby the light produced by the lamp has a constant color temperature specified for a target occasion. However, sometimes the constant color temperature is not enough for some specific occasions, they may need more flexible illuminations with variable color temperatures. For example, a lamp switchable between a cold and warm color temperatures is more preferred in road illumination so that the lamp could be switched between the two color temperatures according to different weathers. Apparently, the typical LED lamp having the constant color temperature falls short of such a requirement.
What is needed, therefore, is an LED lamp which can overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages.


Descriptors of cohesive interactions in the solid state are calculated from a computational model of a solid state, i.e. from a small cluster of copies of the molecule of interest assembled using a molecular mechanics method. A model for predicting solubility is built using the cohesive interaction descriptors along with other descriptors useful for this purpose. Predicted solubility is computed for the compound of interest by computing the same descriptors and applying the solubility model. Explicit modeling of solid state allows to more accurately characterize cohesive interactions in solids, hence, more accurately predict solubility.

The invention relates to computational methods of physical chemistry. Specifically, the invention relates to the prediction of solubility of chemical compounds.
Prediction of solubility can be very important in the projects where a decision on synthetic routes considers many options: in these cases a range of reaction schemes and building blocks can be narrowed down considerably on the basis of theoretical predictions of solubility prior to incurring the costs of synthesis and testing, and modifications to improve the solubility could be incorporated into the next design cycle. It is particularly important in the pharmaceutical industry, since it currently is the biggest consumer of high content chemical libraries. Prediction of solubility for drug-like compounds presents a challenge, since these compounds are usually feature-rich, i.e. they contain a number of different features or pharmacophores. A compound's solubility is represented as log S, where S is the concentration of the compound in mol/l for a saturated water solution in equilibrium with the most stable form of the crystalline material.
The thermodynamic equilibrium between a compound's solid phase and saturated aqueous solution can be decomposed into two steps: 1) sublimation of the solid and transfer of the gaseous compound into water, or 2) melting of the crystal and transfer of the liquid to water. Based on the latter thermodynamic cycle, Irmann approximated the difference in log S between a solid and neat liquid as −ΔSm(Tm−T)/2.3RT≈−0.01(tm−25) at 25° C., where ΔSm is the entropy of melting at the melting point, Tm=tm+273.15 K (F. Irmann, Eine einfache korrelation zwischen wasserloslichkeit und strukture von kohlenwasserstoffen und halogenkohlenwasserstoffen. Chem. Ing. Tech. 37 (1965) 789–798.), while Hansch et al. found that log S for liquid organic compounds in water is linearly related to the compound's octanol/water partition coefficient, log Po/w (C. Hansch, J. E. Quinlan, G. L. Lawrence, Linear free energy relationship between partition coefficients and the aqueous solubility of organic liquids, J. Org. Chem. 33 (1968) 347–350). Yalkowsky et al. combined these results to estimate the solubility of solid nonelectrolytes via equation 1 (S. H. Yalkowsky, S. C. Valvani, Solubility and partitioning. I. Solubility of nonelectrolytes in water. J. Pharm. Sci. 69 (1980) 912–922. [8] N. Jain, S. H. Yalkowsky, Estimation of the aqueous solubility I: Application to organic nonelectrolytes, J. Pharm. Sci. 90 (2001) 234–252).log S=0.5−log Po/w−0.01(tm−25)  (1)
Equation 1 usually gives predictions with root mean square (rms) errors=0.7–0.8 log unit. However, it is usually not useful in most projects because it requires experimental knowledge of the compound's melting point. A number of methods exist for estimating log Po/w (C. Hansch, A. Leo, Exploring QSAR—Fundamentals and Applications in Chemistry and Biology, American Chemical Society, Washington, 1995; J. Sangster, Octanol-Water Partition Coefficients: Fundamentals and Physical Chemistry, Wiley, Chichester, 1997; P. Buchwald, N. Bodor, Octanol-water partition: searching for predictive models. Curr. Med. Chem. 5 (1998) 353–380; E. M. Duffy, W. L. Jorgensen, Prediction of Properties from Simulations: Free Energies of Solvation in Hexadecane, Octanol, and Water. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 122 (2000) 2878–2888). This is not the case for melting points. The melting point is determined by the cohesive interactions in the solid phase, and its estimation is essentially as difficult as the one of a compound's solubility.
The principal computational approaches for solubility prediction have been based on group contributions (GC), multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis, and neural networks (NN).
Group Contributions. In this approach, contributions ai are assigned for the number of occurrences ni of a structural fragment i in the molecule of interest. The solubility is then calculated as follows.
                              log                                                              S                =                                            ∑              i                                                                                a                i                                                          n                i                                              +                      a            0                                              (        2        )
