A low loading capacitance on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit for compound semiconductor power amplifiers is disclosed, which does not degrade the circuit RF performance. Its principle of operation and simulation results regarding capacitance loading, leakage current, degradation to RF performance are disclosed. The design, loading effect over frequency, robustness over process and temperature variation and application to an RF power amplifier is presented in detail. The ESD circuit couples an input to ground during ESD surges through a diode string coupled to the input, and a transistor switch or Darlington pair having its gate coupled to and triggered by the diode string. The Darlington pair couples the input to ground when triggered through a low impedance path in parallel to the diode string. A reverse diode also couples ground to the input on reverse surges.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuits and in particular to a low loading capacitance on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit for compound semiconductor (such as GaAs, InP, SiGe etc) heterojunction bipolar transistor RF circuits.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Compound semiconductor heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) are attractive for RF integrated circuits (RFIC). For example, due to the high electron mobility, high current gain, low base resistance, and low loss semi-insulated substrate, a GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor is advantageous for high frequency and high power application, such as power amplifiers for hand held phones. Even with a 2 μm width, GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors have unity current gain bandwidth of 40 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency of 90 GHz. In addition, high Early voltage, high breakdown voltage, and low knee voltage of this technology are ideal for power amplifiers for high output power and good linearity.
A GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor is fabricated on a GaAs semi-insulated substrate. The epitaxy active layers of the heterojunction bipolar transistor are grown on the substrate using metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) or molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) as shown in FIG. 1. For the ESD protection circuit, a diode is a common component. Because the GaAs diode is epi-grown on a semi-insulated substrate, the diode does not have a leakage problem like the silicon diode. The thin epitaxy active layers are prone to damages from an ESD event. To reduce chip loss due to ESD events during human and machine handling, on-chip ESD protection circuit is needed.
The ESD protection circuit should have low capacitance loading so the circuit RF performance is not affected. The capacitance loading from the ESD protection circuit can affect power gain, linearity, and bandwidth.
An ESD protection circuit is comprised of a positive threshold voltage clamp and a negative threshold voltage clamp. Each clamp turns on and sinks the ESD current at a preset voltage. The positive threshold voltage clamp design should take into consideration the voltage swing of the signal, whereas the negative threshold voltage clamp does not need such a requirement. The positive threshold voltage clamp must be designed to sink ESD current at a preset voltage, while the negative threshold voltage clamp can be designed to sink ESD current at any voltage before device breakdown. The negative threshold voltage clamp simply can be a reverse diode.
Among various RF circuits, power amplifiers have stringent design requirements in both ESD protection and RF performance. In this invention, the ESD protection circuit is designed to meet such requirements and can be also used in other RF circuits. The current ESD protection circuit used by the GaAs power amplifier community is a diode string 10 as shown in FIG. 2. This ESD protection circuit consists of a diode string 10 and a reverse diode 12. During a positive ESD surge, the diode string 10 turns on and sinks the ESD current. The number of diodes in the string 10 determines the headroom allowed for the signal. Eight diodes are shown here for 10V headroom operation. During a negative ESD surge, the reverse diode 12 turns on and sinks the ESD current. The major drawback of the ESD protection circuit of FIG. 2 is that the size of the diodes in the string 10 needs to be big in order to reduce the parasitic resistance.
FIG. 3 illustrates this problem by a low frequency model of this ESD protection circuit during a positive ESD surge. For low frequency, the diode string 10 can be represented by a series of resistors 10′ during a positive ESD surge; the resistance value is inversely proportional to the area of the diode in string 10. The resistance value of the diode in string 10 is typically 3.7 ohm for a 100 μm2 emitter area. During a 2KV ESD event, approximately 1.3 Amp of ESD peak current sinks through the series resistors 10′. Because of this significant amount of ESD peak current sunk through the resistance 10′, the pad voltage might be well over the breakdown voltage of the active devices in the main circuits.
FIG. 4 shows clamping voltage for an 8-diode string 10 versus diode size for a +2000VESD. To have an acceptable clamping voltage, the size of each diode required is 1600 μm2, which takes up too large an area. Currently in the power amplifier community, diode size of 100 μm2 is used for the diode string 10. The small size is necessary because of smaller chip area and lower capacitance loading. For this diode size, the diode string 10 can protect against only about 200VESD.
What is needed is an ESD protection circuit and methodology which is not subject to these limitations of the prior art.

On-chip ESD protection circuit for compound semiconductor heterojunction bipolar transistor RF circuits

The Regents of the University of California


A transmission control arrangement controls the generation of a required solenoid control current that is provided to an electro-hydraulic pressure control module to ultimately control clutch pressure. The module includes a linear solenoid, which has an up direction pressure-current (P-I) data table and a down direction pressure-current (P-I) data table associated therewith. For large pressure increase change requests the up P-I table is used. For large pressure decrease change requests the down P-I table is used. An interpolation process uses current values taken from both the up and down P-I data tables for pressure change requests that are neither large increases nor large decreases. The control arrangement also includes a variable gain feature that changes the gain in dependence on the gear state of the transmission.

Hydraulic fluid controls can be found in a variety of automotive applications such as automatic speed change transmissions as well as others. In these applications, it is often desirable to control the pressure of the hydraulic fluid, as seen by reference to U.S. Pat. No. 6,308,725 entitled "APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING HYDRAULIC FLUID PRESSURE" issued to Lawlyes et al., assigned to the common assignee of the present invention. Lawlyes et al. disclose a smart actuator including a solenoid element and a pressure sensor element, both of which are in electrical communication with a remote control through a wire harness. Lawlyes et al. provide for remote pressure sensing of a solenoid output.
In the specific context of an automatic speed change power transmission, it is known to use electronic transmission control units that are configured to generate electrical signals that control solenoids resulting in the control of fluid flow as well as the pressure in a hydraulic fluid line. As known, the pressure in a hydraulic fluid line can be used to control various other elements in an automatic transmission system including for example a hydraulically-actuated clutch for the engagement of individual gears. By engaging various combinations of gears (e.g., planetary gears in a planetary gear transmission), an automatic transmission system accomplishes the same task as the shifting of gears in a manual transmission. Hydraulically-actuated clutches that are found in transmissions are typically used for engaging a pair of gears (e.g., a pair of rotating members, or alternatively, one rotating member and one non-rotating member) together such that when the clutch is applied, torque can be transmitted from one shaft to the other. Shift changes may also include switching three or more clutches on occasion for certain types of shifts, and herein references to two clutch type shifts could also include the multiple shifts.
An important operating aspect of a hydraulically operated clutch relates to the pressure build-up of the applied hydraulic fluid. In general, fluid flow at a certain applied pressure is sought to be controlled and varied to apply the clutch in order to obtain a desired engagement characteristic, principally with respect to timing and smoothness. It should be appreciated that if the timing of the engagement of one gear with the disengagement of another gear is not coordinately properly, overall shift performance may suffer. It is thus desirable and known in the art to control the clutch pressure.
In this regard, it is known to provide a linear solenoid to control the hydraulic fluid pressure to apply and/or release the clutch. In a linear solenoid, the amount of fluid at a controlled pressure can be varied by changing a solenoid control current. To achieve control of a system including a linear solenoid, it is known to employ software responsive to various inputs to control the current provided to the solenoid. However, the pressure output of a linear solenoid differs in dependence on the control current direction. More specifically, a transition from a relatively low control current to a relatively high control current is considered an increasing or "up" direction. Likewise, transitioning from a relatively high control current to a relatively low control current is considered a decreasing or "down" direction. A linear solenoid typically has a pressure-current (P-I) characteristic curve for each direction. Thus, for any desired control pressure value, the required solenoid current would generally depend on whether the direction of the transition to the desired control pressure is "up" or "down".
One approach in the art for determining the required solenoid current to achieve a desired pressure provides for an "up" direction P-I table and a down direction P-I table. Then, during operation, the control determines what table to use based on current direction, and then extracts the required solenoid control current from the one selected P-I table. Further, under this conventional approach, calculating the required solenoid current may involve interpolation within the one selected table (e.g., where the desired control pressure is not exactly found in the data pairs in the table, the desired current may be interpolated from the nearest data pairs). One shortcoming of this approach however is that the data in each of the "up" and "down" P-I tables are generally most accurate for the specific conditions under which they were captured. Using the tables under different conditions results in undesired variance.
It is also known to use a linear solenoid in combination with other hydraulic fluid control devices. One example that may be used in an automatic speed change transmission may be a two-stage pressure control module, where the first stage is a linear solenoid (e.g., variable bleed solenoid—VBS) providing a pilot or control pressure in response to an input command (i.e., a solenoid control current) and where the second stage includes a spool valve configured to regulate a main fluid supply pressure in accordance with the control pressure. The spool valve outlet is coupled to a hydraulic circuit that includes a hydraulically-actuated clutch. In this configuration, a transmission control unit (TCU) or the like is responsible for shift control and develops a desired clutch pressure command based on available information. Then, the clutch pressure command is converted into a desired control pressure (i.e., in the 2-stage arrangement described above, the required pressure output from the linear solenoid to achieve the commanded clutch pressure). Finally, the control pressure is converted into the appropriate control current to feed to the solenoid. However, it has been observed that this type of hydraulic system may have differing gains depending on what gear the transmission is in. This multi-gain characteristic of the solenoid can cause undesirable variations in the actual clutch pressure relative to the commanded clutch pressure.
There is therefore a need for a method for transmission clutch control that minimizes or eliminates one or more of the problems set forth above.

