A phase change memory device includes a semiconductor substrate having a plurality of phase change cell regions. A bottom electrode is formed in each phase change cell region of the semiconductor substrate. An insulation layer is formed on the semiconductor substrate to cover the bottom electrode, and the insulation layer includes a contact hole exposing the bottom electrode. A contact plug is formed within the contact hole. A stacked pattern comprising a phase change layer and a top electrode is formed over the insulation layer. In the phase change memory device a buffer layer is interposed between the insulation layer and the phase change layer to reinforce the adhesion force between them. The buffer layer prevents the phase change material from peeling off due to an inconstant adhesion force between the phase change material and the insulation layer.

The present invention relates to a phase change memory device, and more particularly, to a phase change memory device in which a phase change layer can be formed in a stable manner.
Memory devices are typically divided into two categories: volatile random access memory (RAM), which loses inputted information when power is interrupted; and non-volatile read-only memory (ROM), which continuously maintains the stored state of inputted information even when power is interrupted. Examples of volatile RAM include dynamic RAM (DRAM) and static RAM (SRAM), and examples of non-volatile ROM include flash memory devices such as electrically erasable and programmable ROM (EEPROM) can be mentioned.
Although DRAM is an excellent memory device, DRAM must have a high charge storing capacity, and therefore the surface area of an electrode of the DRAM must be increased. When the surface area of the electrode is increased, high levels of integration become difficult. Further, in flash memory devices two gates are stacked upon one another. Accordingly, a high operation voltage is required. Therefore, the power source voltage becomes insufficient, and a separate booster circuit is necessary to supply the required voltage for write and delete operations. This also makes it difficult to accomplish high levels of integration.
In order to rectify these problems, attempts have been made to develop a memory device having a simple configuration that is capable of accomplishing a high level of integration while retaining the characteristics of a non-volatile memory device. As a result, phase change memory devices are currently being studied.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing a conventional phase change memory device.
In FIG. 1, a bottom electrode 110 is formed on a semiconductor substrate 100 having a switching element (not shown). An insulation layer 120 is formed over the semiconductor substrate 100 to cover the bottom electrode 110. A contact plug 130 is formed in the insulation layer 120 to contact the bottom electrode 110. A stacked pattern consisting of a phase change layer 150 and a top electrode 160 is formed on the contact plug 130 and the insulation layer 120 contacts the contact plug 130.
In a phase change memory device, a phase change occurs in the phase change layer 150 (which is interposed between the bottom and top electrodes 110 and 160) from a crystalline state to an amorphous state due to a current flow between the bottom electrode 110 and the top electrode 160. There resistance of the crystalline state is different from that of the amorphous state, and information stored in a cell is recognized based on this difference.
The phase change memory device has a simple configuration and can be highly integrated since there is no interference between adjoining cells. The phase change memory device can operate at high speeds, since the phase change memory device has a rapid read speed (several tens of ns) and a relatively rapid write speed (several tens to several hundreds of ns). Also, the phase change memory device has excellent compatibility with existing CMOS logic processes; and therefore, manufacturing cost can be saved. Accordingly, phase change memory devices are looked upon as a memory device with a high degree commercial potential.
However, in the conventional phase change memory device described above, the phase change layer formed on the insulation layer is formed as an unstable thin film. Therefore, a problem exists, in that there is a high probability that the phase change layer will peel off of the bottom electrode during a subsequent patterning process.
In more detail, in a typical phase change memory device, a chalcogenide layer as a compound composed of germanium (Ge), antimony (Sb) and tellurium (Te) is used as the phase change material. The adhesion of the chalcogenide layer and the insulating material is unstable, and therefore the chalcogenide layer cannot be uniformly formed as a thin film on the insulating material. As a consequence, the chalcogenide layer peels off of the bottom electrode during a subsequent patterning process.
FIG. 2 includes photographs showing thin film characteristics of a chalcogenide layer formed as a phase change layer on a metallic material and an insulating material.
When viewing FIG. 2, one can see that when the chalcogenide layer is formed on a TiN or W metal layer, the chalcogenide layer is formed as a thin film having dense grains. On the other hand, one can see that when the chalcogenide layer is formed on an SiO2 or an Si3N4 insulating layer, the chalcogenide layer cannot be formed as a thin film having dense grains due to the growth of non-uniform grains.
As a consequence, in the conventional phase change memory device, the phase change layer can peel off of the bottom electrode due to a poor adhesion force between the insulating material and the phase change layer, and therefore the phase change layer cannot be formed in a stable manner. Accordingly, it is difficult to ensure the characteristics and reliability of the conventional phase change memory device.