The values of group contributions are optimized using from regression analyses; however, the ni are normally integers and the descriptors are strictly structural fragments in the GC approach. Kühne et al. compared four prior GC algorithms and also developed their own (R. Kühne, R.-U. Ebert, F. Kleint, G, Schmidt, G. Schüürrmann, Group Contribution Methods to Estimate Water Solubility of Organic Chemicals, Chemosphere 30 (1995) 2061–2077). Their dataset consists of experimental data on 351 organic liquids and 343 solids, which are mostly hydrocarbons, halocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and monofunctional organic molecules. The number of fragments and correction terms is about 50 in the optimized model. On this dataset it yield absolute average errors of 0.4–0.5 log unit. The standard deviation (rms error) was not reported, but is normally 20–25% higher, i.e. 0.5–0.6 log unit.
The number of fragment types in these early methods was not large enough to treat drug-like molecules well. In the work from Klopman and Zhu (G. Klopman, H. Zhu, Estimation of Aqueous Solubility of Organic Molecules by the Group Contribution Approach, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 41 (2001) 439–445) an expanded training set was used. Although the set was still depleted of feature-rich molecules, it consisted of more then 1000 organic chemicals covering a variety of chemical classes and included some complex drugs. The work used 171 fragments and yielded a correlation with r2=0.95 and rms error=0.49 log unit. Using a transformed equation, which introduces non-linearity, the authors were able to obtain a similar fit with reduction in the number of fragments to 118. The modified procedure was tested on a subsequent set of 120 compounds and yielded a rms error of 0.79 log unit.
Multiple Linear Regression. In this method the solubility is calculated as follows:
                              log                                                              S                =                                            ∑              i                                                                                a                i                                                          c                i                                              +                      a            0                                              (        3        )            ci are descriptors for the given structure. The coefficients ai are determined by regression analysis to maximize the correlation coefficient r2 between the training set of log S values and computed results. Typical descriptors include molecular weight, solvent-accessible surface area (SASA), counts of potential donor and acceptor hydrogen bonds in aqueous solution (HBDN, HBAC), counts of specific functional groups and rotatable bonds, electrostatic potential data from quantum mechanical calculations, and a wide-range of topological and electronic indices such as those of Hall and Kier (L. H. Hall, L. B. Kier, Electrotopological State Indices for Atom Types: A Novel Combination of Electronic, Topological, and Valence State Information, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 35 (1995) 1039–1045).
There are a number of MLR studies for prediction of aqueous solubility (W. L. Jorgensen, E. M. Duffy, Prediction of Drug Solubility from Monte Carlo Simulations, Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 10 (2000) 1155–1158; A. R. Katritzky, Y. Wang, T. Tamm, M. Karelson, QSPR Studies on Vapor Pressure, Aqueous Solubility, and the Prediction of Water-Air Partition Coefficients, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 38 (1998) 720–725; J. Huuskonen, Estimation of Aqueous Solubility for a Diverse Set of Organic Compounds Based on Molecular Topology, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 40 (2000) 773–777; J. M. Sutter, P. C. Jurs, Prediction of Aqueous Solubility for a Diverse Set of Heteroatom-Containing Organic Compounds Using a Quantitative Structure-Property Relationship. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 36 (1996) 100–7; B. E. Mitchell, P. C. Jurs, Prediction of aqueous solubility of organic compounds from molecular structure. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 38 (1998) 489–496; N. R. McElroy, P. C. Jurs, Prediction of Aqueous Solubility of Heteroatom-Containing Organic Compounds from Molecular Structure. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 40 (2001), in press; P. D. T. Huibers, A. R. Katritzky, Correlation of the Aqueous solubility of Hydrocarbons and Halogenated Hydrocarbons with Molecular Structure, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 38 (1998) 283–292; M. H. Abraham, J. Le, The Correlation and Prediction of the Solubility of Compounds in Water Using an Amended Solvation Energy Relationship, J. Pharm. Sci. 89 (1999) 868–880; W. M. Meylan, P. H. Howard, Estimating log P with atom/fragments and water solubility with log P, Perspect. Drug Discov. Des. 19 (2000) 67–84). The study described in reference (N. R. McElroy, P. C. Jurs, Prediction of Aqueous Solubility of Heteroatom-Containing Organic Compounds from Molecular Structure. J Chem Inf Comput Sci. 2001 September–October; 41(5):1237–47) used a MLR model with 7 descriptors, r2=0.72 and rms=0.75 log unit for the training set and r2=0.66 and rms=0.80 log unit for the test set. The MLR studies of Katritzky and co-workers used a larger initial pools of >800 descriptors and restricted datasets (A. R. Katritzky, Y. Wang, T. Tamm, M. Karelson, QSPR Studies on Vapor Pressure, Aqueous Solubility, and the Prediction of Water-Air Partition Coefficients, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 38 (1998) 720–725; P. D. T. Huibers, A. R. Katritzky, Correlation of the Aqueous solubility of Hydrocarbons and Halogenated Hydrocarbons with Molecular Structure, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 38 (1998) 283–292). For 411 CHXNO compounds, they obtained r2=0.88 and rms=0.57 with a six-descriptor model (A. R. Katritzky, Y. Wang, T. Tamm, M. Karelson, QSPR Studies on Vapor Pressure, Aqueous Solubility, and the Prediction of Water-Air Partition Coefficients, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 38 (1998) 720–725). Huuskonen has also used topological and electronic descriptors for a diverse set of 1297 organic molecules including a good sampling of drugs. (J. Huuskonen, Estimation of Aqueous Solubility for a Diverse Set of Organic Compounds Based on Molecular Topology, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 40 (2000) 