Method for determining solenoid control current using hysteresis interpolation for transmission clutch control


A pallet stacker has a pivot frame which is pivotable to receive pallets in a loading position, and then to be released to rotate into an unload position where the pallets are presented in a stacked horizontal arrangement for removal by a lift or crane. A damping assembly moderates the speed of the transition of the pivot frame from the load position to the unload position and has a very small metering orifice which slows the passage of argon gas from one side of a piston head to the other within a cylinder housing when the piston is being extended, and a check valve arrangement which allows ready flow of gas from one side of the piston head to the other when the piston is being returned to the cylinder. The metering orifice and check valve may be entirely interior to the cylinder housing, or may be exterior.

The present invention relates to pallet stacking apparatus, and more particularly to such apparatus which functions in low temperature environments.
In U.S. Pat. No. 9,120,630, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, is shown a pallet stacker conveyor, which allowed workers in a distribution center to assemble depleted product pallets from a supply lane, and combine it with other empty pallets in a stack and convey it to the exterior face of the rack system for removal by a lift truck, all while reducing the lifting burden on the center worker. This invention used a conventional air cylinder which served to slow the transition from a loading position to a tilted unloading position, thereby reducing the impact on the pallets when the apparatus moved into the unloading position. However, although this conventional air cylinder was effective at room temperature, it did not function reliably at very low temperatures of as much as −20 degrees Fahrenheit such as found in refrigerated warehouses. What is needed is a pallet stacker apparatus which operates without power and which can be used reliably within refrigerated facilities.


A method includes identifying, at a wireless device, transmit and receive link costs respectively associated with transmitting data to and receiving data from one or more neighboring nodes of the wireless device. The method also includes selecting at least one of multiple antennas to be used to further communicate with the neighboring node(s). The at least one antenna is selected using the link costs. At least some of the link costs are identified using link status messages received from the neighboring node(s). For each neighboring node, one antenna can be selected as a unicast antenna for unicast communications with that neighboring node. Also, one antenna can be selected as a broadcast/multicast antenna for broadcast or multicast communications with multiple neighboring nodes. An identity of the at least one antenna selected to communicate with the neighboring node(s) may not be communicated from the wireless device.

Wireless devices often do not have equal range in all directions. This is typically due to the anisotropy of the antennas used by the wireless devices. Anisotropy means that a feature is directionally dependent or non-uniform in all directions. In other words, an antenna is able to transmit or receive data at longer distances in some directions and at shorter distances in other directions.
Poor performance of a radio in indoor and industrial environments can be caused by various factors, some of which are corrected using different techniques. For example, shadow fading is caused by obstacles between a transmitter and a receiver. Spacing two or more antennas far apart from each other and using a diversity technique can help reduce shadow fading. Fading because of destructive interference can be reduced using two or more antennas deployed at a quarter wavelength distance along with a diversity technique. A null in an antenna limits the antenna's range in the direction of the null. This can be handled by deploying another antenna that has better gain in the direction of the null and using a diversity technique. Signal attenuation at an antenna can be caused by mismatched polarization, which can be reduced using multiple antennas at opposite polarizations (such as orthogonal polarizations with a linear antenna) along with a diversity technique. Fading caused by multipath interference can be reduced using a directional antenna or an antenna array with beam steering.
As can be seen here, deploying multiple antennas can help reduce many problems associated with wireless communications. However, some of these techniques have opposing requirements (such as far separation versus quarter wavelength separation). As a result, there are multiple ways to utilize two or more antennas to provide antenna diversity.
ZigBee devices are wireless devices that operate according to the ZigBee standard, which is a low-power wireless networking standard. In addition to the above problems with antenna performance, the ZigBee standard places an artificial limitation on devices by limiting when one device can communicate with another device. More specifically, a "child" node typically joins an existing ZigBee network through a "parent" node, and the ZigBee standard defines a "link cost" associated with a link between the child and parent nodes. The link cost is associated with the probability that a message from the child node will be successfully received by the parent node, where a lower cost indicates a higher likelihood of success. The ZigBee standard requires that the link cost be less than or equal to a value of three before allowing a child node to join or rejoin a network through a particular parent node. As a result, poor wireless link qualities caused by any of the various problems noted above can limit link costs, reducing or even preventing ZigBee devices from joining or rejoining a network.

Antenna selection diversity scheme for zigbee or other wireless devices and related apparatus and method


A mobile switching center of an apparatus in one example generates one or more triggered operations to a prepaid service node based on a connection with an intelligent peripheral component.

In a telecommunication network, a user associated with a prepaid mobile communication device may fund an account balance employable for subsequent telecommunication service. For example, the telecommunication network provides the prepaid mobile communication device with prepaid telecommunication service. A prepaid service node maintains the account balance for the prepaid mobile communication device. For example, the prepaid service node calculates billing information for telecommunication service used by the prepaid mobile communication device. The billing information in one example comprises an amount to deduct from the account balance associated with the prepaid mobile communication device. The prepaid mobile communication device in one example is connected with a destination location on a telephone call for a duration. The prepaid service node calculates the amount to deduct from the account balance based on the destination location and duration of the telephone call.
The telecommunication network may offer additional services in addition to supporting telephone calls. For example, the telecommunication network may offer directory information, weather reports, horoscopes, and/or stock quotes through connection with one or more service nodes. The telecommunication network in one example connects mobile communication devices to the service nodes upon receipt of specific dialed number strings from the mobile communication devices.
If the telecommunication network attempts to connect the prepaid mobile communication device with the service node, the prepaid service node may not receive sufficient information to properly bill for the use of the service node. As one shortcoming, the prepaid service node may be unable to deduct an appropriate amount from the account balance associated with the prepaid mobile communication device based on use of the service node. For example, if the dialed number string from the prepaid mobile communication device doesn't provide the prepaid service node with complete billing parameters, then the prepaid service node may not be able to properly bill the prepaid mobile communication device for the use of the service node.
Thus, a need exists for a telecommunication network that serves to properly bill a prepaid mobile communication device for use of service nodes.

Generating one or more triggered operations to prepaid service node based on connection with intelligent peripheral component


A multiple-card, color-coded medical action system is provided to assist patients suffering from a chronic disease (e.g., asthma, sinusitis, or diabetes) which may exhibit symptoms of differing degrees of severity at different times. The system includes a plurality of interconnected cards imprinted with information about the chronic disease and treatments therefor; the cards include a number of symptom description/medical advice cards of different colors respectively, with the latter cards having imprinted thereon different symptom descriptions characteristic of different degrees of symptom severity, and corresponding medical information about the described symptoms.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is broadly concerned with medical action systems designed specifically for patients suffering from chronic diseases such as asthma, sinusitis and diabetes, in order to provide comprehensive symptom and medical advice information in a compact, easy-to-use format. More particularly the invention relates to such medical action systems made up of a plurality of interconnected, imprinted, color-coded cards which include symptom description/medical action cards of different colors respectively allowing the user to readily determine the severity of symptoms and recommended treatments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Patients afflicted with chronic diseases commonly experience symptoms of varying severity. For example, asthma patients may have for extended periods only normal symptoms not requiring any special treatment steps. From time to time however, considerably more severe and even life-threatening symptoms can be present. It may be difficult in such cases for the patient to promptly recognize the problem and its potential severity, and to understand what types of treatment or care should be undertaken. This is particularly true in cases of children suffering from asthma, who may lack sufficient articulation to explain their symptoms. These problems of course exist in varying degrees with other chronic diseases.
The type of symptom-recognition and treatment information required for chronically ill patients does exist for most diseases. However, this information is widely dispersed in printed publications not realistically available to patients, or perhaps is comprehensively known only to medical professionals.
There is accordingly a real and unsatisfied need for a medical action system which provides symptom-recognition and treatment information for chronic diseases in a compact, easily usable format which can be understood and applied by patients.


A method is described for checking deadlock in a telecommunication network including a first activated backup connection for protecting traffic over a first intended connection. The method includes the steps of checking a reversion blocked status of the first intended connection by checking if the segments of the first intended connection are available or not available, in case of detecting the reversion blocked status of the first intended connection identifying activated backup connections using the not available segments of the first intended connection, identifying the corresponding intended connections, checking the reversion blocked status of each identified corresponding intended connection by checking if the corresponding segments are available or not available, in case of detecting the reversion blocked status of an identified corresponding intended connection checking if a corresponding not available segment is included in the first backup connection. The method further provides the indication of the intended connections involved in the deadlock.

