A polishing apparatus is provided which improves uniformity across the surface of a polished wafer. The apparatus includes a wafer carrier, a guide ring coupled to a lower portion of the wafer carrier, a circular plate coupled to a first inner circumference portion of the guide ring distant from the wafer carrier, and a cavity, formed within an area bounded by the lower portion of the wafer carrier, an inner circumference of the circular plate, and a second inner circumference portion of the guide ring between the circular plate and the lower portion of the wafer carrier, the circular plate holding the wafer to be polished in the cavity.

Semiconductor fabrication commonly requires polishing of a wafer. Machines for preparing and fabricating semiconductor wafers are known in the art. Wafer preparation includes slicing semiconductor crystals into thin sheets, and polishing the sliced wafers to free them of surface irregularities to achieve a planar surface. Typically, it is necessary for the formation of various circuits or for other uses of wafers, that the active or front face, e.g., the face of the wafer on which the integrated circuitry is to be formed, be highly polished.
In general, the polishing is accomplished in at least two steps. The first step is a rough polishing or abrasion. This step may be performed by an abrasive slurry lapping process in which a wafer mounted on a rotating carrier is brought into contact with a rotating polishing pad upon which is sprayed a slurry of insoluble abrasive particles suspended in a liquid. Material is removed from the wafer by the mechanical buffing action of the slurry. The second step is fine polishing. The fine polishing step is performed in a similar manner to the abrasion step, however, a slurry containing less abrasive particles is used. Alternatively, a polishing pad made of a less abrasive material may be used. The fine polishing step often includes a chemical mechanical polishing ("CMP") process. CMP is a combination of mechanical and chemical abrasion, and may be performed with an acidic or basic slurry. Material is removed from the wafer due to both the mechanical buffing and the action of the acid or base. Such polishing is also important during the manufacturing of semiconductor devices in order to planarize various thin film layers formed on the surface of a semiconductor wafer. The thin film may, for example, be an interlayer insulating film formed between two metal layers, a metal layer, or an organic layer.
Usually, polishing apparatuses bring the face of the wafer to be polished into engagement with a treating surface, such as the polishing surface of a rotating polishing pad having a desired polishing material, e.g., a slurry of colloida silica, applied thereto. In many instances, the polishing head which holds the wafer with the face exposed also rotates. It is the movement between the wafer and the polishing pad which results in the desired polishing. In some instances, polishing is provided primarily to make one face flat, or parallel to another face.
A polishing apparatus is shown in FIG. 1. A wafer 10 is held in a wafer carrier 20 by a guide ring 30. Optionally, a backing film 40 can be inserted between the wafer 10 and the carrier 20. The backing film 40 in combination with the guide ring 30 minimizes vertical movement of the wafer 10 during polishing. Without the backing film 40, the wafer 10 can freely move in the vertical direction during polishing. A backing film 40 or insert pad has been used in the wafer carrier 20 to keep the wafer 10 in contact with the surface of the polishing pad 50 to improve polished wafer surface uniformity.
The polishing pad 50 is affixed to a polishing table 60. In FIG. 1, the polishing table 60 is rotatable about its central axis 65. Wafer carrier 20 is also rotatable about its central axis 25, which except for a limited oscillating motion relative to the polishing table 60, is fixed relative to the central axis 65 of the polishing table 60. In operation, the polishing table 60 rotates at a first predetermined speed about its central axis 65, thereby presenting a continuously advancing polishing surface, i.e., polishing pad 50, to the layer being planarized. While wafer carrier 20 rotates at a second predetermined speed about its central axis 25, the wafer 10 is polished along an annular polishing area of the polishing table 60.
The polishing process is conducted by placing the wafer 10 within the cavity formed in the wafer carrier 20 by the backing film 40 and guide ring 30 so that wafer 10 contacts the polishing pad 50. During polishing, polishing pad 50 is supplied with an aqueous slurry 70 via supply nozzle 80, while the polishing table 60 rotates about its central axis 65. The materials of the polishing table 60, wafer carrier 20 and slurry 70 should be non-contaminating and, except for polishing action, non-destructive to the wafer 10 being polished.
At the inner portion of the wafer 10, apart from the edge of the wafer 10, the surface being polished is in continuous contact with the polishing pad 50. Therefore, the pressure applied by the polishing pad 50 across the inner portion of the wafer 10 is nearly constant. In contrast, the edge of wafer 10 constitutes a border between the area where the wafer 10 is in contact with the polishing pad 50 and the area where it is not in contact. Thus, at the outer portion of the wafer 10 including the edge, there is an irregularity of pressure applied during polishing. This results in nonuniform removal of the material from the wafer. Consequently, a portion of the surface of the wafer 10 may become overpolished or underpolished. When a backing film 40 is not used with the wafer carrier 20, the irregularity in the polished surface is relatively small since the wafer 10 can move freely during polishing. However, when a backing film 40 is used as shown in FIG. 1, the wafer 10 is fixed and the irregularity in the polished surface is more substantial. Thus, a backing film enhances surface uniformity at least with respect to all portions of the wafer, but for the edge. Uniformity between the edge and inner portion of a wafer is better served by not using a backing film.
Overpolishing causes the material being polished to become thinner which can adversely affect the performance and reliability of the semiconductor devices on the wafer. If a portion of the wafer is underpolished, the underpolished layer of material will likely be insufficiently planarized or remain too thick. Thus, subsequent electrical contact processing may not completely provide sufficient contact or sufficient insulation resulting in the formation of undesirable electrical open circuits or undesirable short circuit paths.


An apparatus for supporting development of a graphic data driven program includes a data driven mechanism enabling instructions of the data driven program to be executed whenever all input data necessary for executing the instructions is available. The apparatus includes a terminal device for inputting and displaying a graphic data driven program, an input transforming section for transforming the inputted graphic data driven program into an intermediate file by referring to an instruction information data base, a wiring table transforming section for transforming the inputted graphic data driven program into a wiring table of instructions expressed in text which is independent of a target machine by referring to the intermediate file, a compile section for transforming the wiring table into an instruction template described with a language depending on the target machine, an instruction execution section for executing the instruction template, an instruction execution displaying section for displaying results of executing the instruction template superposed on the displayed graphic data driven program, and an instruction information tracing section for comparing actual results of executing the instruction template stored in a traced information file with correct results of executing the instruction template stored in a correct data base.

The present invention relates to a method for supporting development of graphic data driven programs and an apparatus for realizing the same, and more particularly to a method for inputting graphic images or patterns, transforming instructions into respective executable instruction templates, executing and tracing instructions and displaying trace results, as well as an apparatus for realizing the same in the design of data driven programs expressed by graphic description.
As an example of methods for testing a program designed by using graphic description at the detailed design level of the program, there is known a method using a structure chart, as described, e.g., in JP-A-62-61130. Although the method using this structure chart is suitable for describing a control flow of instructions, it is not suitable for expressing parallel description of a data flow, dependence relations of modules in the program, a control flow, etc. For this reason, when it is tried to model the program by the structure chart, it is necessary to define clearly interfaces between different modules used within the program by using variables and further to describe execution processes sequentially without errors. In addition, documents other than the structure chart are necessary for describing the relation between different modules and the data flow.
On the other hand, when the program is modeled by using data driven computation (data flow), the control flow and the data flow exist simultaneously and since the control flow and the data flow can be described graphically, this method is better than the structure chart from the point of view of the visual recognition. Heretofore, as described e.g., in the Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Communication Engineers of Japan, Vol. 68, No. 7, July 1985, pp. 773-778 (in Japanese), in order to facilitate the input of a data driven program in a computer, it is usual to use a language in text expression on the basis of the single assignment rule. However, by the text expression it is difficult to visually recognize the program, and the graphic expression, which is one of the features of the data driven program, can not be efficiently used. Further, although a graphically described language has been proposed by some authors, it is necessary by this method to input directly a program in graphic form at the detailed design level and to provide easily in a simple manner a function of debugging directly the program described in graphic form.
Still further, in U.S. Ser. No. 386,198 filed on Jul. 28, 1989, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,129,046, a technique has been proposed by which a source list of a wiring table (described later) expressed in text is transformed inversely into a data driven program described in graphic form.

Apparatus for supporting graphic data driven program development and for displaying instruction execution results superimposed on the graphic program


Spring steel tapes are shaped with tape edge sections extending alongside a central tape section having a constant thickness, so that the thickness of the tape edge sections diminishes from the central section to the edges. Such tapes are combined in tape packages to form guide rails for tentering clamps, whereby a continuous contact between tentering clamp guide rollers and the guide rails is assured.