Phase change memory device with reinforced adhesion force

Seoul National University R&DB Foundation


Customer enrollment in a stored value card program is provided. One embodiment is a method for enrolling a customer in a stored value card program. One such method comprises: generating a list of unaffiliated stored value card programs; and when enrolling a new customer in a new stored value card program at a device, determining whether the new customer has a stored value account with one of the unaffiliated stored value card programs.

Throughout the years, a main focus of providing services to consumers has been convenience. It is quite clear to even the most simplistic marketing analyst that the more convenient you can make a service to the consumer, the more likely the consumer will partake in the service. It is on this foundation that the majority of Internet services are based.
The Internet is not always the final answer in providing convenience to the consumer. In some instances, consumers are simply reluctant to conduct business over the Internet due to a variety of reasons, such as fear of losing confidentiality, resistance to relying on modern technology and sometimes, just stubbornness. Thus, there has been, is and remains a need in the art for providing face to face, plain old ordinary customer service.
The banking and credit industry is particularly poised in this predicament. Consumers that are engaging in financial transactions or receiving financial services often times prefer to deal with an institution rather than the Internet. Thus, marketers are still challenged with increasing the convenience at which such services are offered.
One avenue that has been extensively explored for providing financial services is through merchants. Consumers typically are willing to trust a merchant that is offering a financial service. This is evident in the fact that nearly every department store offers a credit program to their customers.
Typically, merchants are limited to the types of financial services that they can provide. This limitation can be due to a variety of factors including the cost that the merchant must incur to provide the service, the technological complexities of providing the service, and the training required for the merchant's employees. However, anyone that has completed a marketing 101 class will agree that the more services a merchant can offer, the more foot traffic the merchant will generate and, thus, the higher probability the merchant will get a sale.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a solution that enables a merchant to provide multiple financial services to its customers, that is commercially feasible to the merchant, not overly complicated from a technological perspective, and that minimizes the training required for the merchant's employees.


A computer implemented method includes executing a user space partition first real-time task from a real-time task queue on a real-time kernel thread executing on a computing core of a computer, wherein the real-time kernel thread is scheduled by an operating system scheduler, pre-empting the first real-time task via a user space partition real-time task scheduler in response to a task switch signal, saving a first real-time task context, loading a user space second real-time task context for use by the real-time kernel thread via the user space partition real-time task scheduler, and executing the second real-time task from the real-time task queue on the real-time kernel thread.

Many network applications utilize user space code to accomplish reactive programming with high parallelism. To accelerate the code, some systems bypass the kernel. User space runtimes may have a scheduler to schedule user space code, referred to, in the aggregate, as work load. The user space scheduler is usually just a façade around a kernel level scheduler. Since the user space scheduler is in user space, the capabilities of the user space scheduler are limited, and often kernel features are relied on, which can incur large context switching costs.
Some frameworks implement a lightweight task model by multiplexing one kernel thread into multiple running tasks. The drawback of method is that applications must work in a cooperative manner, sometimes requiring modification of each application by including program logic to avoid exceptions. Real-time sensitive application performance can be impacted by a lower priority task that is running or a busy task that prevents a real-time task from running.

User space pre-emptive real-time scheduler


A method for treating a flow of exhaust from an engine includes injecting reductant into the flow of exhaust with an injector disposed upstream from a catalytic device. The injector and the catalytic device are disposed in an exhaust system for the engine. The method also includes passing the flow of exhaust through the catalytic device, sensing a characteristic of at least one of the exhaust system and the engine, monitoring the sensed characteristic to recognize a condition associated with a formation of a decomposition material formed from the reductant, and controlling an operation of at least one of the engine and the exhaust system to increase a temperature in the exhaust system in response to the recognized condition.