Traffic engineering (TE) tools are used in modern telecommunication networks for calculating connections carrying user traffic, in order to balance the traffic load on the various segments of the connections and on the various network elements (routers, switches), so that none of these segments and network elements are over-utilized or under-utilized. This aim is achieved carrying user traffic over the connection calculated by the TE tool, crossing specific network elements; this connection is usually defined "intended" (or "nominal") connection.
In this scenario, in case of a failure on a segment of the intended connection, a backup connection is calculated and activated for protecting the traffic over the intended connection, that is the user traffic is rerouted from the intended to the backup connection. The backup connection can be pre-calculated (and this process is usually defined "protection") or calculated run-time (and it is usually defined "restoration"). In the first case the backup connection is calculated or assigned before the failure occurs and, if calculated, it is stored; it can be fully disjoint from the intended connection, that is intended and backup connections don't have common segments, or can be partially disjoint, that is intended and backup connections have at least one common segment. In case of fully disjoint backup connections, one backup connection is usually pre-calculated, because it can protect the intended connection after a failure of any segment of the intended connection, while in case of partially disjoint backup connections, for each possible failure on a segment is required one (or at least one) pre-calculated backup connection. On the contrary, in restoration the backup connection is calculated run-time, that is after the failure occurs. The advantage of protection compared to restoration is usually a smaller recovery time, while the disadvantage is to require more network resources (for example some segments are assigned in advance and are used only for protection or available segments are required for the disjoint backup connection).
When the failure clears, in traffic engineered networks the traffic is always reverted from the backup to the intended connection, in order to carry the user traffic over the intended connection calculated by the TE tool. Moreover, the reversion is required because in case of a further failure on the backup connection, the calculation of a further backup connection is more complex and this calculation could fail.
In traditional networks the calculation of the backup connection can be performed by a centralized network manager controlling network elements and controlling connections (intended and backup) crossing the network elements; the centralized manager is a software application running on a management station and performing network management functions and it is responsible for configuration of the connections, monitoring alarms and performance of the connections, for protecting the intended connections providing a backup connection in case of a failure on a segment of the intended connection. In order to perform these functions, it stores into a MIB (Management Information Base) the list of identifiers of the intended connections within the controlled domain and for each intended connection the source and destination network elements and the list of the intermediate network elements (or the list of segments, identified by two network elements). In a traffic engineered network including a protection mechanism, the central manager stores for each intended connection the list of the intermediate network elements calculated by the TE tool and in case of a backup connection activated for protecting the intended connection it also stores the list of the intermediate network elements of the backup connection. The centralized manager can be connected directly to the managed network elements or indirectly through channels carrying control data in the same physical network carrying user data or through a different physical network carrying only control data. In the new network architectures, based on the Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON) defined in ITU-T G.8080/Y.1304 (11/2001), the backup connection is calculated by a control plane element (CPE), which controls one or more network elements, also defined Transport Plane Elements (TPE), for protecting the intended connections starting from the controlled network element (also defined source network element); in order to perform these functions, each CPE stores the list of identifiers of the intended connections starting from the controlled network element and stores for each intended connection the source and destination network elements, the list of the intermediate network elements (or the list of segments, identified by two network elements) of the intended connection calculated by the TE tool and in case of a backup connection activated for protecting the intended connection it also stores the list of the intermediate network elements of the backup connection. The CPEs are schematically indicated in FIG. 1.1-1.5 with CPE1, CPE2, CPE3, CPE4, CPE5, CPE6, CPE7, CPE8, CPE9 and CPE10; they are interconnected with each other and communicate according to a signaling protocol, in order to provide a fast detection of a failure, a fast and efficient configuration of new connections within the Transport Plane, modify the connections previously set up and perform a faster restoration function providing backup connections for protecting the intended connections. Various signalling protocols can fit the ASON architecture, like the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) defined in RFC2205, RFC2209 and RFC2750, the Resource Reservation Protocol—Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE) defined in RFC3209 and ITU-T G.7713.2, the Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) defined in RFC3036, the Constraint Based—Label Distribution Protocol (CR-LDP) defined in ITU-T G.7713.3 and RFC3472), the Private Network to Network Interface (PNNI) defined in ITU-T G.7713.1.
Referring to RSVP protocol, the base specification was designed to allow network elements (routers) to decide in advance, that is before the provisioning of the connection, if the network can meet the requirements of a Quality of Service (QoS) defined for the connection. The configuration of a new intended or backup connection is performed by transmitting and receiving a Path message, in case of a successful configuration of the connection, a Resv message in the reverse direction of the Path message or receiving a Path_err message in case of an unsuccessful configuration (for example for lack of network resources). Reversion is performed in a similar way as a new intended connection, using Path and Reservation (Resv) messages, but in a 'make-before-break' manner, that is the intended connection is setup before the backup connection is torn down. A number of extensions were added to support provisioning and maintenance of explicitly routed connections (defined LSP=label switched paths). Finally, RSVP-TE allows the aggregation of connections, defined LSP tunnels, which share a common route and a common pool of shared network resources, reducing the amount of information carried in the network. Moreover, when a failure is detected on a segment, it must be notified as fast as possible to all the source CPEs controlling the source network element of the intended connections crossing the failed segment, in order to route the traffic from the intended to a backup connection. A Notify message is defined for reporting of failures and it is described by Internet draft draft-ieff-mpls-generalized-rsvp-te-09.txt (September 2002), issued by IETF and updated periodically; this message includes the address of the CPE controlling the network element which has detected the failure.
In traffic engineered network the concept of dynamic sharing of network resources applies: a network resource (a segment or part of the bandwidth of the segment) can be assigned to more that one backup connection, while it must be assigned to one intended connection. For example, after rerouting of user traffic from a first intended to a first backup connection, a second backup connection can use available segments of the first intended connection (that is segments not anymore used by the first intended connection and not affected by a failure) for protecting a second intended connection affected by a failure. This mechanism allows a better usage of network resources, but the concurrent usage of the same resources by different connections can create blocking situations, also defined as "deadlock". The deadlock is more probable in an ASON network, because of the parallelism of the distributed managers, that is of the CPEs, which can require to use the same resources (segments) at nearly the same time, for example for restoration purposes.
FIGS. 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5 show an example of the steps required for having a deadlock involving two intended connections; the intended connections (c1, c2) are indicated with a continuous line, the backup (b, b2, b1) with a broken line. Referring to FIG. 1.1, the first intended connection (cl) crosses network elements 1, 8 and 10, the second (c2) crosses 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9. At time t1 (FIG. 1.2) a failure F1 occurs on segment 8-10 of the first intended connection and a first backup connection (b) is provided (pre-calculated or calculated run-time) for protecting the first intended connection, crossing network elements 1, 4, 7, 9 and 10. At time t2 (FIG. 1.3) a failure F2 occurs on segment 4-6 of the second intended connection and a second backup connection (b2) is provided for protecting the second intended connection, crossing network elements 2, 1, 8 and 9: the second backup connection is using segment 1-8 of the first intended connection, which is available because the first intended connection is rerouted over the first backup connection. At time t3 (FIG. 1.4) a failure F3 occurs on segment 4-7 of the first backup connection and a third backup connection (b1) is provided (usually calculated run-time) for protecting the first intended connection, crossing network elements 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10: the third backup connection is using segment 2-3 of the second intended connection, which is available because the second intended connection is rerouted over the second backup connection. FIG. 1.5 shows the deadlock of the first and second intended connections: when all failures clear, neither b1 nor b2 can revert to c1 and c2 respectively, because one segment of c1 and c2 is not available. The figures show schematically the network resources interconnecting the network elements. For example, segment 1-2 carries two backup connections (b1 and b2); this is possible using one physical medium (an optical fibre, a coaxial cable, a radio link) carrying the two backup connections on different time slots (or on different wavelenghts) or alternatively it is possible using two different physical medium. In this example segment 1-2 must provide enough network resources for carrying b1 and b2 between network element 1 and 2 and b2 must use on segment 1-8 the same network resource (physical medium and bandwidth) used by c1.
FIG. 1.5 shows the deadlock involving two connections, but in a telecommunication network carrying many connections the deadlock can involve more than two connections; for example, FIG. 2 shows the deadlock involving four connections, wherein each backup connection is using a segment of a subsequent intended connection. In this scenario the reversion from the backup to the intended connection is not possible, although any failure is present in the network.
Nowadays the deadlock is avoided, that is the deadlock situation is not reached but it is prevented according to two solutions. In the first solution partial sharing of network resources is performed: a group of segments is assigned in advance for providing backup connections and these segments are used for protecting different intended connections. The deadlock is avoided defining a rule for assigning the shared segments, for example defining a different priority for each intended connection within the network or using a first come-first serve rule. Referring to priority rule, a first example is when two different intended connections require to use the same segments for protection for a failure on a segment of the corresponding intended connection: these segments are assigned to the intended connection having the highest priority (this is also indicated with 'contention'). In this first solution usage of network resources is not optimized (because only segments of the group are shared) and consequently more resources are required for protection of intended connections; moreover, it requires the definition of a rule, which can be complex in case of a network including many connections. In the second solution complete sharing of network resources is performed; in fact, as explained above, after routing of traffic from an intended to a backup connection, available segments of the intended connection can be used for backup connections, that is also segments of intended connections can be dynamically shared. In this second solution deadlock is avoided because an existing connection which was first successfully established, is intentionally torn down (this is also indicated with 'pre-emption'); referring to FIG. 1.4, in case of clearing of failure F1, if c1 has a priority higher than c2, b2 (protecting c2) will be released. In order to avoid loss of traffic, a further backup connection is calculated for protecting c2 (further segments are required in the network), afterwards b2 is released and consequently the traffic can be reverted from the backup b1 to the intended connection c1. This second solution has the same disadvantages of the first solution, that is to require the definition of a rule and to require more network resources; moreover, the second solution is possible in a network controlled by a central manager, because the manager stores the list of all connections (and the priorities) of the controlled domain, but is not possible in a network controlled by a distributed manager, because each CPE stores only the list of the connections (and the priorities) starting from the controlled network element.