773–777). This analysis yielded a regression equation with 30 descriptors, r2=0.89 and rms=0.67. Abraham and Le (M. H. Abraham, J. Le, The Correlation and Prediction of the Solubility of Compounds in Water Using an Amended Solvation Energy Relationship, J. Pharm. Sci. 89 (1999) 868–880) used a six-descriptor model, which yielded r2=0.92 and rms=0.56 for 594 molecules. Amino acids, sugars and dicarboxylic acids were not included in their training set. The accuracy is good and the model is laudable for use of a small number of physically significant descriptors, specifically, the molar refractivity R2, dipolarity π2H, hydrogen-bond acidity Σα2H, hydrogen-bond basicity Σβ2H, and volume Vx. Σα2H and Σβ2H are similar to HBDN and HBAC. The model also contains the product Σα2H×Σβ2H, which was introduced to reflect cohesive hydrogen-bonding interactions in the solid state. Meylan and Howard have reported results for regression analyses on large data sets for log S (W. M. Meylan, P. H. Howard, Estimating log P with atom/fragments and water solubility with log P, Perspect. Drug Discov. Des. 19 (2000) 67–84). Their equation uses log Po/w and molecular weight (MW) as descriptors along with 15 correction factors, fi, with various sub-rules to modify the results mostly for the presence of specific functional groups. The equation was developed using experimental log Po/w data; however, computed values for log Po/w can be used and for a set of 3000 compounds, the method yielded r2=0.84 and rms=0.90. Jorgensen and Duffy computed a few physically significant descriptors (W. L. Jorgensen, E. M. Duffy, Prediction of Drug Solubility from Monte Carlo Simulations, Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 10 (2000) 1155–1158) for 150 organic molecules including about 70 drugs by performing a Monte Carlo (MC) statistical mechanics simulation for each solute in water. Eleven descriptors were averaged, most notably the average solute-water Coulomb and van der Waals (ESXL) interaction energies, volume, solven accessible surface area (SASA) and its hydrophobic, hydrophilic and aromatic components, and the hydrogen-bond counts, HBDN and HBAC. The regression equation (equation 4) has five terms and yields r2=0.88, q2=0.87, and rms=0.72.log S=0.32ESXL+0.65HBAC+2.19#amine−1.76#nitro−162HBAC•HBDN1/2/SASA+1.18  (4)A number of product terms were explored to describe the cohesive interactions in the solid state and the one represented in equation 4 is the most significant.
Recursive Partitioning. There is an example in the literature (Xia X, Maliski E, Cheetham J, Poppe L., Solubility prediction by recursive partitioning. Pharm Res. 2003 October; 20(10):1634–40) where a solubility model was built using a recursive partitioning decision tree classification with a training set of 1992 compounds. The model is based on a series of calculated topologic and physical properties of the molecule of interest. The predictive ability of the decision tree was evaluated on a test set of 2851 compounds. The compounds were classified into soluble and insoluble. An experimental test of the prediction showed that the successful selection rate improved from 25% to 50% as compared with the use of a simple cLogP cutoff.
Neural Networks. There are a number of works in the literature, which use computational neural networks to predict solubility (J. Huuskonen, M. Salo, J. Taskinen, Aqueous Solubility Prediction of Drugs Based on Molecular Topology and Neural Network Modeling, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 38 (1998) 450–456; J. Huuskonen, Estimation of Aqueous Solubility for a Diverse Set of Organic Compounds Based on Molecular Topology, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 40 (2000) 773–777; J. M. Sutter, P. C. Jurs, Prediction of Aqueous Solubility for a Diverse Set of Heteroatom-Containing Organic Compounds Using a Quantitative Structure-Property Relationship. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 36 (1996) 100–7; B. E. Mitchell, P. C. Jurs, Prediction of aqueous solubility of organic compounds from molecular structure. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 38 (1998) 489–496; N. R. McElroy, P. C. Jurs, Prediction of Aqueous Solubility of Heteroatom-Containing Organic Compounds from Molecular Structure. J Chem Inf Comput Sci. 2001 September–October; 41(5):1237–47). The NN approach has its advantages and disadvantages, an often the predictive ability of the NN is not better than that of MLR. Huuskonen (J. Huuskonen, Estimation of Aqueous Solubility for a Diverse Set of Organic Compounds Based on Molecular Topology, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 40 (2000) 773–777) developed MLR and NN models using 884 diverse organic molecules and drugs for training with the Hall and Kier descriptors (L. H. Hall, L. B. Kier, Electrotopological State Indices for Atom Types: A Novel Combination of Electronic, Topological, and Valence State Information, J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 35 (1995) 1039–1045). For a test set of 413 molecules, the results were r2 (rms) values of 0.88 (0.71) and 0.92 (0.60) for the two models.
A good review of solubility prediction methods can be found in reference (Jorgensen W L, Duffy E M., Prediction of drug solubility from structure. Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2002 Mar. 31; 54(3):355–66).
A fairly comprehensive review of water solubility prediction methods is presented in reference (Eros D, Keri G, Kovesdi I, Szantai-Kis C, Meszaros G, Orfi L., Mini Rev Med Chem. 2004 February; 4(2):167–77. Comparison of predictive ability of water solubility QSPR models generated by MLR, PLS and ANN methods). The authors have selected 1381 compounds from scientific publications in a unified database and used this dataset in the calculations. The models were based on calculated descriptors only. Multiple linear regression analysis (MLR), partial least squares method (PLS) and artificial neural network (ANN) models were developed. Standard error of prediction of the best model generated with ANN (with 39-7-1 network structure) was 0.72 in log S units while the cross validated squared correlation coefficient (Q(2)) was better than 0.85.