German Patent Publication DE-PS 2,558,765 (Gageur), published on Mar. 24, 1977, discloses a tentering frame for the continuous treatment of web type sheet material. Two guide rails carrying tentering clamps are provided in positions alongside the edges of the web or sheet material to be stretched. Each guide rail comprises individual spring steel tapes arranged on edge so that the tapes extend with their width perpendicularly to the plane of the material being treated. The tapes are clamped together to form the guide rails for the tentering clamps. The tentering clamps are equipped with pairs of guide rollers for the horizontal guiding and with support rollers for the vertical support and guiding.
Ideally, the guide rails should guide the tentering clamps, or rather the rollers carrying the tentering clamps without play. However, in conventional guide rails substantial play may be caused by various factors, such as manufacturing tolerances in the tentering clamps, varying on-center spacings between the vertically oriented axes of the guide rollers, manufacturing tolerances in the thickness of the rolled spring steel tapes and other unavoidable influences. As a result, such play may occur between the guide rollers and the guide rail. Such play has the disadvantage that the guide rollers of the tentering clamps do not always contact the guide rail as they travel along the guide rail, whereby these rollers do not rotate constantly. This does not apply to the upper support rollers which, due to gravity, remain in contact with the respective guide rail.
Depending on the loading and guiding of the tentering clamps during the film stretching operation, either a first set of guide rollers or a second set of guide rollers or guide roller pairs come into contact with the guide rail in alternating fashion. This means that the rotation of the guide rollers may stop after the guide rollers lift off the respective guide rail. Thus, when contact is again established between the guide rollers and the guide rail the rotation of the guide rollers must be accelerated in a very short time to the travel speed of the tentering chain carrying the tentering clamps or rather accelerated to the circumferential velocity of the rollers which rotate in response to the just mentioned travel speed.
Such repeated accelerations and decelerations cause dynamic load changes in or on the tentering chain and on the guide rollers with disadvantageous effects on both especially with regard to an increased wear and tear. The just mentioned dynamic load changes may in a most disadvantageous situation cause the guide rollers to perform sliding motions on the guide rails rather than rolling motions, whereby the outer guide roller surface ring and the respective outer tape of the guide rail are subjected to even greater wear and tear. Depending on the internal friction of the guide roller bearing and of the sealing system of the guide roller bearing damages can occur due to grinding contacts between elements moving relative to each other. Such damage is especially effective on the outer ring surface of the guide roller. Further, damaged guide rollers tend to mechanically damage and impose increased wear on the outer spring steel tapes while simultaneously wearing down the outer guide roller rings. Even before these mechanical damages occur, the guide roller bearing is exposed to heat generated by friction due to the repeated acceleration and deceleration causing the above-mentioned sliding movements. Such friction heat occurs in addition to the relatively high temperatures in the heating zone of the tentering machine.
German Patent Publication DE 195 15 036 A1 (Lindner et al.), published on Oct. 31, 1996, discloses guide rails for tentering clamps of a tentering machine in which an improved guiding of the tentering clamps is achieved, thereby increasing the functional operability and the useful life of the tentering machine. In the Lindner et al. disclosure the spacing between the horizontal guide surfaces of the guide rail and the spacing between the vertical guide surfaces of the guide rail are maintained variable in limited ranges. In other words, the horizontal guide rail thickness and the vertical guide rail width are variable in these limited ranges. For this purpose at least one biasing and/or damping device is provided, whereby at least one of the just mentioned guide surfaces are maintained in a variable position and/or are supported by a damping device. Independently of the construction of the guide rail as a compact single piece or as a combination of differently constructed guide rail elements, the integration of the above-mentioned position variable biasing and/or damping devices into the guide rail involves a complicated structure. As a result, relatively high manufacturing and assembly expenses are involved.

Spring steel tape tentering clamp guide rail with such tape


An improved front panel assembly is capable of being used with an electronic equipment rack. The improved front panel assembly includes a cover, an attachment subassembly configured to attach the cover to the electronic equipment rack, and a metallic EMI shield. The cover includes (i) a central portion configured to separate an external space in front of the electronic equipment rack and an internal space within the electronic equipment rack, and (ii) side portions which extend around a periphery of the metallic EMI shield. The side portions are configured to elevate and support the central portion from the metallic EMI shield. The central portion and the side portions define a top slot which extends horizontally along a top outer edge of the central portion and a bottom slot which extends horizontally along a bottom outer edge of the central portion.

Some conventional data storage systems are designed to mount to electronic equipment racks. One conventional rack mount data storage system includes a rack mount chassis, storage circuitry and a front panel. The rack mount chassis mounts to vertical rails of an electronic equipment rack and resides within an interior space defined by that rack. The storage circuitry (e.g., an array of disk drives, processing circuitry configured to perform data storage operations, etc.) sits within the chassis. The front panel then secures to the rack or to the front of the chassis to enable frontal access to the data storage system.
Typically, the front panels of rack mount data storage systems have standard heights which are measured in Rack Units. A Rack Unit (U) is 1.75 inches and typically covers the distance of several mounting holes along the vertical rails at the front of the rack. It is common for a conventional 19-inch data storage system chassis to have a height in whole U-increments within the range of 3 U's to 6 U's.
For a manufacturer of rack mount data storage systems having distinguished looking patterns on front panels in the range of 3 U's to 6 U's in height, it can be difficult to scale down the patterns for a front panel which is less than 3 U's to 6 U's in height in an effort to preserve the distinguished look for a cohesive appearance to a line of products (e.g., a similar looking panel for a smaller-sized system or subsystem). This is because the front panel needs to provide adequate space for particular useful features such as air ducts, LED visibility, posts for rigidly supporting an electromagnetic interference (EMI) shield, buttons for detaching the front panel, and a keyhole for locking the front panel to the rack. As the height of the front panel shrinks (e.g., such as when a manufacture attempts to make a front panel which is similar looking to a larger existing front panel), these features tend to crowd toward each other and compete for space which ultimately may prevent the manufacturer from providing a front panel which preserves the distinguished look.