Deadlock detection in a telecommunication network


In one aspect, the invention provides a water-based release coating composition comprising a mixture of: A. from 0.1 to about 5 wt % of a fluoro(meth)acrylate (co)polymer or a fluorochemical urethane compound containing at least one fluorinated group having the formula —CF2)nCF3, wherein n is an integer from 1 to 3; B. from about 5 to about 99.9 wt % of a copolymer comprising the reaction product of a. from about 40 to about 70 wt % of an alkyl (meth)acrylate, wherein the alkyl group contains from 16 to 22 carbon atoms, b. from about 3 to about 20 wt % of (meth)acrylic acid, c. from about 20 to about 40 wt % acrylonitrile, and d. from 0 to about 15 wt % of vinyl monomer, other than acrylonitrile, wherein the sum of a. through d. equals 100%; and C. from 0 to about 94.9 wt % of an extender polymer, wherein the sum of A., B., and C. is 100% and wt % is based on the total amount of solids in the composition.

The invention relates to release compositions useful in release layers of release articles (e.g., release liners) and adhesive articles (e.g., pressure sensitive adhesive tapes (PSA)).
Polymeric release materials are known to be used in release layers in release articles (e.g., release liners) and adhesive articles (e.g., adhesive tapes) in order to provide a surface from which an adhesive can be easily and cleanly removed. For example, it is known to apply a polymeric release material to the back surface of an adhesive tape (e.g., masking tape) in order to allow the tape to be provided in roll form and to be easily and conveniently dispensed by unwinding the roll. The release coating is expected to reproducibly provide an appropriate unwind force throughout the lifetime of the tape roll, and to not deleteriously affect the adhesive.
The Handbook of Pressure Sensitive Adhesive Technology, 2nd Ed., D. Sat as Ed., Van Nostrand Reinhold, N.Y., 1989, Chapter 23, describes polymers which may be used as release agents for PSA tapes. Various polymers of lower critical surface tension such as silicones, fluorine containing polymers, and long alkyl side chain polymers are useful as release coatings. Long alkyl side chain polymers generally contain 16-20 carbon atoms in the alkyl side chains, and can be used to prepare release coatings that provide medium release forces which are especially desirable for PSA tapes. For example, GB 870,022 describes the use of copolymers prepared from octadecyl acrylate, acrylonitrile, acrylic acid, and methyl acrylate for tape release coatings.
The use of polymers or copolymers containing fluoroalkyl side groups has also been disclosed (U.S. Pat. No. 3,318,852). It has been found that the perfluoroalkyl groups need to contain at least 6 carbon atoms, and preferably at least 8 carbon atoms, in order for the polymer to provide sufficiently low unwind forces for tape rolls. However, it has been reported that certain perfluorooctyl-containing compounds may tend to bioacummulate in living organisms, raising concerns about their use. Recently, it has been found that perfluorobutyl-containing compounds are eliminated from the body much more effectively.
In the case of masking tapes, the release coating is expected to provide moderate unwind force, between about 10-40 N/dm. If the unwind force is too low, the tape roll may inadvertently unwind under its own weight, and if the unwind force is too high, the tape roll will be difficult to unwind. In addition, the unwind force should be relatively stable over the lifetime of the roll. Another common requirement for masking tapes is that the release coating on the tape backside should provide good wetting and anchorage of both water and solvent based paints. Poor paint wetting and anchorage can result in paint flaking when the masking tape is removed from the substrate, thereby ruining the appearance of the freshly painted surface. Still another common requirement for masking tapes is that they have good holding power to their own backing. For example, in a paint-draping situation, one piece of masking tape may be used to attach a drape onto another piece of masking tape, that is, overtaping, that had been placed onto the surface to establish a paint line. Typically, improving one of these masking tape property requirements can result in a deterioration of another property. For example, in the case of a more aggressive PSA, a release coating that can provide easier and more stable release must be employed; however, such release coatings may not provide good paint wetting/anchorage or sufficient holding power to backing. In such cases, a compromise in overall release coating performance features must be reached.
One commonly used method of forming a release layer is to coat the release material from an organic solvent-based solution onto a substrate. After the solution has been applied to the substrate, the solvent is evaporated leaving behind a relatively uniform coating of the release material. As environmental regulations tighten, release materials that can be processed using organic solvent-free processes are more desirable.

Water-based release coating containing fluorochemical


A magnetic reader of the present invention comprises an MR sensor shielded by a magnetic shield including single domain soft magnetic materials. The domain wall free magnetic shield includes an unbiased soft magnetic layer and a biased soft magnetic layer separated by a non-magnetic layer. The easy axis of the biased layer is oriented to create a path for magnetic flux through the biased and unbiased layers thereby reducing the demagnetization field of the shield. A biasing layer maintains the first and second magnetic layers as single domain magnets. The biasing layer is further shaped to define a quiet zone where the biasing layer does not overlay the MR sensor.

The present invention relates generally to shields for magnetoresistive sensors used in electronic data storage and retrieval systems. In particular, this invention relates to biased domain wall free shields. The present invention is a further improvement on U.S. Pat. No. 6,437,949, herein incorporated by reference.
In an electronic data storage and retrieval system, a transducing head typically includes a reader portion having a magnetoresistive (MR) sensor for retrieving magnetically encoded information stored on a magnetic disc. MR sensors are comprised of at least one magnetic layer whose magnetic alignment responds to external applied magnetic fields. Typical MR sensors are of the anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) sensor or giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensor type. When an MR sensor is passed over the surface of a magnetic storage disc, magnetic flux from the surface of the disc alters the magnetic alignment of the MR sensor, which in turn alters the magnetic resistivity of the MR sensor. The change in resistivity of the MR sensor can be detected by passing a current through the MR sensor and measuring a voltage across the MR sensor. External circuitry then converts the voltage information into an appropriate format and manipulates that information as necessary.
A response curve of the MR sensor compares the voltage across the MR sensor to the magnetic flux received from the disc by the sensor. This response curve has both linear and non-linear portions, of which it is preferred that the MR sensor operate along the linear portion. To force the MR sensor to operate along the linear portions, the sensor is magnetically biased at a biasing point that is located along the linear portion of the response curve.
MR sensors have a large read pulse width that must be reduced for high linear densities. The pulse width of the MR sensor is reduced by sandwiching the MR sensor between two magnetic shields. The magnetic shields generally incorporate soft magnetic materials for their permeability to magnetic flux. The purpose of the shields is to prevent the magnetic flux from sources other than the desired transition from interacting with the MR sensor. During a read operation, the upper and lower shields ensure that the MR sensor reads only the information (transition) stored directly beneath it on a specific track of the magnetic disc medium by absorbing any stray magnetic fields emanating from adjacent tracks and transitions.
Within a conventional shield exists a plurality of magnetic domains separated from each other by a plurality of magnetic domain walls. Each domain has a magnetization that is oriented in a direction different than the magnetization of all adjacent domains. As the domain walls move, the bias point, as well as the response of the MR sensor to signals emanating from the magnetic disc medium changes. The overall result is noise during the read operation.
To avoid the problems associated with domain wall movement, the ideal shield structure would have no domain walls. Attempts to achieve a single domain structure in MR sensor shields have been largely unsuccessful due to inability of weak exchange coupling interactions to overcome large demagnetizing fields in conventional structures. The result is multiple domains, noise and suppression of sensor signal. Consequently, there remains a need in the art for a domain wall free shield without suppressing MR sensor amplitude while reducing or eliminating sources of noise.


An electrical connector includes electrical contacts that are configured to be mounted to an electrical cable, and mating ends that are configured to be surface mounted to a contact pad of an underlying substrate, such that the mating ends flex and apply a pressure against the contact pad.

Electrical connectors are typically mated to complementary electrical components so as to establish electrical communication therebetween. In one application, the electrical contacts are mounted to electrical cables, and are further compression-mounted to an underlying printed circuit board (PCB). Electrical contacts of the electrical connector are placed in electrical communication with electrical contact pads of the substrate when the electrical connector is compression-mounted to the PCB. Thus, the electrical connector places the electrical cables and the PCB in electrical communication with each other.