Internal combustion engines, including diesel engines, gasoline engines, gaseous fuel-powered engines, and other engines known in the art, may exhaust a complex mixture of air pollutants. The air pollutants may be composed of gaseous and solid compounds, including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides (NOx), and sulfur compounds. Due to heightened environmental concerns, exhaust emission standards have become increasingly stringent. The amount of pollutants emitted from an engine may be regulated depending on the type, size, and/or class of engine.
One method that has been implemented by engine manufacturers to comply with the regulation of NOx exhausted to the environment has been to implement a strategy called selective catalytic reduction (SCR). SCR is a process by which gaseous or liquid reductant (e.g., a mixture of urea and water) is injected into the flow of exhaust from an engine. The combined flow may form ammonia which may then be absorbed onto a catalyst. The ammonia may react with NOx in the flow of exhaust to form H2O and N2, thereby reducing the amount of NOx in the flow of exhaust.
The ability of urea to form ammonia for reducing NOx at the catalyst depends on the temperature in the exhaust system. At high temperatures (e.g., greater than approximately 200° C.), urea may form ammonia. At low temperatures (e.g., less than approximately 160° C.), urea may be deposited on the pipe walls and may be unable to form ammonia. At moderate temperatures (e.g., approximately 160° C. to 200° C.) and after an extended period of time, urea may be unable to form ammonia and may instead form decomposition materials, such as cyanuric acid, biuret, malamine, and/or other polymeric precursors. These polymeric precursors may react after extended periods of time to form highly stable polymeric materials that may only be removed by physical means, such as a chisel or grinder.
One method of preventing the accumulation of the urea in the exhaust pipe and/or on the catalyst face is described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2007/0044457 (the '457 publication) to Upadhyay et al. The '457 publication describes an exhaust gas aftertreatment system that includes a catalyst including a housing, SCR catalyst bricks, and an electric heater embedded into the housing. The heater may be activated for a predetermined amount of time to desorb ammonia from the heated region of the catalyst. The temperature of the catalyst may be calculated based on temperature measurements upstream and downstream of the catalyst. To prevent accumulation of the urea in the exhaust pipe and/or on the catalyst face, reductant injection into the catalyst stops when the calculated catalyst temperature is less than a predetermined temperature threshold (170° C.).
Although the system of the '457 publication may prevent the injection of urea when the calculated catalyst temperature is below the predetermined temperature threshold, when the catalyst temperature falls under the predetermined temperature threshold, urea that has already been deposited on the walls of the catalyst may still form the polymeric precursors. These polymeric precursors may form polymeric materials that may only be removed by chisel or grinder, thereby requiring potentially time-consuming and costly maintenance on the catalyst, requiring periodic replacement of the catalyst, and/or decreasing the effectiveness of the catalyst in reducing the amount of NOx in the flow of exhaust.
The disclosed system is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.

Method and system of thermal management in an exhaust system


The present invention relates to a method of managing a network device, a network device, and a management system. A configuration of a firewall is changed over a network connection by a remote management system (10). The firewall (11) applies the change configuration after receiving a command from the management system (10). Shortly after the changed configuration is applied, the management system (10) takes a new connection to the firewall (11). With this new connection, the configuration is accepted for permanent use in the firewall (11). If a new connection is not successfully set-up within a given time limit, the firewall (11) will automatically return to use the old configuration. Thereby, the firewall (11) is able to restore from any loss of management connection caused by a mistake in the changed configuration.