Electronic system having space-efficient front panel assembly


An artificial larynx consists of (1) a first unit mounted in the mouth comprising a dental prosthesis, including a loud speaker, a power amplifier, a self-contained power source, plus a radio frequency receiver, and (2) a second unit held in the hand equipped with an input control device, self-contained power source, electronic circuitry and transmitter allowing the user to alter the frequency and volume produced by the unit in the mouth. The construction and components of the unit allows laryngectomees to speak with both a natural sound and a high degree of intelligibility. The unit preferably includes a system architecture including operational software which implements predetermined control of a fundamental repetition rate of voice pulses provided by the unit, to control the tonal quality of the sound, to include aspiration noise in the sound, to include pseudorandom variation of the fundamental repetition rate of the tonal pulse, includes diplophonic structure in such pulse and is able to simulate whispering.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of sound-producing prosthetic devices for use by laryngectomized patients and more particularly to the reproduction by electronic-type artificial larynxes of natural sounding voice tones.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
It is frequently necessary to remove the larynx, or so-called voice box, by surgical procedures due to malignant growths in the larynx itself or adjacent tissues. With removal of the larynx and its component vocal cords, access of the trachea to air is necessary and a hole, or stoma, is, therefore, formed in the neck and the trachea is sewn directly to the tissues surrounding such stoma. Thereafter, the patient breaths through the stoma bypassing the upper respiratory track, including the mouth. Since the larynx normally reproduces voice tones or sounds by vibration of its membranes or vocal cords as air passes between these membranes while they are held in a tensed condition, a laryngectomy patient has no further ability to produce natural voice tones. In addition, no air can pass from the larynx through the mouth to be formed into various articulated speech tones, or even whispered speech, which does not normally require the use of a voice tone. Consequently, no speech whatsoever is possible for a laryngectomy patient, except so-called esophageal speech, which relies upon air passed from the stomach in a sort of belch after swallowing air. Such esophageal derived air can be formed into words, lacking, however, the normal voice tone, although vibration of the esophagus does produce a somewhat different tone, rather akin to belching. Such esophageal tone can be articulated into words by the lips, tongue and teeth. Esophageal speech is difficult and time consuming, both to learn and to practice, as well as difficult for others to understand without considerable experience and interpretation. Consequently, various artificial tone-producing devices have been developed in the past to provide a voice tone for articulation by the lips, tongue and teeth into speech either prior to a patient being able to learn esophageal speech or as a complete substitute for esophageal speech in public communication.
A large number of devices for producing artificial voice tones which can be shaped by a post laryngectomy patient into recognizable speech have been produced in the past. Such devices are generally referred to as artificial larynxes. For example, one of the very early artificial larynxes is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,901,433 issued Mar. 14, 1933 to G. W. Burchett. The artificial voice tone of Burchett was produced by a hand-held electrical tone generator which conducted the tone through a tube into the mouth of the laryngectomy patient where it could by movement of the mouth structures, be formed into at least somewhat intelligible voice sounds. The pitch of the sound could be controlled by means of a button on the tone generator. The Burchett device, like many later devices, suffered from poor reproducibility of voice sounds and was objectionable because of its high visibility, which visibility distracted others from trying to understand what was being said and embarrassed the user. Several more sophisticated devices of the same nature were developed by the Bell Telephone Laboratories and disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,041,487 and 2,056,295 in 1936 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,202,467 in 1940 to Riesz.
In 1942 the use of a receiver held in the mouth to produce a potential voice tone was disclosed by G. M. Wright in U.S. Pat. No. 2,273,077. The receiver was connected to an external amplifier by an electrical wire. The Wright device also could use a tone transmitting tube and was used primarily for reproducing unusual voice tones, for example, in broadcasting and motion pictures, by persons having normal speech apparatus.
In 1942 G. M. Wright also patented one of the first artificial larynxes to apply voice tones against the throat in U.S. Pat. No. 2,273,078. Since that time, the Wright device and adaptations thereof have become one of the prime artificial larynxes in use. The Wright device included high and low frequency transducers to apply tones through the skin. Many of these devices have been hand held, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,072,745 to H. L. Barny assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories. Barney controlled the pitch of the tone produced by use of a rheostat over a spectrum said to approach natural speech tones.
In 1958, H. K. Cooper patented the use of a dental prosthesis or denture to contain an emitter or speaker, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,862,209. Cooper formed artificial voice tones in his emitter at one side of the denture and conducted such tones through one or more resonating passages in the denture, at least one of which opened to a wider resonant chamber. It was disclosed by Cooper that higher frequency sound would tend to follow the narrower passage while lower frequencies would tend to follow the wider passage or resonating chamber. Conductors extended from the denture in the mouth to an energy source or controller carried in the user's pocket. The use of an electroacoustical transducer mounted in a denture with energy to operate such transducer being supplied through a wire leading into the mouth was also discussed by Barney, mentioned above, in his application filed in 1959 and issued as a patent in 1963.
Also in 1963, the use of a mouth controlled switch for an artificial larynx was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,084,221 to H. K. Cooper et al. This was followed in 1970 by U.S. Pat. No. 3,508,000 to C. M. Snyder who housed pressure transducers and the like in the mouth in artificial tooth structures.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,524,932, issued also in 1970 to F. F. Stucki and assigned to Lockheed Aircraft, disclosed the use of a number of transducers in the mouth for activation by the mouth structures during speech movements of the mouth parts. Small transmitters may be used to conduct these signals from the mouth to a receiver.
The use of rather sophisticated pitch and wave forms having the characteristics of a damped sinusoid closely approximating, it is said, the wave forms of normal speech, including numerous harmonics, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,914,550 issued Oct. 21, 1975 to G. I. Cardwell.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,905 issued in 1984 to Katz et al. as well as several subsequent patents also assigned to Thomas Jefferson University disclose the use of sophisticated self-contained intraoral artificial larynxes or larynges comprising a power source, on-off controls, low power circuitry with acoustic and electrical amplifiers and small loud speakers. Switches for control of the voice tones provided by the devices are controlled by the tongue of the user. A similar device is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,292 issued in 1987 to W. L. Torgeson. Both these devices can produce sound which, after passing through the vocal tract of the user, is understandable and significantly better than possible with previously available devices. While both devices, therefore, are improvements over the previous state-of-the-art, both suffer from the fact that the speech sound produced, while largely understandable, does not have a natural sound and is therefore, frequently both an embarrassment to the speaker as well as to the one spoken to.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,571,739 issued in 1986 to J. A. Resnick discloses the provision of an artificial larynx in which the individual self-contained elements are contained not in the base of a denture, but in artificial teeth attached to such denture thus allegedly providing additional room permitting larger elements and better sound reproduction or articulation. Switches for the unit are positioned upon the backs of preferably the front teeth on the unit or those of the user him or herself. The speech sounds produced, however, still leave much to be desired.
There has been and continues to be, therefore, a need for an unobtrusive artificial larynx which can produce more natural sounding speech tones, the use of which can be learned quickly and easily and which can produce reproducible speech sounds more reliably and easily.
The sound of the human voice starts with a so-called glottal pulse formed as the larynx opens and closes releasing a puff of air. This puff of air can be described in physical terms as the number of cubic centimeters of air passing through the open larynx as a function of time, or the volume velocity as a function of time. Various Fourier components of the volume velocity contribute to the resulting sound wave which is eventually radiated from the mouth and nose. The glottal pulse sound wave is shaped by the vocal tract formed by the mouth, tongue, lips, teeth and nasal tract. This process is described in the book Speech Analysis and Perception, Flanagan, J. L. (1972) (Springer, New York) and more recently, in the article by Dennis and Laura Klatt entitled "Analysis, synthesis and perception of voice quality variations among female and male talkers" which appeared in the "Journal of the Acoustical Society of America" in February 1990, pages 820-857. To create natural sounding speech, therefore, an artificial larynx should produce a glottal pulse which duplicates the elements of the natural glottal pulse which contribute to the formation of audible sound.
The second element which contributes to natural sounding speech is the ability of the speaker to start and stop the glottal pulsing under his own control. The control of starting and stopping of sounds is as important to intelligible speech as is the continuation of the sounds. This starting and stopping of speech can occur at rates as fast as five times per second or 200 milliseconds per start/stop cycle. Therefore, the second requirement in producing natural speech sounds is to provide a means whereby the user of the artificial larynx can start and stop the sounds up to five times per second.
In addition to being able to initiate vibration of the larynx to form a voice tone, a natural speaker is able to alter the constriction of or the tension in the larynx to change the frequency of the basic repetition of the glottal pulse. The vibratory opening and closing can range for a human male from 75 to 250 times per second in normal speech. Typical male repetition rates are about 125 times per second. Human females typically have a normal frequency almost twice as high. If one takes singing into account, the range of vibratory frequencies is even wider. Therefore, the third requirement for producing natural speech is to provide a means by which the user of the artificial larynx can change the frequency of vibration in a range typically between 75 and 250 cycles per second for a male and from 150 to 500 cycles per second for a female.
A third element of natural speech is the inclusion of the fricative sounds caused by air rushing past a closing or almost closed constriction in the vocal tract. For example, the "s" sound is produced by placing the tongue behind the teeth and forcing air past the closure producing high frequency random noise. The "f" sound is produced by forcing air past a constriction formed by the lips. It has been observed that although laryngectomees do not breath through their mouths, they can collect air in the mouth and throat cavity and expel it by muscle contraction. This limited source of air flow is sufficient for forming fricative sounds in speech and has not been included in the current model of the artificial larynx. Further studies are under way to see if the inclusion of an artificial fricative makes learning to use the larynx easier or more difficult.
A fourth element of natural speech is the ability to change loudness and create emphasis on various tones. Changing the loudness of the speech sound realistically requires changing the frequency structure of the sound as well as increasing the absolute level of the original sound, i.e., it is more involved than merely linearly changing the sound level as would occur if one turned up the volume control knob on a radio. Accordingly, it would be desirable for an artificial larynx to incorporate a means for rapidly and independently changing the loudness and tonal quality of the sound in a realistic sounding manner.
A fifth element of natural speech is the ability to change tonal quality. Tonal quality is related to the ability to differentiate between the harmonic content of two sounds produced at the same fundamental frequency. Some speakers sound mellow and others sound shrill even though the fundamental frequency of the tones is the same. This difference in sound is due to differences in the harmonic content of the tones.
A sixth element of natural sounding speech is the inclusion of random noise in the higher frequency regions of speech sound production. This aspiration noise is different from the formation of fricatives in that the constriction is formed at the larynx itself and not a separate place in the vocal tract, and it accompanies normal vowel production. Accordingly, it would be desirable for an artificial larynx to include means for producing random noise such as aspiration noise.
A seventh element of natural speech is the slight random variation of the basic repetition rate of the fundamental tones. Studies have indicated that pseudorandom variation of tones as much as 0.5% of frequency accompanies natural speech and the inclusion of this random frequency variation reduces the "mechanical" nature of speech produced by an artificial larynx.
An eighth element of natural speech is the occasional absence of pulses as a speaker talks at lower volume or lower frequency, typically at the ending of phrases or sentences. Often every second pulse is absent or reduced in amplitude. This effect is called diplophonia. A natural sounding voice, therefore, should include a means of duplicating, under user control, some diplophonic sounds.
A ninth element of importance in human speech is the ability to whisper. Although this mode of speaking is different in many respects from normal speech, it still presents an important mode of speech which can assume some importance to the speaker.
Although the foregoing elements of natural speech have been long understood, none of the above cited prior references address these important issues As indicated above, therefore, there has been a need for an artificial larynx that will provide more natural sounding speech. More particularly, there has been a need for an artificial larynx that both addresses and solves all or at least most of these problems in a commercially acceptable manner which allows the creation of an artificial larynx capable of producing natural speech for the first time.


According to the present invention, a common reference signal is transmitted in a subframe configured to receive the common reference signal and/or a fixed subframe predefined to receive the common reference signal, from among a plurality of subframes within a frame. In the present invention, the common reference signal is transmitted in every subframe within a legacy frame duration. However, the common reference signal is transmitted in said configured subframe and/or said fixed subframe within a frame duration which is not a legacy frame duration.

In a wireless communication system, a user equipment (UE) may receive data and/or various control information from a base station (BS) through downlink (DL) and transmit data and/or various control information to the BS through uplink (UL). In order to communicate with a BS, a UE needs to establish synchronization with the BS. To this end, a UE, which is turned on from a power-off state or newly enters a cell which is a geographic region served by a BS, performs initial cell search accompanying operation such as synchronization establishment with the BS. Upon completion of initial cell search, the UE may receive data and/or control information through a physical downlink channel and transmit data and/or control information through a physical uplink channel.
Due to various reasons including cell search, maintenance of time synchronization after synchronization between a UE and a BS, and correction of a frequency offset, a wireless communication system discussed up to now defines transmission/reception of various mandatory signals on designated radio resources.
The types and number of these mandatory signals have increased with the advance of the wireless communication system. Since signals other than the mandatory signals cannot be allocated to radio resources to which the mandatory signals are allocated, the mandatory signals increasing in accordance with the advance of the wireless communication system hinder the degree of freedom of scheduling of the wireless communication system and also restricts introduction of more efficient communication technology for the wireless communication system.