The present invention is a fiber reinforced ceramic matrix composite substrate with an integrated ceramic topcoat layer. The composite substrate is prepared by laminating a preceramic polymer impregnated fiber cloth, curing the laminate, and pyrolyzing the resulting substrate to an initial state. The composite substrate is re-infiltrated with the preceramic polymer, cured, and pyrolyzed to an initial densification level. The topcoat layer is then integrated with the composite substrate by applying transition plies to an exterior surface of the composite substrate, forming a particulate slurry from a ceramic powder and the preceramic resin, and applying the particulate slurry to the transition plies. The transition plies-particulate slurry layup on the composite substrate is autoclave cured and pyrolyzed. The composite substrate is then re-impregnated with the preceramic resin matrix material, cureclave cured, and step pyrolyzed to a desired densification level.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to ceramic matrix composites, and in particular to ceramic matrix composites with integrated topcoat ceramic layers and the method and process for fabricating the matrix composites with the integrated topcoat layers.
2. Related Art
Composite material systems typically consist of reinforcement materials embedded within a matrix material, and processed to form a matrix composite. The composite consists of reinforcement materials such as particulates, whiskers or fibers embedded in matrix materials such as ceramics, polymers, or metals. The material constituents of matrix composites may be varied to provide tailored properties such as thermal or electrical conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, density and mechanical properties.
Ceramic composites are desirable for certain applications due to their light weight, superior thermal properties, and low coefficient of thermal expansion. Also, ceramic composites can be reinforced with fibers to improve mechanical properties, as well as other properties. These reinforced composites are ideal for high temperature strength, low density, and high oxidation resistance. As a result, fiber reinforced ceramic matrix composites have emerged as a promising class of materials for a number of demanding applications in aircraft, missiles and industrial systems.
However, fiber reinforced ceramic matrix composites may require other properties for additional applications. The surface of these composites are typically rough or porous, whereas precise surface features or replicated geometric shapes are desired in some applications. Therefore, to provide these additional uses, what is needed is a fiber reinforced ceramic matrix composite with an integrated topcoat, which imparts additional surface characteristics to the composite. What is further needed is a ceramic topcoat integrated with a ceramic matrix composite substrate that can maintain structural integrity by overcoming effects of thermal expansion mismatch between the topcoat and the substrate during both processing and service.
Whatever the merits of the above mentioned systems and methods, they do not achieve the benefits of the present invention.

Ceramic matrix composites with integrated topcoat layers


An entertainment system integrates an image of a user into an audiovisual presentation. The patron enters a room where the lighting, sound, and scenery can be controlled. A standardized input sequence is obtained by computer automated/assisted process where user images (video camera input, voice parameters, etc.) prompting the user to provide certain views and voiced statements. Alternatively, photo scan or diskette/CD readers can accept user input image data. A one, two, or three dimensional image data representation of the user images is then generated, including the speech parameters of the patron. The image can later be manipulated to change the appearance of the image. This appearance change includes attire and adding tools relevant to the entertainment area used by the patron. The image can then be smoothly integrated into a preexisting audiovisual presentation, thus making the patron a part of or a synthetic actor in the production.

This invention relates to predefined video and audiovisual presentations such as movies and video games, and more particularly to an image development system and process for smooth integration of user-created images into a predefined video presentation, including, but not limited to, a video game player character image development system and methodology for smooth integration of user created video graphics into a predefined video, movie, or game system, and to an adapter interface system which provides for the utilization of a user visual image as a preselected character segment, such that the user visual image is incorporated into the audiovisual presentation of the movie or video game to which the adapter interface system is coupled.
Heretofore, video games and audiovisual presentations have been self contained, and have not provided the ability for the user to integrate in a user-defined or -provided visual or audio image. Subsequent to the invention of U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,014, video games have been created which utilized predefined digitized images in the video game which supplement the otherwise cartoon-like character and imagery of the game. Additionally, digital and analog video data have been merged with video games to get broadcast quality video for certain aspects of the video display for the video game, particularly in arcade games, but more recently in home video games with attached CD-ROM player. However, heretofore, there has been no system which has provided for the utilization of user provided or created visual images in the video game.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system which utilizes an image generated by an external source (of video and/or audio and/or computer generated), and integrates the image into and as part of a pre-existing audiovisual work (such as from a video game system or a movie or animation) which utilizes the user's image in the video game play or as a synthetic participating user image in the audiovisual presentation, such that the user image is incorporated into the audiovisual presentation of the movie or user interactive video game.
It is further an object of the present invention to optimally benefit from the user video and audio image in video games and to develop a methodology for creating movies or video games compatible with user image integration concepts.
It is an additional object to provide a system and methodology for orderly transfer and integration of the user created visual image, or images, into the movie or video game.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide various means for users of video game apparatus to capture and/or provide for placement and storage of the user's visual image onto a medium which can be coupled either via an adapter or directly to one or more audiovisual presentation systems for movies and game systems and/or game cartridges which connect to the audiovisual presentation systems.
Video games are typically played from a stored digital program. These programs are made up of multiple images that interact as instructed by both the program and a controller operated by a user. There is no provision for integrating a user image into the program unless a character is present in that location.
Some amusement parks provide video entertainment by playing old movie clips incorporating select audience members. A live camera captures the audience member in front of a blue background. The blue color is filtered out of the signal from the audience member camera and the signal is combined with the video signal of the old movie clip. This gives the impression that the audience member is acting in the old movie clip. All of this is typically done in real-time.
A problem with this approach is that a complete set-up is needed (a video camera, a blue-screen, a compositing computer system, etc.) and, the incorporation of the audience member is crude in that the audience member's image overlays the movie clip and is not blended into the movie. Using this approach, there can be no realistic interaction between the audience member and the cast in the movie clip. There is a resulting need for an entertainment system that facilitates realistically integrating a user's image into a video presentation for a movie, animation or video game.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System and methodology for mapping and linking based user image integration