The present invention relates to a remote management of network devices.
Firewall is a set of components forming a gateway in between two or more networks. Logically a firewall is a gateway which operates at the same time as a connector and a separator between the networks in a sense that the firewall keeps track of the traffic that passes through it from one network to another and restricts connections and packages that are defined as unwanted by the administrator of the system. Physically a firewall is a machine with appropriate software to do the tasks assigned to it. It can be a router, a personal computer (PC), or whatever that can be used for such purposes. Although firewalls are mostly used to connect Local Area Networks (LANs), i.e. internal networks to the Internet and to control from malicious attackers or undesired traffic in general, they may also be used to separate and connect different segments of internal network for security purposes. The advantages of having a firewall are numerous. It secures the network and can be used as a tool for monitoring the traffic especially from outside to inside of the network that is guarded by a firewall. Because all traffic intended to the internal network must pass through the firewall, most of the network security actions and policies can be concentrated in this particular point. This is of course a cost and administrative advantage.
However, the firewall cannot keep an effective security by itself. The firewall needs to be carefully installed and configured, and the security policy needs to be evaluated and updated regularly. The contemporary development towards very complicated networks that need to have multiple interfaces with the Internet for VPN (Virtual Private Network), the remote access, the e-business, the cache servers, etc. has increased the demands for administrative skills. With multi-international companies you have to have the ability to control multiple firewalls by the same administrator. You also need to have an ability to have flexible possibilities regarding security policies: at the same time there might be a need for corporate-wide security policy but some specific sites might also need some particularly "tailored rules".
Because the human factor plays a key role in failures of firewalls and security policies, it is important for a firewall and a system of firewalls to be easily administrable. Administrators should also be restricted to the level of their expertise so they would not do unintentionally something harmful. Only professional and authorized people should have access according to their skills to the firewalls or systems of firewalls. The firewalls are often managed by a remote management system using a network connection and secured (encrypted) communication. The firewall communicates with the management system, sending performance statistics, status information, and log data, while receiving policy updates and configuration changes.
Whenever the configuration, e.g. settings or software, of a network device are changed, there is always a risk that the connectivity is lost between a remote management system and the device. The reason for this may be e.g. a rule preventing a management connection to a firewall. In most cases it is a human error that creates such situation. Whenever the device is managed using a network connection, this means that it is not possible to fix a problem using a network connection.
Therefore, to fix a problem that prevents connecting the management system to a network device, there is a need to have another way of managing the device. Conventionally, the most common approach has been a console connection. Usually this means that the administrator must himself go to the managed device in order to fix the problem. However, sometimes the visit at the device site is not a realistic way to act at all. This is due to the fact that the network device to be managed can be in another building, another country or even in another continent. In such situation, it is typical that some or else must fix the problem locally, mostly according to instruction given by the administrator using a phone or a fax. Even this approach requires the availability of a suitable person near the device to be managed, i.e. a person who is trusted to have administrator rights and skilled enough to manage the device.
Therefore, there are some prior art approaches trying to minimize the skills needed from a person at a remote location. First one is a back-up modem link, i.e. the network device can be accessed by making a modem call to a given telephone number. However, for security reasons, the back-up modem link is not typically enabled all the time. The operator at the remote site has instructions how to enable the link, e.g. connecting a cable, turning on the power, etc.
A second one is an arrangement where a new configuration is first saved in a volatile memory (e.g. RAM) in a device and the current configuration (i.e. the configuration currently in use) is maintained in the permanent non-volatile memory in the device. Then the new configuration is started to be used in the device. If the new configuration is faulty, it is possible to return to the current configuration by rebooting the device. In this case the operator at the remote site needs to just reboot the device. Anyway the availability of a suitable person near the device is needed, since the device cannot be rebooted remotely. Another problem with this approach is that it is up to the administrator to decide to save a new configuration as a current configuration. The administrator may change the configuration many times without changing the current configuration. In that case, it is possible that after a reboot the device returns to a very old configuration that does not correspond to the current situation. Another possibility is that the administrator saves a new configuration as a current configuration without proper knowledge of whether the new configuration works correctly or not. In that case, rebooting the device does not fix the problem of a non-working configuration.
It is evident that a miss-configuration, which prevents even fixing the mistake, can lead to long periods of time during which the network is not available at all. This applies to all network devices, which are remotely managed, not only to the firewalls. However, the firewalls are more likely to have such problems, primarily because the firewalls are the only access points to a network and designed to prevent a traffic not allowed by the administrator. For example, a mistake with IP addressing, routing, anti-spoofing, network address translation, VPN definition, rules or with link speed or mode of a network card may create the described situation.