Method of prediction of solubility of chemical compounds


Techniques for virtualized workflow processing are presented. A processing state of workflow within a first processing environment is imaged and configured for a second processing environment. The image is received in the second processing environment where it is authenticated and initiated within the second processing environment as a virtual machine.

Workflow and business processes are critical to the daily operations of most enterprises. In fact, enterprises have increasingly attempted to automate their daily operations in an effort to streamline expenses and reduce product or service time to market. These operations are often referred to as tasks associated with a workflow. Each task has a number of inter-task dependencies, such that a particular task may require that other tasks be completed before that particular task can be addressed. A product or service release may entail traversing many tasks within an enterprise before the product or service is actually released.
One problem associated with workflow processing is that it is often static in nature. In other words, when a workflow or set of tasks are being monitored, the users that can assist in handling the tasks are predetermined and known in advance. So, if a particular user is offline when a workflow begins processing then that user may not be considered as a candidate to assist in tasks of the resource should the user subsequently come on line and be available. This is can be a significant issue in dynamic and chaotic environments, where users log in to and out of their enterprise's systems with increasing regularity. Thus, the true nature of the enterprise's environment is not capable of being properly reflected and handled with traditional workflow processing.
Another problem associated with workflow processing is security. Intruders are becoming more and more adept at feigning the appearance of legitimate users in order to penetrate and comprise enterprise systems. As a result, enterprises have instituted a variety of security measures. Many workflow related security issues stem from the fact that an enterprise is diverse and includes operations over a large network. The various components of the workflow may have to interoperate across diverse environments; this flexibility also, unfortunately, presents many security challenges to ensure an intruder has not penetrated the workflow. Because of this, many enterprises have elected to keep workflow processing limited to a defined environment from which security can be more closely monitored and controlled. However, this limits the usefulness and desirability of workflow processing for many enterprises.
Still another problem occurs when a workflow spans multiple processing environments. Often to achieve interoperability, each processing environment needs to manage and maintain the software and data configuration used by a particular workflow system. This can create support and maintenance problems and can prevent some environments from being capable of participating in a workflow. Moreover, unless the workflow system itself is distributed, interoperability may not be practically achieved even with the best of integration plans.
Thus, what are needed are techniques, which allow for improved workflow processing.

Imaged-based method for transport and authentication of virtualized workflows


The purpose of the present invention is to provide a fibrous piezoelectric element which enables a large electric signal to be drawn out by stress produced by relatively small deformation. A piezoelectric element includes a braid composed of a conductive fiber and a piezoelectric fiber. In the braid, the conductive fiber is a core, and the piezoelectric fiber is a covering fiber that covers the periphery of the conductive fiber.