When a resist pattern used to manufacture a semiconductor integrated circuit element is formed, high alignment precision can be achieved. A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device comprises the steps of: irradiating exposure light onto a resist film coated on a substrate to be etched via a photomask on which at least a first opening pattern and a second opening pattern are formed to thereby expose the resist film; developing the resist film to thereby obtain a resist pattern; etching away the substrate while using the resist pattern as an etching mask to thereby obtain a predetermined pattern; and removing the resist pattern; wherein when the exposure light has first exposure intensity, the predetermined pattern obtained at the step is a pattern corresponding to the first opening pattern and a pattern corresponding to the second opening pattern; and when the exposure light has second exposure intensity, the predetermined pattern obtained at the step is only a pattern corresponding to the second opening pattern.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a resist pattern forming method used in manufacturing of a semiconductor integrated circuit element, and in particular, to a resist pattern forming method capable of effectively achieving high alignment precision by drawing a wiring pattern and a contact hole pattern on the same photomask (reticle) and by using this photomask several times to perform an exposing process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Very recently, when semiconductor integrated circuits (semiconductor devices) are manufactured, underlayers such as semiconductor substrates are selectively processed by executing etching processes and ion implantations. In this case, in order to selectively protect non-processed portions of the underlayers, patterns of composite materials being photosensed by active light rays such as ultraviolet rays, X-rays, and electron beams, so-called "photosensitive resist film" (will be referred as "resist" hereinafter) are formed on the underlayers.
In the most general method for forming the resist patterns, the ultraviolet ray irradiating method is employed by using the reduced projection exposing apparatus (stepper) in which the light source is constructed of g-ray (wavelength=436 nm) of a mercury lamp, i-ray (wavelength=365 nm), or KrF excimer laser light (wavelength=248 nm).
In the stepper, the photomask is mounted to execute the exposing process. This photomask is called as a "reticle" in which a circuit pattern is formed on a glass substrate by a shield film such as chromium(Cr). During the exposing operation, precise positioning (alignment) must be carried out in order that the mutual positional relationship between the photomask and the previously formed circuit pattern on the substrate.
The pattern drawn on the photomask is reduced through the lens and transferred to the resist film coated on the semiconductor substrate. Thereafter, this resist film is developed, so that the resist pattern can be formed.
There are a positive type resist and a negative type resist. The positive type resist is such a resist that a light irradiated portion is soluble by a developing fluid, but a light non-irradiated portion is insoluble. The negative type resist is such a resist that a light irradiated portion is not insoluble by a developing fluid, but a light non-irradiated portion is soluble.
To manufacture a semiconductor integrated circuit device, this resist pattern forming stage is normally required 20 to 30 times.
Currently, semiconductor integrated circuits are rapidly integrated in high degrees and are made with high performance. In connection with this trend, strong demands are further made by that the circuit patterns are made narrower. As an example of a DRAM (dynamic random access memory), a resist pattern with a level of 0.4 .mu.m is drawn in 16 Mbits DRAM manufactured in mass production. In this photolithography stages, i-rays among ultraviolet rays are mostly utilized. Also, resist patterns with levels of 0.35 to 0.30 .mu.m are required in 64 Mbits DRAM under transition stage from trial to mass production. Further, resist patterns with levels smaller than 0.25 .mu.m are required in 256 Mbits DRAM and 1 Gbit DRAM under developing/examination trial stages. It is conceivable that KrF excimer laser light can be effectively utilized. Also, the dimension precision and the alignment precision must be increased in conjunction with fine widths of patterns.
For instance, in a semiconductor device having a level related to 256 Mbits DRAM, the dimension control of approximately .+-.0.03 .mu.m is required, and the alignment precision of approximately 0.06 .mu.m is required with respect to the respective stages. This dimensional requirement may be more strictly required in future.
The factors of the alignment precision deterioration are caused by magnification errors in an exposure lens, rotation errors occurred between a reticle and a chip formed on a wafer, and errors occurred during alignment measurements. Each of the precision may be gradually increased by improving the performance of the lens and the wafer stage of the exposing apparatus, and the performance of the alignment measuring apparatus.
Then, when the required precision of the alignment error is strictly increased, the reticle manufacturing error cannot be neglected. Moreover, when the integration degree is increased, the drawing area and the figure data number are increased. Therefore, the time required to draw the patterns by the electron beams (EB) is greatly prolonged during the reticle manufacture. The errors produced when the reticle is manufactured can be hardly suppressed due to such adverse influences by coating the resist, developing the resist, and by the surface uniform characteristic of the etching process.
Next, a description will now be made of the conventional pattern forming method with employment of a single reticle per one step.
First, in FIG. 58A, there is shown a first reticle (photomask) 101 used when a pattern of a contact hole is exposed. Within this first reticle 101, a contact hole pattern 102 is drawing by electron beams to be formed. Also, in FIG. 58B, there is represented a second reticle 103 used when patterns of a wiring line electrically connected to a contact and of other wiring lines are exposed. In this second reticle 103, wiring patterns 104a and 104b are formed by a light shielding portion. A width of a portion of the wiring pattern 104a becomes wide among these wiring patterns. This wide portion is a connection portion with a contact, and is designed to be a large dimension due to an allowance.
Next, one example of the method for manufacturing the semiconductor device is represented. In this method, as shown in FIG. 59, a stacked insulating film 107 is opened in an active region 106 on a surface of a semiconductor substrate 105. The following description is made of such cases that a contact 108 is formed so as to be buried within the opening, an upper layer wiring line 109 in contact with this contact 108 is formed, and a wiring line 109b is formed on the insulating film 107.
First, as illustrated in FIG. 60, a silicon oxide film 107 having a thickness of on the order of 5000 .ANG. is stacked on the semiconductor substrate 105 on which the active region 106 is partially formed. Next, the commercially available positive type resist film having a thickness of on the order of 5000 .ANG. is coated. Then, an exposing process is carried out be employing a KrF excimer laser (wavelength being 248 nm) 111 as a light source via a first reticle 101 on which the contact hole pattern 102 shown in FIG. 58A is formed.
Exposure energy required in this exposing process is 60 mj/cm.sup.2.
Next, as indicated in FIG. 61, the baking process (PEB) is performed after the exposing process for 90 seconds under temperature of 110.degree. C., and then the developing process is carried out for 60 seconds by using a 2.38 weight % solution of tetrametyle alchole ammonium hydroxide (TMAH). Thus, a resist pattern 110b having an opening portion 110a is obtained.
Thereafter, as indicated in FIG. 62, while using the resist pattern 110b as an etching mask, the anisotropic etching process is carried out with respect to the silicon oxide film 107, so that a contact hole 108a is formed. At this stage, the active region 106 formed on the surface of the semiconductor substrate 1 may be made as a low resistance value by previously implanting the impurity ions.
Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 63, the resist pattern 110b is removed by way of the oxygen plasma ashing method. It should be understood that the above-described ion implanting operation may be carried out at this stage.
Next, as shown in FIG. 64, a metal wiring material 109 such as tungsten silicide (WSi.sub.2) is stacked with having a thickness of approximately 1000 .ANG. by way of the sputtering method, or the CVD (chemical vapor deposition) method. At this time, the contact hole 108a is filled with the metal wiring material 109 to form the contact 108.
Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 65, a positive type resist film 112 is coated on the entire surface of the metal wiring material. Then, the exposing process is carried out by employing the KrF excimer laser stepper via the second reticle 103 on which the wiring patterns 104a and 104b are drawn, as shown in FIG. 58B. At this time, the necessary exposure energy is 35 mj/cm.sup.2.
Next, as indicated in FIG. 66, the PEB process and the developing process are carried out to thereby form a resist pattern 112a. A portion from which the photoresist has been removed by the developing process is used as an opening portion 112b.
Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 67, while using the resist pattern 112a as an etching mask, the anisotropic etching operation is carried out with respect to the metal wiring material 109. Then, the metal wiring material 109 is formed into predetermined wiring lines 109a and 109b.
Next, the resist pattern 112a is removed, so that a semiconductor device as shown in FIG. 59 can be manufactured.
In such a case that the patterns are formed in accordance with the above-described manner, since the semiconductor device is manufactured by employing two sets of the reticles, namely the first reticle 101 on which the contact hole pattern 102 is formed, and the second reticle 103 on which the wiring pattern 104 is formed, there are adverse influences caused by the manufacturing errors of the reticles. In other words, the reticles on which the patterns are drawn by the electron beams are adversely influenced when the patterns are drawn due to the following factors, namely, the stage precision of the EB drawing apparatus, the positional precision of the beams under scanning, the temperatures in the apparatus, the adhesive conditions of the deposited articles within the column of the apparatus, the bend of the blanks (glass substrate) of the reticles, and the like. Therefore, the positional precision of the patterns drawn on the reticles is deteriorated.
Accordingly, when this conventional method is used to manufacture, for instance, the semiconductor device with the level of 256 Mbits DRAM, the alignment error caused by the manufacturing errors between the reticles becomes on the order of 10 to 20 nm on the wafer.
FIG. 68 represents a positional relationship between the contact 108 and the wiring line 109a in such a case that the alignment error occurs during the photolithography. In FIG. 68, symbol X.sub.1 indicates a region where an opening pattern should be originally arranged, and symbol X.sub.2 shows a region occupied by the opening pattern when the alignment error occurs. A shift between X.sub.1 and X.sub.2 denotes a portion indicated by a symbol Y.sub.1. As shown in FIG. 68, when the wiring line is patterned under such a condition that the alignment error occurs, such a wiring line containing a pattern shift Y.sub.2 (see FIG. 69) would be eventually formed.
Although the pattern shift Y.sub.2 is produced along the sectional direction in this example, other various cases may be conceived, for example, the pattern shift is produced along the longitudinal direction. Since such a pattern shift is produced, the matching characteristic with respect to the pattern in the upper layer is deteriorated. Therefore, this may cause the contact failure and the shortcircuits in the wiring lines.
As another conventional method, Japanese Unexamined Paten Publication No.63-313866 discloses the method for forming the resist patterns with the different shapes by employing the same reticle (photomask) on which the patterns having the different sizes are drawn.
According to this conventional method, one resist pattern forming method is similar to the normal resist pattern forming method such that the exposing process is carried out with respect to the resist film via one sheet of the reticle, and the developing process is performed to thereby obtain the resist pattern. Another method for forming the resist patterns with the different shapes is accomplished by that after the above-explained normal resist pattern has been formed by using the same reticle, the thermal process at a preselected temperature is carried out so as to deform (thermally melt) the resist. The resist is caused to flow into a narrow interval (space) portion between the resist patterns to thereby fill the opening portion. To the contrary, as to a wide interval portion between the resist patterns, this opening condition is maintained. Then, only the large pattern (namely, pattern having large area) is formed. After the normal resist pattern is formed, the shapes of the resist patterns are made different by performing either the thermal process or not performing the thermal process.
However, in such a case that the resist pattern is deformed so as to vary the shapes of the resist pattern, the dimensions of the finally obtained resist patterns are slightly fluctuated by the film thickness of the resist film, and the changes in the temperature. Such a problem is conceivable that the process operation can be hardly performed in high precision.

Method for manufacturing semiconductor device


The present invention relates transmission network, which involves Passive Optical Network and thereto connected units, e.g. Optical Network Units. It is an object of the present invention to provide a solution to the upstream data packet traffic congestion problem in transmission networks that comprises a PON system. Said problem is solved by providing adapted node devices and methods for such scheduling control that within the prescribed standard requirements, e.g. QoS, for passive optical network systems eliminate the congestion problem.

In a transmission network comprising a core network, said core network is usually an optical network due to its superior traffic capacity compared to electrical signaling networks. The optical signals may have to be converted, e.g. to electrical signals, when distributed to Network Terminals (NTs) or local distribution networks in the subscriber neighborhood. In an optical fiber telecommunications network, an Optical Network Unit (ONU) is provided for terminating the optical fiber transmission line and for converting between different transmission technologies, such as Passive Optical Network (PON) and another transmission technology. In other words, the object of the ONU is therefore to adapt the data traffic from one transmission technology to another transmission technology in the transition point between the two technologies.
According to the present standard specification regarding QoS, high priority packets of the incoming data packet traffic are sent before Low priority. Management traffic always has highest priority and Voice over IP traffic has higher priority than normal Internet traffic. Each ONU is therefore provided with a scheduling mechanism to obtain such a differencing function and performance regarding different classed data packets. The scheduling options in the ONU can be more or less advanced. Schemes like Strict Priority, Weighted Round Robin or Deficit Round Robin may be implemented increasing the complexity of the ONU. The ONU's advanced scheduling task is regarded as a necessity by network operators for providing and withhold QoS requirements for the PON network, as the incoming data packets often have to be stored according to QoS priority classification before transmitted in the upstream direction towards the OLT. In the point-to-multipoint Passive Optical Network the upstream bandwidth, i.e. the uplink bandwidth, is shared between multiple Optical Network Units (ONUs). The bandwidth is not necessary shared equally between ONUs connected to an upstream located Optical Link Termination (OLT). Even for a single ONU the bandwidth may vary over time. The PON Uplink interface between ONUs and OLT is supposed to be variable in bandwidth, while the interface between the ONU and NT is fixed at e.g. 1 Gbps. Said PON Uplink is controlled and allocated by the OLT independently of the fixed bandwidth and may therefore be shifted over time to a value below that of the fixed bandwidth. If the uplink bandwidth to the OLT is allocated below 1 Gbps, the ONU must involve means for accommodating received data packets. If the ONU is not provided with storing elements or enough buffering capacity, the ONU will start dropping packets when data packet congestion occurs.