Method and user equipment for receiving reference signals, and method and base station for transmitting reference signals


Techniques to send GSM CBS messages over a CDMA air interface. The encapsulation of a GSM CBS message in CDMA messages may be achieved using various schemes. An indication is provided at each of a number of pertinent layers to allow the terminals to determine whether a GSM CBS message or a CDMA broadcast SMS message was sent. These indications include (1) a value in a designated field or subfield of a Data Burst Message, (2) a new value for a Category field in a Service Category parameter of an SMS Broadcast Message, and (3) a new value for a Msg_Encoding field in a User Data subparameter of the SMS Deliver Message.

I. Field
The present invention relates generally to data communication, and more specifically to techniques for sending GSM cell broadcast SMS messages in CDMA communication systems.
II. Background
Short Message Service (SMS) is a service that supports the exchange of SMS or short messages between terminals (e.g., cellular phones) and a wireless communication system. These short messages may be point-to-point messages intended for specific terminals or broadcast messages intended for multiple terminals.
SMS may be implemented by various types of wireless communication systems, two of which are code division multiple access (CDMA) systems and time division multiple access (TDMA) systems. A CDMA system may be designed to implement one or more standards such as IS-2000, W-CDMA, IS-95, and so on. A TDMA system may also be designed to implement one or more standards such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). A CDMA system that implements IS-2000 is often referred to as a cdma2000 system.
A network typically refers to a deployment of a system. A CDMA network utilizes a CDMA air interface (e.g., IS-2000, W-CDMA, or IS-95), and a GSM network utilizes a GSM air interface. A network typically further implements a particular mobile networking protocol that allows for roaming and advanced services, with ANSI-41 being commonly used for CDMA networks (except for W-CDMA) and GSM Mobile Application Part (GSM-MAP) being used for GSM and W-CDMA networks. A GSM1x network utilizes a CDMA air interface and implements GSM-MAP, and may be considered as both a CDMA network and a GSM-MAP network.
SMS is network technology dependent, and two SMS implementations have been defined for ANSI-41 and GSM-MAP. Each SMS implementation has different capabilities and utilizes different message types and formats for sending SMS messages. A communication network normally supports either of the two SMS implementations, depending on the underlying network technology. The SMS implementation for ANSI-41 networks is described in TIA/EIA-637-B, entitled "Short Message Service for Wideband Spread Spectrum Systems." The SMS implementation for GSM-MAP networks is described in documents 3GPP TS 23.038 and TS 23.040. GSM point-to-point (PP) SMS procedures for the terminals are described in GSM 03.40 and 04.11, and GSM cell broadcast SMS procedures for the terminals are described in GSM 03.41 and 04.12. These documents are publicly available and incorporated herein by reference. For simplicity, the SMS implementation for GSM-MAP is referred to as GSM SMS, and the SMS implementation for ANSI-41 is referred to as CDMA SMS.
Although CDMA and GSM are quite different in design, an interworking and interoperability function (IIF) has been defined to allow for communication between these two different types of networks. The result is that improved coverage and performance may be attained for users of the networks. Through the IIF, a GSM mobile user may roam into the coverage area of a CDMA network and can continue to receive service, and vice versa.
A GSM-MAP network may be designed to provide Cell Broadcast SMS (CBS) service. This service periodically broadcast GSM CBS messages to terminals within designated geographic areas. The GSM CBS messages can carry various types of information such as road traffic information, weather information, and so on. Each GSM CBS message includes one or more CBS pages, and each CBS page includes various fields for various attributes of the message. These fields may be used to filter the messages, so that the users can selectively receive only desired messages and filter out undesired ones.
For GSM1x networks and CDMA ANSI-41 networks that interwork with GSM-MAP networks, it is desirable to send GSM CBS messages to terminals over the CDMA air interface. This would then allow the terminals to receive CBS service. However, because the implementations for CDMA SMS and GSM SMS are different, the GSM CBS message and the broadcast message in CDMA SMS have different formats.
There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to send GSM CBS messages in CDMA communication systems.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

GSM cell broadcast SMS message transmission in CDMA communication systems


This invention allows for easy field-customization of mainstream and exotic electronic musical instruments, in isolation or in support of the easy creation of aggregated instruments. The invention further facilitates entirely new manufacturing, marketing, and sales paradigms permitting a broad range of open industry development and commerce, thus making an individual musician's creation of new exotic instrument arrangements an economically viable sector for both mass manufacturing and the niche cottage industry. New opportunities are provided for the creation of multiple-vendor standardizations, multiple-vendor manufacturing, multiple-vendor competitive features, etc. while offering the music equipment user and music industry as a whole access to an extensive range of instrument customization, diversification, and education. The principles of the invention thus create a rich environment for instrument, user, feature, music, and market.

This present invention relates generally to musical instruments, and in particular to the design, application, and use of modular structures in creating customized and aggregated musical instruments. Currently, customization of musical instruments has been a specialized, limited, and expensive affair, and the formation of particular aggregations of musical instruments into a common "aggregated" musical instrument has not yet been perfected.

Modular structures for interchangeable musical instrument neck arrangements


Systems and methods are provided for a multimedia storage and transfer. The system includes a first data storage device in a first vehicle, a wireless transceiver configured to communicate with a second data storage device in a second vehicle, and a controller coupled to the wireless transceiver and first data storage device. The first data storage device has an embedded database configured to store multimedia files. The embedded database has a list of multimedia file content. The controller is configured to remove the list of multimedia file content from the first data storage device and transfer the list of multimedia file content to the second data storage device via the wireless transceiver.

Vehicle operators tend to spend a significant amount of time in their vehicles particularly when commuting from a home to a workplace, running errands, conducting business, vacationing, or for many other reasons. This time is significant enough that some vehicles come equipped with a variety of consumer electronics such as compact disc (CD) players, cassette tape players, radios, satellite radios, electronic gaming, and digital video disc (DVD) players. Some owners may also choose to equip their vehicle with aftermarket consumer electronics in the event their vehicles lack such consumer electronics or for purposes of customization. These and other entertainment or infotainment electronic devices provide a passenger in the vehicle with time-occupying options and may improve the passenger's quality of time.
Consumer electronics such as CD players, cassette tape players, DVD players, and electronic gaming generally have related media content for playback residing on a localized storage medium. For example, many on-board navigation systems utilize geographic information stored on CDs. This information may be downloaded to a memory specifically associated with the navigation system, located in the vehicle, or directly accessed from the CD by the navigation system. In another example, CD players commonly play media that is stored on CD. Most of these playback devices can accept a limited number of storage media during operation and thereby generally have a relatively limited capacity of media selection. For example, a CD player with a six-disc CD changer has a selection of music tracks that are limited to any six CDs contained in the CD changer.
With multimedia that is stored on various mediums, such as CD or DVD, digital rights management (DRM) has become prominent. For example, many performances that are recorded onto CDs are copyright protected. Additionally, access to such recordings may be limited to certain types of playback devices in an attempt to prevent unauthorized duplication of the recordings. For example, some CDs may be limited to playback on a conventional stand-alone CD player having a read-only operation but not on a CD drive found to accompany personal computers where unauthorized duplication may occur.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an infotainment system for a vehicle that stores a variety of multimedia files on an embedded storage device. Because of the time investment involved in loading the storage device with desired content, it is desirable to provide a vehicle data storage and transfer system having stored multimedia files that may be transferred to another vehicle while preserving DRM protected content. Finally, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.

System and method for vehicle-to-vehicle migration of multimedia content


A positioning guide for aiding connection of a fifth wheel towed vehicle to a towing vehicle, where the fifth wheel towed vehicle has a pin box assembly. A mirror is secured to a cover for the pin box assembly, the mirror being located at an orientation so that it is visible from the towing vehicle when the cover is attached to the pin box assembly. The mirror may be convex and located in a cowl forming part of a cover.

This invention relates to fifth wheel towed vehicles, and in particular to a positioning guide for aiding connection of the fifth wheel towed vehicle to a towing vehicle.
Fifth wheel towed vehicles, such as trailers or recreational vehicles, have been used extensively for years. Not only are fifth wheel towed vehicles easier to tow than a conventional trailer, they tend to be more stable and provide an enhanced amount of interior space for the users.
Fifth wheel towed vehicles employ a pin box assembly for attaching the towed vehicle to a towing vehicle. Examples of pin box assemblies are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,897,086 and 6,986,524.
One of the problems encountered when connecting a fifth wheel towed vehicle to a towing vehicle is simply aligning of the two vehicles for their connection. Usually, two people are involved, one backing the towing vehicle while the second person guides the first person as the connection is effected. When only one person is available, however, that becomes problematical.
Alignment devices have been developed for aiding attachment of a towed vehicle to a towing vehicle. Mirrors are employed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,180,182 and 5,482,310 for aligning a pulled trailer to a towing vehicle. Published United State Patent Application No. 2007/0075522 discloses locating a reflector on the front portion of a fifth wheel towed vehicle.