Recent years have seen a drastic increase in input devices employing touch panel systems, i.e. "touch input devices". With the development of thin display technology for bank ATMs and station ticket-vending machines, as well as cellular phones, portable gaming devices, portable music players and the like, there has been a massive increase in devices employing touch panel systems as the input interface.
Recently, for cellular phones and smartphones, many systems are being used with touch input devices installed on display devices that employ liquid crystals or organic electroluminescence, allowing direct input on the screen. To further increase the convenience of portable devices such as smartphones, which are undergoing constant advancements, it is preferred to have multiple touch input means instead of only a device for input onto the screen.
For example, when it is attempted to execute input with the finger on the display screen of a smartphone, the smartphone is held with one hand while input is executed with fingers of the other hand, thus requiring manipulation using both hands. However, if a touch sensor or the like is incorporated into the smartphone housing, the advantage of being operable with one hand is provided.
One example of this is disclosed in PTL 1, as a system whereby a touch sensor or the like is incorporated into a section of the housing at a non-display-screen portion, such as the back of the display screen that is not normally used as a sensor, and screen data items or anchor points are selected by the sensor. Input devices that implement touch sensors such as in PTL 1 include electrostatic capacitive systems, resistance film-type systems, optical systems, electromagnetic induction systems and systems using piezoelectric sheets.
An example of a system using a piezoelectric sheet is disclosed in PTL 2. A piezoelectric sheet system differs from the touch sensors of electrostatic capacitive systems or resistance film systems, in that the single element can simultaneously detect both pressure applied to the sensor and positional information, thus allowing diverse types of input information to be provided. Moreover, PTL 2 discloses an example of using the piezoelectric polymer polylactic acid, as a specific example of a piezoelectric sheet member.
A piezoelectric sheet comprising polylactic acid, as disclosed in PTL 2, is an excellent element that can be flexibilized and that can simultaneously detect positional information and stress with the single element, but in order to obtain sufficient electrical output it is necessary to warp the piezoelectric sheet to some extent by the stress during input. A piezoelectric sheet comprising polylactic acid generates electrical output by shearing stress applied to the sheet, but sufficient electrical output cannot be obtained by tension or compression. In order to obtain large electrical output, therefore, it is necessary to warp the sheet by pressing force from the direction perpendicular to the plane of the piezoelectric sheet. For example, considering that the piezoelectric sheet is laminated on or integrated with the housing on the back side of the smartphone, it is spatially difficult to warp the sheet by pressing force applied to the sheet in the direction perpendicular to the sheet, and it has been a goal to generate sufficient electrical output simply by rubbing the surface of the piezoelectric element. In addition, the housing surface of a smartphone or the like is not always a flat plane and may include numerous three-dimensional irregularities in its shape for reasons of design maintenance, and it has been desirable for the piezoelectric elements used in it to be flexible.
Also, PTL 3 discloses a piezoelectric fiber technology in which a piezoelectric polymer is oriented by adding twists. The piezoelectric fibers described in PTL 3 yield electrical output through tension or compression of the fibers, by having the fibers pre-twisted via special production methods. However, PTL 3 discloses absolutely no technology for generating and extracting sufficient electrical output in response to shearing stress by rubbing of fiber surfaces. Thus, it is extremely difficult to incorporate such a piezoelectric fiber element into a smartphone housing or the like, and extract sufficient electrical output by relatively small amounts of applied stress such as rubbing the surface with a finger or the like.
It is generally known that polylactic acid fibers oriented by uniaxial stretching produce virtually no polarization in response to stretching or compression stress in the direction of the stretching axis or the direction perpendicular to it, and therefore yield essentially no electrical output by the relatively small applied stress generated by rubbing the fiber surfaces with a finger. On the other hand, it is known that application of force in a direction that is neither parallel nor perpendicular to the stretching axis of the polylactic acid piezoelectric fibers, i.e. shearing stress, produces polarization, thereby exhibiting the function as a piezoelectric body.
PTL 4 discloses a fiber-like piezoelectric element that allows electrical output to be extracted from the relatively small applied stress of rubbing the surface with a finger or the like. In PTL 4, carbon fiber is used as the conductive fiber for the constituent element of the fiber-like piezoelectric element. However, when this fiber-like piezoelectric element is applied for purposes requiring repeated durability, because carbon fiber has weak flexural rigidity, the fiber will gradually break making it impossible to obtain quantitative piezoelectricity, and potentially causing the piezoelectric property to gradually decrease. In addition, when it is attempted to obtain height or shape information of an object to be measured using a braided piezoelectric element as the contact probe, the carbon fiber breaks and the tip becomes sharper, and the characteristic rigidity of the carbon fiber can potentially damage the surface of the object to be measured.
Moreover, there has been increasing interest in recent years for "wearable sensors", which have made their debut as products in the form of eyeglasses or wristwatches. However, such devices produce the sensation of being worn, and are more desirably in the form of fabrics, i.e. clothing, which are the ultimate wearable form. Piezoelectric elements using the piezoelectric effect of piezoelectric fibers are known as such types of sensors. For example, PTL 4 discloses a piezoelectric element comprising two conductive fibers and one piezoelectric fiber, with points of contact between them, while including a piezoelectric unit disposed on essentially the same plane. Also, PTL 3 discloses a piezoelectric material which is a fiber-like or molded article made of a piezoelectric polymer wherein, in order to generate piezoelectricity by tensile force applied in the axial direction, the construction includes added twists in a direction different from the direction of the tensile force that is to be applied.
On the other hand, recent years have seen a drastic increase in input devices employing touch panel systems, i.e. "touch input devices". With the development of thin display technology for bank ATMs and station ticket-vending machines, as well as smartphones, cellular phones, portable gaming devices, portable music players and the like, there has been a massive increase in devices employing touch panel systems as the input interface. As means for realizing such touch panel systems there are known systems using piezoelectric sheets or piezoelectric fibers. For example, PTL 2 discloses a touch panel employing a piezoelectric sheet made of L-polylactic acid having a stretching axis oriented in a prescribed direction.
In such wearable sensors or touch panel system sensors, it is desirable to extract a high electrical signal even for small amounts of stress produced in the piezoelectric material by small deformation applied to the piezoelectric material. For example, it is desirable to stably extract a high electrical signal even for relatively small amounts of stress produced in the piezoelectric material by movement of stretching out the finger, or the action of rubbing the surface with the finger.
The piezoelectric fiber of PTL 4 is an excellent material that can be applied for various purposes, but it cannot always output a high electrical signal in response to stress produced by relatively small amounts of deformation, nor does this publication disclose technology for obtaining a high electrical signal.
The piezoelectric fibers described in PTL 3 can output an electrical signal in response to tension or compression on the piezoelectric fibers, by having the piezoelectric fibers pre-twisted via special production methods. However, PTL 3 does not disclose any technology for producing an adequate electrical signal in response to bending or stretching of the piezoelectric fibers, or shearing stress due to rubbing of the surfaces of the piezoelectric fibers. Therefore, when such piezoelectric fibers are used, it is difficult to extract a sufficient electrical signal simply by stress produced by relatively small amounts of deformation such as rubbing of the surface.
The piezoelectric sheet of PTL 2 can output an electrical signal by deformation (stress) of the piezoelectric sheet. However, because it is still in a sheet form, it has poor flexibility and cannot be used to allow free bending in the manner of a fabric.
Moreover, the piezoelectric element described in PTL 4 has bare conductive fibers serving as the signal wire, and therefore in order to suppress noise signals it is necessary to construct a separate noise shielding structure. Therefore, the piezoelectric element described in PTL 4 still has room for improvement toward its implementation.
Wearable sensors that have piezoelectric elements mounted in fabrics from which they extract signals have also been disclosed (PTLs 5 and 6). However, because they require a separate structure on the surface of a woven or knitted fabric, they are poorly suited for free form surfaces and have poor touch sensation, while also lacking practicality due to problems of manageability, workability and processability. In addition, a fabric structure formed of a piezoelectric material and a conducting material in the form of a film also exists (PTL 7), but it likewise has poor suitability to free form surfaces and poor touch sensation, and lacks practicality due to problems of manageability, workability and processability.
There has also been proposed a fabric sensor composed entirely of fibers, which detects resistance between conductive fibers (PTL 8), but this detects pressure on the fabric without directly detecting shape deformation.
PTL 4 discloses a piezoelectric element including a piezoelectric unit comprising two conductive fibers and one piezoelectric fiber, disposed on essentially the same plane while having points of contact between them, and a technique for arranging multiple piezoelectric units in parallel on the plane. However, it nowhere suggests higher functions based on selective responses to electrical signals for stress at specific locations or in specific directions, or compositing with piezoelectric units in the thickness direction of the element, and therefore further improvements in this technology have been a topic of interest.
Another issue has been the output of unintended signals during direct contact with the human body or contact with electrified objects.