Dynamic scheduling using PON bandwidth allocation on lower aggregation levels


An intercom system enabling a plurality of users to listen to and at least one user to speak to and listen to a remote user. A base station communicates with the remote user. A plurality of ear pieces is wearable by the plurality of users, each of the plurality of ear pieces being capable of wirelessly communicating with the base station. Each of the plurality of ear pieces is capable of listening to the base station within a first range of the base station. At least one of the plurality of ear pieces being capable of wirelessly speaking to the base station within a second range of the base station. The second range is larger than the first range. Thus, one of the plurality of users wearing at least one of the plurality of ear pieces may listen and talk with the remote user only within the first range of the base station and the remainder of the plurality of users wearing the remaining ear pieces may only listen to the remote user outside of the first range of the base station but inside of the second range of the base station.

It is common for retail establishments, particularly restaurants, to facilitate drive-up customers with drive-up lanes and windows to service the customer. A customer will typically drive up to a menu/order board and communicate the customer's wishes from the vehicle to staff, including an order taker, inside the retail establishment. The customer, still in the vehicle, will then proceed to one or more windows in order to pay for the purchase, if required, and pick up the merchandise.
An intercom system typically facilitates communication between the occupant of the vehicle and the staff inside the establishment. In a "fast food" restaurant situation, a post mounted speaker and microphone, located near a menu board, is hard wired to an intercom base station located inside the restaurant. The base station wirelessly communicates with a portable device worn by an order taker. The portable device is typically a transceiver worn as a belt pack and an accompanied wired headset. Alternatively, in some instances, the portable device is self-contained on a wearable headset eliminating the need for a belt pack but resulting in a relatively bulky and unsightly headset. The order taker typically listens continually to the post mounted microphone and presses a button in order to speak to the vehicle occupant as needed.
Often it is desirable to have other restaurant employees listen to the conversation between the order taker and the vehicle occupant. For example, a cook can listen as the order is actually given to the order taker and can start preparation for the order even before the order is officially entered into the restaurant's order system by the order taker. In a typical fast food restaurant, employees beyond the order taker, such as a cook, can listen to the vehicle occupant but such additional employees must wear the same belt pack that the order taker typically wears. The combination belt pack and head set, or the self-contained headset, are not only expensive but are also bulky and obtrusive. This effectively limits how many restaurant employees can wear the device and what activities they can do while wearing the device. Further, the belt pack and headset combination typically suffers from reliability problems due to frequent damage to the connecting wire between the belt pack and headset.
Also it may be desirable for a fast food restaurant to have more than one employee available who can take orders. A belt pack and headset combination could be switched from one employee to another. However, such switching is cumbersome and results in some downtime during switch over limiting the effectiveness of this option. Multiple employees could each wear a separate belt pack and headset combination and each could be ready to take orders. Only the actual order taker would actually press a button activating the speak portion of the transceiver on their belt pack. Again, this option is expensive and the obtrusiveness of the belt pack and headset combination limits the activities of the employee who is not taking orders.

Wireless intercom system and method of communicating using wireless intercom system


An improved cable splice of the type in which first and second ends of a casing taper conically toward the casing's longitudinal axis. First and second cable-receiving apertures are provided in the respective first and second ends of the casing. A first set of cable-gripping jaws is disposed within the first end of the casing; and, a second set of cable-gripping jaws is disposed within the second end of the casing. At least one spring is provided within the casing, between the jaws, to urge the first and second jaws toward the first and second apertures respectively. A first plug is positioned within the inner end of the first set of jaws to bias the first set of jaws against the spring by forcing the jaws radially outwardly. A second plug is positioned within the inner end of the second set of jaws to bias the second set of jaws against the spring by forcing the jaws radially outwardly. The plugs are free of connection to the jaws. This allows the plugs to be displaced from the jaws by passage of a member such as a cable through one of the apertures to contact the plug. Displacement of the plugs from the jaws relieves the aforesaid biasing and permits the spring to urge the jaws along the axis toward the apertures as aforesaid.

"Automatic splices" are used to longitudinally splice two lengths of cable together. Such devices are typically used by power utility linemen to splice lengths of high voltage cable together.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,205,300 issued 7 September, 1965 to Becker for a "Cable Gripping Unit" is typical of the prior art. The opposed ends of Becker's device each contain a set of tapered jaws. The lineman inserts the cable ends through apertures provided in each of the opposed ends of the device. After inserting suitable lengths of each cable into the device, the lineman draws the cables longitudinally away from the device. This action pulls the jaws into the tapered ends of the device's casing, thereby securely clamping the jaws on to the cable.
During cable insertion into prior art splicing devices, the lineman must feed the cable through the jaws. But, the jaws are pressed into the tapered casing by the action of a spring, and are not held open to allow unimpeded insertion of the cable. The inside of the jaws have serrated teeth which tend to resist cable insertion. To aid cable insertion, prior art devices provide a cup on the inside of each aperture. The cup covers the cut end of the cable as it is advanced through the jaws, to help prevent the serrated jaw teeth from catching on the cable end.
In practice, lineman have had some difficulty installing prior art splicing devices because the cable end, despite the aforesaid cup, sometimes gets caught in the jaws. Since there is no positive indication that the cable end has been fully inserted through the jaws, the lineman may leave the cable inserted only partly through the jaws. This is undesirable, because the mechanical contact between the jaws and the cable may be insufficient for long term retention of the cable and because the electrical conduction characteristics of the device may be impaired if only part of the jaws contact the cable. Although the lineman is typically instructed to mark the cable to indicate its full insertion length, in fact this is seldom done. There have been many cases in which improperly installed splices have allowed high voltage cables to fall to the ground.
The present invention overcomes the foregoing problems by providing a spring-loaded mechanism which initially holds the jaws well away from the cable, allowing free advancement or retraction of the cable relative to the jaws until the device is activated to clamp the jaws on to the cable. The invention does not require cups to cover the cable ends since the jaws are held well away from the cable. The invention also provides a positive indication that the cable end has been fully inserted through the jaws. The lineman need not mark the cable to indicate full insertion length.
An additional problem with prior art splicing devices is that they can only be used for splicing cables which are under high mechanical tension. This is because the higher the cable tension, the further the tapered jaws are pulled into the tapered casing and the tighter the cable is gripped. High cable tension also provides a large force to press the jaws against the casing and thus give good electrical contact. When prior art splices are used on short cable spans with very light mechanical loads, electrical connection is poor and overheating may result. In the present invention the spring can be made sufficiently powerful to press the jaws firmly into the tapered casing. It is therefore not necessary to rely solely on cable mechanical tension to provide a high applied force between the jaws and casing. A powerful spring cannot be used in prior art splices since it would aggravate the problem of feeding the cable through the jaws during installation. In the present invention, the jaws are held open during cable insertion and the spring may therefore be sufficiently strong to allow the device to be used with low cable tension.


A topical skin composition containing a dipeptide compound represented by, formula (1) or a salt of the dipeptide:

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a topical composition for the skin (hereinafter may be simply referred to as a topical skin composition) exhibiting effects of retarding aging of the skin or rejuvenating the skin and of suppressing hair growth.
2. Background Art
Studies have revealed that aging of the skin is mainly caused by advancing age, drying, oxidation, or sunlight (i.e., UV rays). Aging of the skin is recognized by a decrease in collagen or elastin in the dermis of the skin; a decrease in mucopolysaccharides, including hyaluronic acid; or the presence of cells which are damaged by UV rays.
For the prevention of wrinkle formation, however, sufficient effects have not yet been attained, for example, by a collagen-containing cosmetic composition. In addition, a number of research projects have focused on skin aging caused by exposure to UV rays. However, cosmetic compositions superseding UV absorbing agents or UV protecting agents have not yet been developed.
There is a trend towards a preference for hairless bodies, particularly, hairless arms or legs, for reasons of aesthetic appearance. Various methods have been tried in the pursuit of body hair removal, for example, a mechanical hair-removal method making use of a shaver or hair-tweezers, a method for removing body hair from the hair root by use of a hair removing agent, and a method for removing body hair through chemical action of a hair removing agent.
However, the aforementioned hair removing methods physically or chemically stimulate the skin, and are limited by the unsatisfactory duration of the hairless state. Therefore, there is a need for the development of a method which facilitates removal of body hair.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide a topical composition for the skin exhibiting effects with respect to retarding aging of the skin, such as wrinkle formation, or rejuvenating the skin, and of suppressing hair growth.
The present inventors have found that a dipeptide compound having a specific structure or a salt thereof exhibits excellent effects with respect to suppressing wrinkle formation, preventing a reduction in skin elasticity, and suppressing hair growth, and that the compound or the salt is effectively employed in a topical skin composition for retarding aging of the skin or suppressing hair growth.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a topical skin composition comprising a dipeptide compound represented by formula (1) or a salt of the dipeptide:
wherein R1 represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an alkanoyl group, or xe2x80x94CH(R6)COOR7 (wherein R6 represents a hydrogen atom or a lower alkyl group, and R7 represents a hydrogen atom, a lower alkyl group, a lower alkenyl group, or an aralkyl group);
R2 represents a hydrogen atom or an alkyl group which may have a substituent;
R3 represents a lower alkyl group or a phenyl group;
R4 represents a hydrogen atom or a lower alkyl group, and may form a heterocyclic ring together with R5 and an adjacent nitrogen atom;
R5 represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, or an aralkyl group which may have a substituent, and may form the heterocyclic ring together with R4;
X represents xe2x80x94COOR8 (wherein R8 represents a hydrogen atom, a lower alkyl group, a lower alkenyl group, or an aralkyl group) or xe2x80x94SO3H; and
n is an integer of 0-4; and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier therefor.
The present invention also provides, as a novel compound which has not yet been described in any literature, N-(carboxymethyl)phenylalanyl-xcex2-alanine, among dipeptide compounds represented by formula (1), or a salt thereof.
Various other objects, features and many of the attendant advantages of the present invention will be readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.
In formula (1), an alkyl group represented by R1 is preferably a C1-C6 alkyl group, may be a linear or branched alkyl group, and is more preferably a methyl group, an ethyl group, an n-propyl group, an isopropyl group, an n-butyl group, an isobutyl group, or a t-butyl group.
An alkanoyl group represented by R1 is preferably a C1-C6 alkanoyl group, may,be a linear or branched alkanoyl group, and is more preferably an acetyl group, a propionyl group, or a butyryl group.
A lower alkyl group represented by R3, R4, R6, R7, or R8 is preferably a C1-C6 alkyl group, may be a linear or branched alkyl group, and is more preferably a methyl group, an ethyl group, an n-propyl group, an isopropyl group, an n-butyl group, an isobutyl group, or a t-butyl group.
A lower alkenyl group represented by R7 or R8 is preferably a C2-C6 alkenyl group, more preferably a vinyl group or a propenyl group.
An aralkyl group represented by R7 or R8 is a C7-C18 aralkyl group. Specific examples include a phenyl C1-C6 alkyl group, a biphenyl C1-C6 alkyl group, and a naphthyl C1-C6 alkyl group. Of these, a phenyl C1-C6 alkyl group is preferable, and a benzyl group is more preferable.
An alkyl group which may have a substituent, represented by R2, may be a C1-C6 alkyl group, a carboxy C1-C6 alkyl group, or a C1-C6 alkoxycarbonyl C1-C6 alkyl group. Of these, a C1-C6 alkyl group is preferable. R2 is more preferably a methyl group, an ethyl group, an n-propyl group, an isopropyl group, an isobutyl group, or a t-butyl group.
An alkyl group which may have a substituent, represented by R5, may be a C1-C6 alkyl group, a carboxy C1-C6 alkyl group, or a C1-C6 alkoxycarbonyl C1-C6 alkyl group. Of these, a C1-C6 alkyl group and a carboxy C1-C6 alkyl group are preferable. R5 is more preferably a methyl group, an isopropyl group, an isobutyl group, a t-butyl group, a carboxymethyl group, or a carboxyethyl group.
A heterocyclic ring which is formed by R4 and R5 may be pyrrolidine or piperidine.
An integer n is preferably 0, 1, or 2.
In formula (1), R1 is more preferably a hydrogen atom, a C1-C6 alkyl group, a C1-C6 alkanoyl group, or xe2x80x94CH(R6)COOR7 (wherein R6 represents a hydrogen atom or a C1-C6 alkyl group, and R7 represents a hydrogen atom, a C1-C6 alkyl group, a C2-C6 alkenyl group, or a phenyl C1-C6 alkyl group). R2 is more preferably a hydrogen atom or a C1-C6 alkyl group. R3 is more preferably a C1-C6 alkyl group or a phenyl group. R4 is more preferably a hydrogen atom or a C1-C6 alkyl group. R5 is more preferably a hydrogen atom, a C1-C6 alkyl group, a phenyl C1-C6 alkyl group, or a carboxy C1-C6 alkyl group. X is more preferably xe2x80x94COOR8 (wherein R8 represents a hydrogen atom, a C1-C6 alkyl group, a C2-C6 alkenyl group, or a phenyl C1-C6 alkyl group) or xe2x80x94SO3H. An integer n is more preferably 0, 1, or 2.
Examples of salts of a dipeptide compound (1) include alkali metal salts, alkaline earth metal salts, amine salts, amino acid salts, and acid addition salts. Of these, alkali metal salts and amino acid salts are preferable. A dipeptide compound (1) may have optical activity, and its steric configuration may be any of R, S, and a racemic mixture. The compound may also be in the form of a hydrate.
Among dipeptide compounds of formula (1), the more preferred compounds are as follows:
Phe-Gly (compound 11); Phe-xcex2-Ala (compound 12); Phe-Phe (compound 13); Phe-Leu (compound 14); Phe-Ala (compound 15); and Phe-Asp (compound 16): Phe-Tau (compound 17).
Of these, compound 1 and compound 12 are more preferable.
A compound of formula (1) in which R1 is a hydrogen atom may be synthesized through a process described in xe2x80x9cK. Ienalga, K. Higashihara, and H. Kimura, Chem. Pharm. Bull., 35, 1249-1254 (1987).xe2x80x9d A compound of formula (1) in which R1 is not a hydrogen atom but is any of the aforementioned groups may be synthesized through, for example, the following process:
(wherein Y represents a halogen atom, a p-toluenesulfonyl group, or a methanesulfonyloxy group; R1 represents any of the aforementioned groups other than a hydrogen atom; and R2 through R5, n, and X are the same as described above).
Namely, a compound (2) is reacted with a compound (3) in the presence or absence of a base, and if necessary, hydrolysis by use of a base such as sodium hydroxide, or catalytic hydrogenation by use of a catalyst such as palladium carbon may be: carried out, to thereby yield a compound (1) of the present invention.
Examples of bases which may be employed in the reaction include sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, potassium carbonate, sodium carbonate, sodium hydrogencarbonate, and triethylamine. Of these, potassium carbonate and triethylamine are preferable, and triethylamine is more preferable.
Examples of solvents which may be employed in the reaction include water, dimethylformamide, tetrahydrofuran, benzene, toluene, xylene, and hexane. Of these, toluene and benzene are preferable, and toluene is more preferable. The reaction temperature is xe2x88x9230 to 200xc2x0 C., preferably 10 to 90xc2x0 C., more preferably 40 to 70xc2x0 C.
A dipeptide compound (1) or a salt thereof is incorporated into the topical skin composition of the present invention in an amount of 0.0001-40 wt. % (hereinafter xe2x80x9cwt. %xe2x80x9d will be simply referred to as xe2x80x9c%xe2x80x9d), preferably 0.01-20%.
The topical skin composition of the present invention is more preferably used for preventing and ameliorating unfavorable skin conditions caused by aging of the skin, such as wrinkles, flabbiness, and reduction of elasticity; or for suppressing hair growth.
The topical skin composition of the present invention may further contain a keratinization-ameliorating agent, to thereby enhance the effect of retarding aging of the skin, such as wrinkle formation, or the effect of suppressing hair growth. Examples of such keratinization-ameliorating agents include sphingosine derivatives.
The topical skin composition of the present invention may appropriately contain, in addition to the aforementioned ingredients, a variety,of ingredients or carriers which are usually employed in cosmetics, quasidrugs, and drugs. Examples of such ingredients or carriers include humectants, powders, gelation agents, thickeners, surfactants, emulsifiers, anti-inflammatory agents, antioxidants, pH regulating agents, chelating agents, preservatives, dyes, perfumes, UV absorbing-agents, UV protecting agents, existing skin-aging preventive or retarding agents such as collagen, and existing hair-growth suppressing agents. The composition may be produced through a conventional method in accordance with the application form.
The topical skin composition of the present invention may be used as a skin composition for pharmaceutical use or a cosmetic composition. Examples of pharmaceutical compositions include a-variety of ointments containing a pharmaceutically active ingredient. Such an ointment may comprise an oily base, or an oil-in-water or water-in-oil emulsion base. No particular limitation is imposed on the species of oily base, and, for example, vegetable oil, animal oil, synthetic oil, fatty acid, or natural or synthetic glyceride may be employed. No particular limitation is imposed on the species of pharmaceutically active ingredient, and, for example, analgesic and anti-inflammatory agents, antipruritic drugs, astringent agents, or hormones may be appropriately employed in accordance with needs.
Examples of cosmetic compositions include lotions, emulsions, creams, ointments, sticks, solutions in organic solvents or purified water, packs, gels-and aerosols. Namely, the cosmetic composition may be employed as a lotion, an oil essence, an O/W-type or, W/O-type cream, a pack, a foundation, a skin-cleansing agent, a tonic, a bathing agent, or an aerosol.

Abstract: wherein R1 represents a, hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an alkanoyl group, or xe2x80x94CH(R6)COOR7 (wherein R6 represents a hydrogen atom or a lower alkyl group, and R7 represents a hydrogen atom, a lower alkyl group, a lower alkenyl group, or an aralkyl group);