Positioning guide for aiding connection of a fifth wheel towed vehicle


A data processing apparatus and method generate an initial estimate of a result value that would be produced by performing a reciprocal operation on an input value. The input value and the result value are either fixed point values or floating point values. The data processing apparatus comprises processing logic for executing instructions to perform data processing operations on data, and a lookup table referenced by the processing logic during generation of the initial estimate of the result value. The processing logic is responsive to an estimate instruction to reference the lookup table to generate, dependent on a modified input value that is within a predetermined range of values, a table output value. For a particular modified input value, the same table output value is generated irrespective of whether the input value is a fixed point value or a floating point value. The initial estimate of the result value is then derivable from the table output value. This provides a particularly efficient technique for performing the initial estimate generation within a data processing apparatus where the reciprocal operation may be performed on either fixed point values or floating point values.

There are a number of data processing applications where it is often required to perform reciprocal operations, a reciprocal operation being an operation of the form 1/Fn(d), where d is the input value. Two such reciprocal operations that are often required involve computing the reciprocal of the input value, i.e. 1/d, or the reciprocal square root of the input value, i.e. 1/√{right arrow over (d)}. These particular two reciprocal operations are often used, for example, in graphics processing applications.
Dedicated hardware may be developed to perform such reciprocal operations but typically it is desirable to keep the data processing apparatus as small as possible, and to re-use hardware logic wherever possible.
A known technique for determining the results of complex functions such as reciprocal and reciprocal square root functions, which does not require dedicated hardware, employs iterative execution of a computation in order to converge on the result value. One particular such iterative process is commonly referred to as the Newton-Raphson method. In accordance with the Newton-Raphson method, an initial estimate of the result value is made, and then a refinement step is iteratively executed in order to converge on the actual result value.
The Motorola AltiVec technology uses such a Newton-Raphson refinement technique for evaluating reciprocal and reciprocal square root functions. Another example of a data processing apparatus which employs the Newton-Raphson refinement technique for calculating reciprocals and reciprocal square roots is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,115,733. In both of these systems, an initial estimate generator is used to determine, based on the input value, an initial estimate of a result value for the reciprocal operation. Typically, a lookup table is used for determining this initial estimate, a different lookup table being provided for each type of reciprocal operation supported.
The quality of the initial estimate is essential to fast execution of a reciprocal operation, and the size of the initial estimate value defines the number of iteration steps required to reach a specified precision.
In some data processing apparatus, the data processing apparatus is required to handle both fixed point data values and floating point data values. A fixed point data value is one where a binary point is implied to exist at a predetermined point within the data value. For example, a 16.16 fixed point format assumes that a 32-bit value has 16 bits prior to the binary point and 16 bits after the binary point. An integer value is a particular instance of a fixed point value in which the binary point is considered to exist immediately to the right of the least significant bit.
A floating point data value considered to be in a "normal" range can be expressed as follows:±1.x*2y
where:                x=fraction        1.x=significand (also known as the mantissa)        y=exponentA floating point data value in the defined subnormal range can be expressed as follows:±0.x*2min
where:                x=fraction        0.x=significand (also known as the mantissa)        min=−126 for single precision values and −1022 for double precision values
If the performance of reciprocal operations were to be supported for both floating point data values and fixed point data values, then it would be considered necessary to provide separate estimator logic for each data format, along with associated separate lookup tables for each data format.
However, in a data processing apparatus, it is typically desired to keep the size of the data processing apparatus as small as possible, and in particular to enable efficient use of the logic provided within the data processing apparatus. Accordingly, with regard to the generation of an initial estimate for a reciprocal operation, it would be desirable to provide a data processing apparatus which was able to implement the required estimate generation logic in an efficient manner, whilst also supporting determination of initial estimates for both floating point and fixed point data values.

Data processing apparatus and method for determining an initial estimate of a result value of a reciprocal operation


A method of controlling two arms of a robot including: a finding-out step of finding out position differences in axial directions of an end of one arm and an end of the other arm; a generating step of generating a virtual force at the end of the other arm based on the position differences that have been found out; and a converting step of converting the generated virtual force into a driving torque for joints of the other arm, using a Jacobian matrix.

(a) Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a method for controlling two arms of a robot that can easily make the two arms level when controlling a wearable robot with the two arms lifting a weight.
(b) Background Art
Wearable muscle force assistive robots are provided for a wearer to lift or move objects while wearing the robot in industrial fields.
When lifting a weight with two arms in accordance with an intention of a wearer, a muscle force assistive wearable robot can help lift the weight because a force is transmitted from the wearer to the robot and the transmitted force is amplified through the robot.
The present disclosure relates to an algorithm for controlling a muscle force assistive wearable robot such that upper arms simultaneously and stably move when lifting a weight. The present disclosure is very useful particularly when lifting an object that is relatively heavy, such that horizontality needs to be maintained.
When existing muscle force assistive wearable robots lift a heavy weight with two arms, the arms simultaneously move by reflecting an intention of a wearer to the arms, respectively.
When lifting a heavy weight with two arms of the robot while keeping the arms level, a wearer has to keep the arms level by separately moving the arms, so that the wearer feels a large amount of fatigue.
Further, the balance of the robots may be rapidly broken, when a heavy weight is inclined to a side. The present disclosure enables synchronizing two arms even in this case such that the heavy weight does not incline to a side, and can therefore be considered as being very useful in the industrial fields.
KR10-2008-0079590 A in the related art has proposed a "friction compensation method, a friction compensator, and a motor control device" in which an actual locator 21 estimates the actual position of a moving object in response to a location signal and generates an actual position signal, a differentiator 22 finds a velocity signal by differentiating the actual position signal, an integrator 24 generates a displacement signal at a position where the moving object changes the movement direction by integrating the velocity signal, an absolute value calculator 25 finds the absolute value, a frictional property estimator 26 finds a rate of change of a friction force or friction torque to the displacement, a multiplier 27 finds a rate of change to time by multiplying the rate of change to the displacement by the velocity signal, and an integrator 28 estimates the friction force or the friction torque by integrating the rate of change to time.
However, there has not been proposed a way of synchronizing two arms lifting a heavy weight, so that a control method that can control even this situation is required in the art.
The description provided above as related art of the present disclosure is just for helping understand the background of the present disclosure and should not be construed as being included in the related art known by those skilled in the art.
(Patent Document 1) KR-10-2008-0079590 A

Method for controlling two arms of a robot


A cooling module for a vehicle may include a radiator with a first header tank receiving coolant, a second header tank at a predetermined distance from the first header tank to exhaust coolant, and a plurality of tubes that connects the first header tank with the second header tank, and a radiating fin is formed therebetween and at a front side of a vehicle, a water cooled condenser that receives refrigerant through a refrigerant pipe in the second header tank formed by laminating a plurality of plates, which condenses refrigerant by exchanging heat with cooled coolant flowing the second header tank, and an air-cooled condenser connected to the water cooled condenser through the refrigerant pipe, receives first-condensed refrigerant from the water cooled condenser, and is disposed at a front side of the radiator to further condense the refrigerant by exchanging heat with outside air.

Field of Invention
The present invention is related to a cooling module for a vehicle. More particularly, the present invention relates to a cooling module for a vehicle having a water cooled condenser that is disposed in a header tank of a radiator cooling coolant by exchanging heat with outside air, and an air cooled condenser that is disposed at a front side of the radiator.
Description of Related Art
Generally, an air conditioning unit for a vehicle maintains suitable cabin temperature regardless of ambient temperature and realizes a comfortable indoor environment.
Such an air conditioning unit includes a compressor compressing a refrigerant, a condenser condensing and liquefying the refrigerant compressed by the compressor, an expansion valve quickly expanding the refrigerant condensed and liquefied by the condenser, and an evaporator evaporating the refrigerant expanded by the expansion valve such that cooling air is supplied to the cabin in which the air conditioning unit is installed by using evaporation latent heat.
However, when a coolant condenser is applied to condense the refrigerant in a conventional air conditioning system as described above, the coolant is cooled by the condenser and the refrigerant temperature of the outlet of the condenser is increased, and therefore there is a problem that the power consumption is increased.
Also, because heat capacity of the coolant condenser is larger than that of an air cooled condenser, the condensing pressure is reduced, and because a temperature difference between the coolant and the refrigerant is small and the coolant temperature is higher compared with ambient air, it is hard to realize subcooling and therefore there is a drawback that overall cooling performance is deteriorated.
A large capacity cooling fan and radiator are necessary so as to prevent this, so the layout becomes disadvantageous in a narrow engine compartment and there is a drawback that overall weight and cost are increased.
Also, a coolant condenser that is disposed in a narrow engine compartment is to be disposed at a rear side of a fender or an engine compartment and it is hard to secure a space, and therefore the layout and the piping thereof are complicated, the assembly and mounting characteristics are deteriorated, the performance is deteriorated by the heat of the engine compartment, and the flow resistance of the coolant is increased to increase the power consumption of the compressor.
Further, in an environmentally friendly vehicle having a motor, an electric power component, and a stack, the coolant cools the constituent elements and then is supplied to the condenser and the temperature thereof is increased, and therefore there is a problem that the condensing capacity of the coolant is deteriorated.
The information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.


A collimating sheet, for use with a backlit display and the like, that includes a substrate, a plurality of microlenses on the output side of the substrate, a specularly reflective layer on the side of the substrate opposite the microlenses, and a plurality of apertures in the reflective layer in direct correspondence to the microlenses of the lens array. The specularly reflective layer can be relatively thinner than a diffuse reflective layer, which allows light to pass through the more readily. One or more layers of dielectric can be placed on top of one or more reflective material layers to further improves overall reflectivity. Apertures are preferably made in the light-absorptive and reflective layers with a laser ablation process wherein laser light illuminates the output side of the film. The laser light is brought to a focus by the lenslets of the lens array onto the light-absorptive layer, which then ablates a hole or aperture into the light-absorptive and reflective layer. In this way, the apertures are self-aligned with the lenslets.