Piezoelectric element and device using same


An organic/inorganic composite is provided. The organic/inorganic composite comprises a silicon (Si) substrate formed with nanorods or nanoholes and three-dimensional networks of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) grown horizontally in parallel and suspended between the adjacent nanorods or inside the nanoholes. In the organic/inorganic composite, metal catalysts can be uniformly formed on the nanorods or inside the nanoholes, irrespective of the height of the nanorods or the depth of the nanoholes and the shape and aspect ratio of the nanorods or nanoholes. In addition, the carbon nanotubes grow in a three-dimensional network structure directly over the entire surface of the nanorods or the whole inner surface of the nanoholes and are directly connected to the base electrodes. With this configuration, the three-dimensional carbon nanotube networks are highly dense per unit volume, and the organic/inorganic composite is highly electrically conductive and has a large surface area. Therefore, the use of the organic/inorganic composite enables the fabrication of an electronic device with greatly improved efficiency. Further provided are a method for preparing the organic/inorganic composite and an electronic device fabricated using the organic/inorganic composite.

Carbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon that is one of the most abundant elements on the earth. Carbon nanotubes are tubular structures in which carbon atoms are coupled to each other in a hexagonal honeycomb pattern and have an extremely small diameter in the nanometer range. Such carbon nanotubes exhibit characteristics of metals or semiconductors depending on their diameter and rolled-up shape. Carbon nanotubes are currently being investigated to overcome the limited mechanical and electrical properties of existing materials.
Particularly, single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) bridges suspended between two electrodes or templates or three-dimensional networks thereof can find direct applications in a variety of electronic devices, including field emission displays (FEDs), nanotube interconnectors and nanosensors, due to their excellent electrical properties, such as high current density and ballistic conductance. In view of these advantages, various methods for forming single-walled carbon nanotube bridges and three-dimensional networks thereof have hitherto been proposed.
It is generally known in the art that carbon nanotube networks can be synthesized by selectively forming metal catalyst particles on desired sites of the surface of a silicon (Si) or silica (SiO2) substrate and growing carbon nanotubes in a two- or three-dimensional network on the metal catalyst particles.
Jung et al reported a method for forming single-walled carbon nanotube networks on a silicon or silica substrate patterned with nanoscale pillars by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using methane as a carbon source (J. Phys. Chem. B 2003, 107, 6859-6864). However, there is a difficulty in directly applying the method to the fabrication of an electronic device because the silica substrate is made of non-conductive silica. A metal catalyst used is rendered inactive when the silicon substrate is used, leading to a marked decrease in the density of the networks. The vapor deposition technique, by which Fe or Co as the metal catalyst is deposited on the pillars to form thin films, involves two processing steps of inclining the patterned substrate right and left to deposit the metal catalyst on the upper and side surfaces of the nanoscale pillars, inevitably resulting in poor processing efficiency. Further, a high aspect ratio of the pillars makes it difficult for the catalyst to be uniformly deposited on the lower end portions of the pillars, thus leading to a low density of the carbon nanotubes.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,189,430 discloses a method for forming carbon nanotube networks without involving any additional catalyst deposition step. According to this method, oxide template structures are covered with a gold (Au) masking material and a mixture of xylene as a carbon source and ferrocene as a catalyst is directly used. However, the use of the masking material brings about a reduction in processing efficiency, and continuous supply of iron (Fe) present in the ferrocene increases the Fe concentration of the carbon nanotubes, eventually resulting in a decrease in the purity of the carbon nanotubes.
On the other hand, a technique is known in which catalyst particles are formed on nanoscale pillars by dipping and then carbon nanotube networks are formed using the catalyst particles. However, this technique has a problem in that the catalyst particles may aggregate or a large amount of the catalyst particles may be separated off from the pillars during subsequent cleaning, resulting in a decrease in the density of the carbon nanotube networks.