Flat panel displays are now generally preferred over cathode ray tubes in a wide variety of applications, ranging from desktop and laptop computers to television screens. The perceived quality of an image reproduced by, say, a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) depends greatly on its ability to provide high brightness and contrast. Such displays commonly use a backlight arrangement, where a light-diffusing plate is placed between a light source and the liquid crystal panel. It is also common for one or more collimating film sheets to be placed on or near the light diffusing plate. The collimating films serve the purpose of increasing the brightness of the display, a most desirable characteristic.
One type of collimating film incorporates a linear array of prisms molded or cast onto one side of film substrate. Typically the prisms have an included angle of 90°, and by the processes of refraction and TIR (Total Internal Reflection) recycles the on-axis light, and redirects the off-axis, or oblique, light into an on-axis emission direction. Furthermore, this type of collimating film is relatively easy produce, as both the molding process and the mold-generation (i.e., tooling) processes are relatively simple. Lastly, because the TIR and refracting processes are lossless (i.e., non-absorptive), this type of collimating film tends to have high lumen efficiency. However, this prism-based collimating film has two significant drawbacks. Firstly, the emission profile of the collimated light is fairly broad, with half angles of the emission envelope on the order of ±30°, which is generally much wider than the ideal envelope width for most applications. Secondly, the shape of the emission envelope can not be tailored or modified to suit the desired shape for the intended backlight application. That is, because the geometry of the 90° prisms is fixed for maximized collimation, there are no free parameters of the geometry that can be adjusted to modify the shape of the envelope.
Another type of collimating film incorporates an array of microlenses on one side of a substrate, with a reflective surface on the other side in which holes or apertures have been placed in correspondence with the microlenses. The reflective surface is placed towards the backlight or light source, and light from the source either reflects from the reflective surface or passes through an aperture. Nominally when light passes through an aperture it then is refracted by the corresponding lenslet into a collimated direction. There are several benefits of this type of collimating film over the prism-based collimating film. Specifically, the width of the emission envelope can be much less than ±30°, down to ±5° or less. Furthermore, because the amount of light condensation occurring is greater due to the reduced emission angles, the resulting luminance of the backlight that uses a microlens-based collimating element can be substantially improved.
However, for all its benefits, the microlens-based collimating film has proven to be difficult to manufacture. Typically the pitch of the microlenses is on the order of 50 μm, and the width of the apertures is on the order of 15 μm, and the apertures have to be well-aligned, or centered, with the optical axis of the lenslets in order to function. It has been found that producing an aperture that is a few microns in diameter in a reflective layer is problematic, but then doing so while at the same time achieving alignment with a lenslet is extremely difficult, especially over large areas.
Nonetheless, one way to overcome at least some of these difficulties is with a photolithographic process. According to this multi-step process, as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,633,351, the usual photolithography steps of 1) applying a resist (to the side opposite the microlenses), 2) exposure (through the microlenses), 3) development of the exposed resist, 4) etching, 5) resist removal, and then finally 6) reflective film formation. Furthermore, steps 3, 4, and 5 involve wet processing, and consume both substantial time and materials to complete. Therefore, the resulting collimating film will be exceptionally expensive to produce, and the end product will be prohibitively expensive to incorporate into any cost-sensitive backlighting application.
For further information on these types of films and backlit display systems see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,453,876, 5,598,281, 5,870,224, 6,327,091, 6,421,103, 6,633,351, 6,697,042, and 6,876,408.

Method and apparatus for aperture sculpting in a microlens array film


A probe card capable of multi-probing includes a print circuit board having a plurality of contact portions and a test module having a plurality of test boards. Each of the test boards includes at least one probing portion on which a plurality of needles are arrayed. The test module selects one of the test boards and probes semiconductor chips formed on a semiconductor wafer through the needles arrayed on the probing portion of the selected test board.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a probe card for testing a semiconductor integrated circuit, and more particularly, to a probe card capable of multi-probing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a semiconductor device is fabricated through a series of processes such as a process for fabricating a semiconductor wafer, a process for forming a plurality of unit semiconductor chips on the semiconductor wafer, a process for electrically testing the semiconductor chips to determine whether the semiconductor chips are defective, a process for packaging the semiconductor chips, and a process for finally testing the packaged semiconductor chips. The electrical element test and electrical die-sorting test are performed to determine whether the semiconductor chips formed on the semiconductor wafer are electrically defective. In order to perform these tests, a test apparatus for determining whether a semiconductor chip formed on the semiconductor wafer is defective is used.
A typical test apparatus includes a tester for generating an electric signal and a probe card for transmitting the electric signal from the tester to a bonding pad formed on a semiconductor chip. A plurality of needles are installed on the probe card. The probe card transmits the electric signal generated by the tester to the semiconductor wafer or transmits the electric signal from the semiconductor wafer to the tester through the needle contacting the semiconductor wafer. The probe card may be classified as a single type probe card for probing the semiconductor chips formed on the semiconductor wafer one-by-one or a parallel type probe card (a multi-type probe card) for simultaneously probing multiple, e.g., four, eight, sixteen, semiconductor chips adjacent one another.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a single type probe card according to the related art.
Referring to FIG. 1, a single type probe card 10 includes a printed circuit board (PCB) 11. An array of contact portions 17 for electrically contacting a test pin of a tester is formed on the PCB 11. The PCB 11 has a probing part 15 formed through a central portion. A plurality of needles 13 electrically contacting the contact portions 17 by an internal wire (not shown) are arrayed on the probing portion 15. Since the single type probe card tests the semiconductor chips one-by-one, an accurate test can be realized. However, when testing a large number of semiconductor chips formed on the semiconductor wafer one at a time, a prolonged test time is required, thereby degrading the yield and productivity. In the case of the multi-type probe card, since it is possible to test many semiconductor chips at the same time, the test time can be reduced and the productivity can be improved. However, the test accuracy is not ensured. Furthermore, the probe cards of the related art are designed to probe predetermined type of semiconductor chips. Therefore, in order to probe other types of semiconductor chips, the current probe card must be replaced. This can be time consuming and inefficient.


Methods and apparatus are provided for decision-feedback equalization with global minimum convergence. A threshold position of one or more DFE latches employed by a decision-feedback equalizer is determined by obtaining a plurality of samples of a single-sided data eye using at least one decision latch and at least one roaming latch; comparing the samples obtained by the at least one decision latch and at least one roaming latch to identify an upper and lower voltage boundary of the single-sided data eye; and determining a threshold position of the one or more DFE latches based on the upper and lower voltage boundaries. The comparison can optionally comprise obtaining an exclusive or (XOR) of the samples obtained by the at least one decision latch and at least one roaming latch. The XOR comparison positions an opening for the single-sided data eye at a zero hit count.

Digital communication receivers must sample an analog waveform and then reliably detect the sampled data. Signals arriving at a receiver are typically corrupted by intersymbol interference (ISI), crosstalk, echo, and other noise. In order to compensate for such channel distortions, communication receivers often employ well-known equalization techniques. For example, zero equalization or decision-feedback equalization (DFE) techniques (or both) are often employed. Such equalization techniques are widely-used for removing intersymbol interference and to improve the noise margin. See, for example, R. Gitlin et al., Digital Communication Principles, (Plenum Press, 1992) and E. A. Lee and D. G. Messerschmitt, Digital Communications, (Kluwer Academic Press, 1988), each incorporated by reference herein. Generally, zero equalization techniques equalize the pre-cursors of the channel impulse response and decision-feedback equalization equalizes the post cursors of the channel impulse response.
In one typical DFE implementation, a received signal is sampled and compared to one or more thresholds to generate the detected data. A DFE correction is applied in a feedback fashion to produce a DFE corrected signal. The addition/subtraction, however, is considered to be a computationally expensive operation. Thus, a variation of the classical DFE technique, often referred to as Spatial DEE, eliminates the analog adder operation by sampling the received signal using two (or more) vertical slicers that are offset from the common mode voltage. The two slicers are positioned based on the results of a well-known Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm. One slicer is used for transitions from a binary value of 0 and the second slicer is used for transitions from a binary value of 1. The value of the previous detected bit is used to determine which slicer to use for detection of the current bit. For a more detailed discussion of Spatial DFE techniques, see, for example, Yang and Wu, "High-Performance Adaptive Decision Feedback Equalizer Based on Predictive Parallel Branch Slicer Scheme," IEEE Signal Processing Systems 2002, 121-26 (2002), incorporated by reference herein.
A communication channel typically exhibits a low pass effect on a transmitted signal. Conventional channel compensation techniques attempt to open the received data eye that has been band limited by the low pass channel response. Thus, the various frequency content of the signal will suffer different attenuation at the output of the channel. Generally, the higher frequency components of a transmitted signal are impaired more than the lower frequency components.
In many DFE applications, the Least Mean Square algorithm positions the vertical slicers by evaluating an error term for a known receive data stream. Such known receive data streams, however, are not always available. In addition, such techniques often converge to a local minimum, producing sub-optimal results. In some cases, such techniques can converge to he wrong adapted latch position values. A need exists for improved methods and apparatus for decision-feedback equalization with global minimum convergence. A further need exists for methods and apparatus that position one or more DFE latches using global minimum convergence and an evaluation of the incoming data eye.

Method and apparatus for decision-feedback equalization using single-sided eye with global minimum convergence


Computation efficiency of distributed secure implementation of the computation of a (sum of) products of values Vi, Wi from different servers on a distributed computing system is improved by generation of coefficients of a first and second polynomials P, Q by a first server. The first polynomial P has all numbers Xi from a first data set on the first server as roots. The second polynomial Q has values Q(Xi)=Vi for the numbers Xi from the first data set. The first server transmits coefficients of the polynomials to a second server in encrypted form. The second sever computes encrypted values <P(Xi′)> and <Q(Xi′)> of the polynomials for a number Xi′ in a second set from the encrypted coefficients. The second server computes an encrypted binary value <di> from the encrypted value <p(Xi′) of the first polynomial p and computes an encrypted value of a product <di Q(Xi′) Wi>.

FIG. 1 shows a basic example of a prior art distributed computation system, comprising a first and second data processor 10a, b coupled by a communication network 12 between the data processors 10a, b (preferably a communication network such as the Internet). The first and second data processor 10a, b may be part of distinct servers that communicate via the communication network 12. Each data processor 10a, b is coupled to an associated storage unit 14a,b, which stores a database. Storage unit 14a,b may be part of the servers. During a distributed computation, data processors 10a, b perform operations, each using data from its associated database, and exchange data via the communication network 12. More generally a distributed computation system comprises a plurality of separate computation units and communication channels between the separate computation units. Communication network 12 is an example of a communication channel between the devices, over which data used in the distributed computation is transmitted. Communication network 12 may be a wired network, a wireless (radio) network etc.
One advantage of a distributed computation systems is that it can be used to limit access to the databases in storage units 14a, b from the network 12. When a computation is requested that combines data from databases in the different storage units 14a, b, first and second data processor 10a, b are able to compute intermediate results using data from their associated databases locally and to encrypt data from the database, or such intermediate results before transmission via communication network 12. This makes it possible to perform "secure" computations, i.e. computations, such as a form of addition, multiplication or comparison of operands, wherein no device that performs (part of) the computation needs to access unencrypted values of the operands. When a homomorphic encryption scheme is used, first and second data processor 10a, b can perform computations with data from each other without needing the ability to decrypt the data, thus avoiding a need to make data from any database accessible in plain form outside the database and its associated data processor 10a,b.
However, this kind of computation comes at the expense of a heavy demand on communication bandwidth over communication network 12. For example, each time when it has to be determined whether data from a record in a database from first storage unit 14a equals data from a record in the database in second storage unit 14b, first and second processor 10a,b need to execute a secure equality protocol (e.g. a secure comparison protocol) that involves communication via communication network 12. When the databases have N and M records respectively, the communication needed in such a secure equality protocol is needed N×M times.
Fortunately, the amount of communication can be reduced by using the prior art "oblivious polynomial evaluation". This protocol is based on a polynomial function P(x) of the data values, that has a set of roots that consists of all N data values from first storage unit 14a that need to be compared. In the "oblivious polynomial evaluation", first processor 10a computes the coefficients of this polynomial, encrypts these coefficients and transmits the encrypted coefficients to second processor 10b. For this, transmission of N coefficients over communication network 12 is needed.
Subsequently, second processor 10b evaluates the polynomial for the each of the M values from second storage unit 14b that need to be compared, resulting in M evaluation results. When the coefficients have been encrypted uses an additive homomorphic encryption, this can be done within second processor 10b without decryption and without further communication over communication network 12. The evaluation results are zero for those of the M values that are equal to data values in the N data values from the first storage unit 14a, and non-zero otherwise.
Next the first and second processor 10b jointly execute the secure equality protocol (i.e. a secure multiparty equality protocol) for each of the M evaluation results, to obtain (encrypted) information that represents which of the evaluation results equal zero, without disclosing this to first or second processor 10b. The values for which the evaluation results equal zero are present in both databases. As may be noted this, the amount of bandwidth use over communication network 12 in his process is proportional to N and M, but not to their product N×M, which is a considerable reduction compared to direct comparison of the N and M data values.
However, the bandwidth use may increase once more when use is made of the information that represents which of the evaluation results equal zero. For example a computation of a correlation may require computation combinations of values derive from the different storage units 14a,b, such as a sum of products v*w of values v and w in first fields "v" and "w" of selected records (v,x) and (w,y) in the database in first and second storage unit 14a respectively, where the records are selected with the condition that the values in a second field x, y of the databases are equal (e.g. equal identifier values). The computation of a product v*w requires additional communication. After the "oblivious polynomial evaluation", the second processor 10b will have encrypted information indicating which records (w,y) are selected, but not which records (v,x) are selected. To obtain the values v, substantially more communication would be needed between first and second processor 10a,b. The same goes for computations of values other functions f(v,w) of the values of v, w, instead of their product v*w, e.g. when a sum of such function values f(v,w) has to be computed.

Distributed computation method and system

Nederlandse Organisatie voor toegepast-natuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek TNO


The present invention provides a manufacturing method of an electrode catalyst layer which contains a catalyst, carbon particles and a polymer electrolyte, wherein an oxide type of non-platinum catalyst is used as the catalyst and a fuel cell employing the electrode catalyst layer achieves a high level of power generation performance. The manufacturing method of the electrode catalyst layer of the present invention includes at least: preparing a first catalyst ink, in which a catalyst, first carbon particles and a first polymer electrolyte are dispersed in a first solvent, drying the first catalyst ink to form complex particles, preparing a second catalyst ink, in which the complex particles, second carbon particles and a second polymer electrolyte are dispersed in a second solvent, and coating the second catalyst ink on a substrate to form the electrode catalyst layer.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manufacturing method of an electrode catalyst layer, the electrode catalyst layer, a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) and a fuel cell which include the electrode catalyst layer, and complex particles. More specifically, the present invention relates to a manufacturing method of an electrode catalyst layer which has high power generation performance using a non-platinum catalyst, the electrode catalyst layer, an MEA and a fuel cell which include the electrode catalyst layer, and complex particles.
Description of the Related Art
A fuel cell is a power generation system which produces electric power along with heat. A fuel gas including hydrogen and an oxidant gas including oxygen react together at electrodes containing a catalyst in a fuel cell so that a reverse reaction of water electrolysis takes place. A fuel cell is attracting attention as a clean energy source of the future because of advantages such as high efficiency, a small impact on the environment and a low level of noise relative to conventional power generation systems. A fuel cell is classified into several types according to an ion conductor employed therein. A fuel cell which uses a proton-conductive polymer membrane is called a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) or a polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC).
Among various fuel cells, a PEMFC (or PEFC), which can be used at around room temperature, is considered as a promising fuel cell for use in vehicles and household stationary power supply etc. and is being developed widely in recent years. In the PEMFC (or PEFC), a joint unit which has a pair of electrode catalyst layers on both sides of a polymer electrolyte membrane and is called a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) is arranged between a pair of separators, on each of which either a gas flow path for supplying a fuel gas including hydrogen to one of the electrodes or a gas flow path for supplying an oxidant gas including oxygen to the other electrode is formed. The electrode for supplying a fuel gas is called a fuel electrode or anode electrode whereas the electrode for supplying an oxidant gas is called an air electrode or cathode electrode. In general, each of these electrodes includes an electrode catalyst layer, in which a polymer electrolyte(s) and catalyst loaded carbon particles are stacked, and a gas diffusion layer which has gas permeability and electron conductivity. A noble metal etc. such as platinum is used as the catalyst.
Apart from other problems such as improving durability and output density etc., cost reduction is the most major problem for putting the PEMFC (or PEFC) into practical use.
Since the PEMFC (or PEFC) at present employs expensive platinum as the electrode catalyst, an alternate catalyst material is strongly desired to fully promote the PEMFC (or PEFC). As more platinum is used in the air electrode than in the fuel electrode, an alternative to platinum (namely, a non-platinum catalyst) with a high level of catalytic performance for oxygen-reduction on the air electrode is particularly well under development.
A mixture of a noble metal and nitride of iron (a transition metal) described in Patent document 1 is an example of a non-platinum catalyst for the air electrode. In addition, a nitride of molybdenum (a transition metal) described in Patent document 2 is another example. These catalyst materials, however, have an insufficient catalytic performance for oxygen-reduction in an acidic electrolyte and are dissolved in some cases.
On the other hand, Non-patent document 1 reports that a partially-oxidized tantalum carbonitride has both excellent stability and catalytic performance. It is true that this oxide type non-platinum catalyst has a high level of catalytic performance for oxygen-reduction in itself but it remains necessary to develop an appropriate method to make it into the electrode catalyst layer in order to obtain an MEA with a high level of output performance.
Moreover, Patent document 3 describes an MEA employing a non-platinum catalyst. In Patent document 3, however, there is such a problem that a method to make the non-platinum catalyst into an electrode catalyst layer is not suitable for a non-platinum catalyst since it is a method which is described, for example, in Patent document 4 and Patent document 5 etc. and is conventionally used for platinum catalyst.    <Patent document 1>: JP-A-2005-44659.    <Patent document 2>: JP-A-2005-63677.    <Patent document 3>: JP-A-2008-270176.    <Patent document 4>: JP-B-H02-48632 (JP-A-H01-62489).    <Patent document 5>: JP-A-H05-36418.    <Non-patent document 1>: "Journal of The Electrochemical Society", Vol. 155, No. 4, pp. B400-B406 (2008).