Organic/inorganic composite comprising three-dimensional carbon nanotube networks, method for preparing the organic/inorganic composite and electronic device using the organic/inorganic composite

IUCF-HYU (INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY COOPERATION FOUNDATION HANYANG UNIVERSITY)


In power-on, high-vehicle-speed and high-torque conditions, a control unit sets a torque allotment ratio such that a main clutch bears all the torque. Thereby, the input shaft rotational speed is increased by controlling solely the main clutch releasing pressure. In power-on and low-torque or low-vehicle-speed conditions, the control unit sets a torque allotment ratio for the main clutch torque and the sub-clutch torque to 1:1. Thereby, control of the main clutch releasing pressure and control of the sub-clutch engaging pressure simultaneously proceed in parallel to produce a change in the input shaft rotational speed without a time lag. The hydraulic control apparatus thus conducts proper downshift control for a shift involving clutch engagement changeover, under all vehicle running conditions, without need for additional control logic.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hydraulic control system for an automatic transmission and, more particularly, to hydraulic control of a so-called clutch-to-clutch (engagement changeover) shift that changes speeds by engaging one frictional engagement element and releasing another frictional engagement element, especially, a clutch-to-clutch downshift.
2. Description of the Related Art
In normal running vehicle operation changes between a power-on condition where the accelerator pedal is depressed so that drive force is transmitted from the engine to the wheels, and a power-off condition where the accelerator pedal is released so that no drive force is transmitted from the engine to the wheels. Operation will also change between a high-vehicle-speed and high-torque running condition and a low-vehicle-speed and low-torque running condition. The automatic transmission of the vehicle is controlled to shift in accordance with these various running conditions. The shifts required of the automatic transmission include, for example, a power-on downshift, that is, a downshift in response to depression of the accelerator pedal as in kick-down, and a power-off upshift, that is, an upshift in response to release of the accelerator pedal.
Japanese examined patent application publication No. HEI-6-33817 discloses a hydraulic control method for the aforementioned clutch-to-clutch (engagement changeover) shift. This method determines that a frictional engagement element engaged in the shift has reached post-shift input-output rotational synchronism upon detection that its input-output rotational speed ratio has reached approximately 1.0. For a power-on downshift or a power-on upshift, the hydraulic control method maintains the operating pressure supply to the post-shift speed frictional engagement element at a pressure slightly lower than the engagement starting pressure, during a period from the start of the shift until input-output rotational synchronism is determined. Upon detecting the input-output rotational synchronism, the operating pressure is raised to a predetermined engaging pressure, thereby precisely engaging the post-shift clutch without a time lag.
The above-described conventional hydraulic control method effects a power-on downshift by releasing the pre-shift frictional engagement element to allow the engine speed to rise, and maintaining the engaging pressure at a low level until the input and output rotational speeds of the post-shift frictional engagement element become synchronous, and engaging the post-shift frictional engagement element after the input-output synchronization. However, although this control is effective at high vehicle speeds, because the engine speed rises rapidly (the rotational speed change is large), the control may fail to timely complete engagement of the post-shift frictional engagement element at low vehicle speed or low torque because the rotational speed change is small, giving an unpleasant sensation to the driver.
Theoretically, it is also possible to simultaneously control the engaging fluid pressure and the releasing fluid pressure independently of each other, while the vehicle is at a low speed. However, this method would also require separate control logics and, as a consequence, an increased memory capacity. Moreover, the aforementioned conventional hydraulic control requires a separate control logic for a power-off downshift instructed by, for example, a manual downshift operation, and therefore also requires additional memory capacity.