Manufacturing method of electrode catalyst layer, membrane electrode assembly using the same, fuel cell using the same and complex particles


A solid state image pickup device having: a semiconductor substrate having a light receiving area; a number of pixels formed in the light receiving area of the semiconductor substrate in a matrix shape, each of the pixels having a main photosensitive field having a relatively large area and a subsidiary photosensitive field having a relatively small area; a main color filter array formed above the semiconductor substrate and covering at least the main photosensitive fields in register with the respective pixels; and a micro lens array formed on the color filter array and covering at least the main photosensitive fields in register with the respective pixels, wherein an image signal can be selectively picked up from either one of the main and subsidiary photosensitive fields. A solid state image pickup device having a high resolution can be provided.

A) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solid state image pickup device and more particularly to a solid state image pickup device having a number of pixels each having two photosensitive fields.
B) Description of the Related Art
A CCD solid state image pickup device and a MOS solid state image pickup device are known, the former transferring signal charges by using charge coupled devices (CCDs) and the latter amplifying and outputting an image signal from a photosensitive element. As photosensitive elements, photodiodes are mainly used and a number of photodiodes (pixels) are disposed in a light receiving area in a matrix shape. As the layout of photosensitive elements, a square matrix layout and a honeycomb layout are known. The former disposes photosensitive elements along row and column directions at constant pitches and the latter disposes photosensitive elements along row and column directions by shifting the positions of every second pixels (e.g., by shifting the positions by a half pitch).
For a solid state image pickup device having on-chip color filters, a color filter layer is formed on a semiconductor chip with photosensitive elements and signal transfer units. In many cases, on-chip micro lenses are disposed on the color filter layer to efficiently guide incident light to photosensitive elements.
In order to obtain image signals having a high resolution, it is desired to increase the number of pixels. Although all the pixels have generally the same shape, image signals obtained from respective pixels do not have the same function and importance. For example, in order to obtain a luminance signal which governs the resolution, it is necessary to use a signal having the amount of light containing light in the whole visible range or in a green range. If a luminance signal is obtained from a green signal, a large number of green pixels are desired in order to obtain an image signal having a high resolution.

Solid state image pickup device with two photosensitive fields per one pixel


In a process for growing a ZnSe crystal by an MBE or MOCVD process, N.sub.2 gas dissociated by electromagnetic waves and vapor In are prepared at a ratio of N:In being 2:1. The atomic gases may be prepared by decomposing InN at a high temperature with electromagnetic irradiation and adding N.sub.2 gas to the decomposed product. The atomic gases are fed onto a substrate in a crystal growth region, so as to simultaneously dope ZnSe with In and N at a ratio of 1:2. A n-type dopant In substitutionally occupying a position of Zn makes a 1:1 couple with a p-type dopant N substitutionally occupying a position of Se, and another one N atom coordinates near the atomic couple and serves as an acceptor. As a result, the acceptor is kept in activated state up to higher concentration, and the ZnSe crystal can be heavily doped with the p-type dopant N.

The present invention relates to a method of producing a p-type ZnSe crystal having low resistivity useful as a material for a blue laser, a blue light emitting device, etc.. ZnSe has been anticipated as a material for a blue laser, a blue light emitting device and so on, since its band gap corresponds to blue luminescence. A ZnSe crystal has been produced so far by a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) process or a metal organic vapor deposition (MOCVD) process.
According to the MBE process, a metal element Zn and a non-metallic element Se are vaporized in an atmosphere at an ultra-high degree of vacuum so as to obtain an intensity of a molecular beam corresponding to vapor pressure of each element, and a crystal is grown up while controlling an atomic layer.
On the other hand, thermal decomposition of an organometallic compound is used for production of a ZnSe crystal in the MOCVD process.
In order to obtain a p-type ZnSe crystal, it is necessary to dope ZnSe with N during crystal growth. For N doping, gaseous N.sub.2 molecules for instance are dissociated with electromagnetic wave RF, and radical N is introduced to ZnSe epitaxially growing on a substrate.
Since ZnSe is doped with sole N during crystal growth in a conventional method, acceptor concentration of N is not increased more than 10.sup.18 cm.sup.-3. Even if further addition of N to ZnSe is tried, it is impossible to increase concentration of the carrier due to the compensation mechanism; a N atom located at a substitutional position of Se transfers to an interstitial position when acceptor concentration of N exceeds 10.sup.18 cm.sup.-3 and turns to a donor (n-type), so that N atoms acting as p-type acceptors are diseffected by N atoms acting as p-type donors.

Japan Science and Technology Corporation


A circuit substrate device composed of a circuit unit 2 and a multi-layer wiring substrate 3 in which a pattern conductor of the circuit unit 2 may be prevented from being warped or inundated. The circuit substrate device includes a circuit unit 2 having a pattern conductor formed by a thin film technique, and an insulating layer, and a multi-layer wiring substrate 3 having a connecting terminal portion 14 exposed from its major surface. The circuit unit is formed on a dummy substrate. The circuit unit is connected to the multi-layer wiring substrate 3 so that the pattern conductor is connected to the connecting terminal portion 14. The dummy substrate is then removed to give a structure comprised of the circuit unit 2 formed on the multi-layer wiring substrate 3. The pattern conductor of the circuit unit 2 is freed of warping or inundations along the direction of thickness of the circuit unit 2.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a circuit substrate device, on which a pattern conductor has been formed properly, a method for producing the same, a semiconductor device, and a method for producing the same. This application claims priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-105549, filed on, 2002, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, there is raised a demand for a technique of mounting functional elements, such as semiconductor chips, on e.g., a substrate, to a high density, for keeping up to the reduction in size and thickness, and to the advanced and diversified functions of electronic equipment. These functional elements are mounted on the substrate in the form of a mold package, such as QFP (Quad Flat Package) or a SOP (Small Outline Package), a package of a smaller size, such as BGA (Ball Grid Array) or CSP (Chip Scale Package), or MCM (multi-chip module), for mounting plural semiconductor chips.
In the mounting configuration for the functional elements, such as BGA, CSP or MCM, a semiconductor chip is mounted on a wiring substrate by pair-chip mounting, and an electrode land is arranged on a surface of the wiring substrate opposite to the surface thereof mounting the wiring substrate. The electrode land is used as a connection terminal to a motherboard.
As a substrate for mounting the semiconductor chip, a wiring substrate of an organic material, such as a glass epoxy substrate or a polyimide substrate, or a wiring substrate of an inorganic material, such as ceramics substrate. In particular, as the wiring substrate of an organic material, used for mounting a semiconductor chip having a large number of connecting terminals, such as connection pins, or used for MCM mounting, a multi-layer wiring substrate 100, or a so-called FR (flame-retardant) substrate, is used, as shown in FIG. 1. This multi-layer wiring substrate 100 includes a via-hole 102, with a diameter on the order of 50 μm, for interconnecting multi-layered pattern conductors 101 by for example laser processing. With this multi-layer wiring substrate 100, the line width of the pattern conductor 101 can be as fine as approximately 100 μm.
However, with the above-described multi-layer wiring substrate 100, there is raised, in keeping up with the tendency towards an increased number of the semiconductor chips and a decreased pitch between the connection pins, a demand for increasing the density of the pattern conductors 101 on the surface of the multi-layered pattern conductors 101 mounting the semiconductor chip. Since the number of the lines in the semiconductor chip for MCM mounting in near future amounts to several thousands or to several tens of thousands, it is required to raise the density of the pattern conductors 101 further.
If, in the present multi-layer wiring substrate 100, plural semiconductor chips are connected to a large number of conductor patterns, it becomes necessary to increase the mounting area or to increase the number of layers of the pattern conductors 101. With the multi-layer wiring substrate 100, the line length of the pattern conductors 101 in increased, while the number of the via-holes 102 is increased with increasing numbers of the via-holes, with the consequence that the numbers of the C, L and R components in the pattern conductors 101 may be increased to deteriorate electrical characteristics.
Moreover, in producing the multi-layer wiring substrate 100, the manufacturing process may be complex with the increasing number of the layers of the pattern conductors 101 to increase the production time or to lower the production efficiency.
On the other hand, a wiring substrate of an inorganic material, such as Si substrates or glass substrates, may also be used in place of the multi-layer wiring substrate 100. Since these Si or glass substrates are superior in surface smoothness and in thermal resistance, pattern conductors may be formed on its mounting surface for semiconductor chips, by employing for example the thin film forming technique, to a finer line width than is possible with the above-described multi-layer wiring substrate 100.
However, with the Si substrate or the glass substrate, it is difficult to form e.g., via-holes, such that electrode lands, operating as connection terminals for a motherboard, cannot be formed on a surface on the opposite side of the mounting surface for the semiconductor chip, with the consequence that these substrates cannot be used as mounting substrates for the semiconductor chips.

Circuit substrate device, method for producing the same, semiconductor device and method for producing the same