Hydraulic control system using a torque allotment ratio to determine engagement pressures for an engaging and a disengaging frictional element during a shift in an automatic transmission


In the manufacture of a trench-gate semiconductor device, for example a MOSFET or an IGBT, a starting semiconductor body (10) has two top layers (13, 15) provided for forming the source and body regions. Gate material (11xe2x80x2) is provided in a trench (20) with a trench etchant mask (51, FIG. 2) still present so that the gate material (11xe2x80x2) forms a protruding step (30) from the adjacent surface (10a) of the semiconductor body, and a side wall spacer (32) is then formed in the step (30) to replace the mask (51). The source region (13) is formed self-aligned with the protruding trench-gate structure with a lateral extent determined by the spacer (32, FIG. 5), and the gate (11) is then provided with an insulating overlayer (18, FIG. 6). Forming the sidewall spacer (32) when the protruding trench-gate structure has a well-defined edge provided by the gate material (11xe2x80x2) allows better definition of the source region (13) compared with a prior-art process in which the gate insulating overlayer is provided in the trench before causing the trench-gate structure to have the protruding step for the sidewall spacer.

This invention relates to methods of manufacturing a trench-gate semiconductor device, for example an insulated-gate field-effect power transistor (commonly termed a xe2x80x9cMOSFETxe2x80x9d) or an insulated-gate bipolar transistor (commonly termed an xe2x80x9cIGBTxe2x80x9d). The invention also relates to semiconductor devices manufactured by such a method.
Such trench-gate semiconductor devices are known having source and drain regions of a first conductivity type separated by a channel-accommodating body region of the opposite second conductivity type. An advantageous method of manufacture is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,655 (our reference PHB 33836), in which the formation of the source region is self-aligned with the trench (termed xe2x80x9cgroovexe2x80x9d) which comprises the gate. This self-alignment is achieved by the disclosed and taught method summarised as follows. A trench is etched through a window in a mask on a semiconductor body. After removing the mask, gate material is provided in the trench and then an upper portion of the gate material is oxidised to form a trench-gate structure which has an insulating cap on the gate. The insulating cap is then caused to form a step which protrudes from the adjacent semiconductor surface. A layer is then provided over the surface structure and then etched to leave a side wall spacer in the trench-gate step. The spacer is then used to define the source region which is thus formed to be self-aligned to the trench-gate structure.
The whole contents of U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,655 are hereby incorporated herein as reference material. By using such techniques as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,655, the number of photolithographic masking steps which require separate alignment can be reduced and compact cellular device structures can be formed.
Trench-gate semiconductor devices are also known in which the channel-accommodating body region is of the same, first conductivity type as the source and drain regions. In this case, the conductive channel is formed by charge-carrier accumulation by means of the trench-gate. Similar considerations arise with respect to the doping of the regions and the etching of the trench, as in the more usual device in which the channel-accommodating region is of the opposite, second conductivity type.
It is an aim of the present invention to modify the manufacture of trench-gate semiconductor devices so as to permit the use of a side wall spacer at the trench-gate structure for self-aligned formation of the source region while providing a simpler process with better definition of the source region.
According to the present invention there is provided a method of manufacture in which gate material is provided in a trench with a trench etchant mask still present so that the gate material forms a protruding step from the adjacent surface of the semiconductor body, a side wall spacer is formed in the step to replace the mask and the source region is formed with a lateral extent determined by the spacer, and then the gate is provided with an insulating overlayer.
The method as set out in claim 1 includes quite different steps (a) to (g) from the method steps of U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,655. In particular the side wall spacer is formed in the step in the trench gate structure at a stage before providing the gate with an insulating overlayer. The advantage is that the trench-gate structure at this early stage has a better defined edge provided by the gate material than the edge provided later by the oxidised gate insulating cap in the method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,655. As a result the lateral extent of the source region is better defined and so is the area over which the source electrode contacts the source region and the channel-accommodating body region.
Various preferred features in accordance with the invention are set out in claims 2 to 9. In one preferred feature formation of the side wall spacer may be achieved by removing the mask, then covering the protruding step of the gate material and the adjacent semiconductor body surface and then etching the covering material to leave the spacer. In another preferred feature, after formation of the source region, a dielectric cover may be provided beside the spacer to the top of the spacer, selective etching of the gate material leaves a gate top surface below the top of the spacer, the gate insulating overlayer is provided on the gate top surface and then the dielectric cover is removed. Alternatively, when the gate material is silicon, the insulating overlayer may be provided by oxidising an upper part of the gate material. In a preferred such oxidation method for forming the insulating overlayer, where the semiconductor body is monocrystalline silicon, the spacer is silicon dioxide and the gate material is doped polycrystalline silicon, different rates of oxidation produce thin and thick oxide layers respectively in the mono- and poly-crystalline silicon and the thin oxide layer is then removed to leave some of the thick oxide layer as the gate insulating overlayer. In another preferred feature three doped layers are initially provided in a starting semiconductor body with the source region and the channel-accommodating body region to be formed from the top two layers. After formation of the side wall spacer, the source region may be formed by etching through the top layer except where masked by the spacer and the layer underneath may be partly etched to provide a side surface of the body region also under the spacer.

Manufacture of trench-gate semiconductor devices