Method of managing a network device, a management system, and a network device


Elevator cabs are transferred between elevators, which may be shuttles, in various levels of a building, such as transport floors, in response to car calls registered in the cabs and hall calls registered on the transport floors. The cabs may be transferred from carriages or bogeys onto elevator car frames in a lateral direction, which is perpendicular to the motion of the cab on a carriage or bogey, or in a longitudinal direction which is the same as the direction of motion of a cab on a carriage or bogey. The horizontal/vertical control and transfer may be effected in response to the arrival at transport floors of elevators having cabs therein, or in response to the arrival at an elevator of a bogey carrying a cab which must be transported between a transport floor on one level of a building and a transport floor on another level of a building, in order to serve the need of a car call registered therein or a hall call. The horizontal transportation may occur on transport floors within a building, or may extend between different building segments or between different buildings.

In hypertall buildings (those having many more than 100 floors), the problem of the limited practical length of elevator hoistways has been solved in part by means of coupling of hoistways together, and transferring an elevator cab therebetween, as disclosed in commonly owned copending U.S. application Ser. No. 08/564,754, filed on Nov. 29, 1995. In addition, the number of elevators required to move an adequate number of passengers between floors which are separated significantly (near the bottom of the building and near the top of the building) is increased by the extent to which passengers, in unloading and reloading the elevator, cause the elevator cabs to remain at rest, rather than moving passengers. This problem has been overcome to a great extent by means of offshaft loading of elevator cabs, as is disclosed in commonly owned copending U.S. patent application 08/565,606, filed Nov. 29, 1995. However, when local elevators are involved (rather than shuttles between widely diverse floors), the movement of the elevator is slowed by the number of stops, and by extent to which passengers delay the unloading and loading thereof. To improve transportation between floors near a low end of the building and floors separated a great distance from the lobby, the automatic transfer of elevator cabs between shuttles which may move the passengers hundreds of floors, and local elevators which deliver them to their destinations, has been accomplished as illustrated in the parent application hereto and in commonly owned copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/663,869, filed on Jun. 19, 1996.
As is true in the case of moving passengers great vertical distances in hypertall buildings, the movement of passengers between horizontal transportation (such as mass transit and the like) and vertical transportation (such as elevators), is aggravated by the interface between the transportation modes due to the unpredictability of passenger movement when passengers are milling around on foot.

Horizontal and vertical passenger transport

by LucyMary Salmon, legal representative


A filling device for filling containers with a food product is provided for use in the food industry. The filling device comprises at least one weighing device including at least one piezoelement configured to determine a filling amount of the food product.

In the food industry, filling processes are often controlled during filling based on the filling amount of a container. For example, the filling of a container can be terminated when a predetermined filling amount is reached. One possibility of determining the filling amount during filling is the use of a weighing means which determines the mass of the container to be filled by means of strain gauges and calculates the filling amount from it.
For this, the strain gauges, which change their electric resistance in case of deformations, are adhered to a component with a special adhesive, the component minimally deforming under load during the filling process. This deformation (extension) then leads to a change of the resistance of the strain gauge from which in turn the mass or the weight of the container to be filled can be calculated. Such filling devices are described in, for example, EP 1 025 424 or DE 10 2008 030 721.
However, it is a disadvantage of such filling devices that the service life of the strain gauges is restricted to a predetermined number of measuring cycles, usually to about 10 million measuring cycles. Using the strain gauges beyond this point can result in material fatigue and thus falsified measuring results, which in turn can result in inaccurate filling amounts.


Photochromic 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyran compounds corresponding to formula I

The present invention relates to specific photochromic 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyran compounds and their use in synthetic resin materials (i.e., plastics) of all types, in particular for ophthalmic purposes. The present invention relates in particular to photochromic compounds derived from 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyrans which have especially long wavelength absorption maximums in the open form, so that when used in phototropic glasses, essentially blue tones can be achieved which have a high darkening performance at the same time.
Various classes of dyes are known which undergo a reversible change in color on exposure to light of certain wavelengths. This is due to the fact that these dye molecules are converted to an excited colored state by input of energy in the form of light and leave this state again when the input of energy is interrupted, so that they return to their colorless or at least barely colored normal state. These phototropic dyes include, for example, naphthopyrans, which have already been described in the state of the art with various substituents.
Pyrans, specifically naphthopyrans and larger ring systems derived from them are photochromic compounds which have so far been the object of intense investigations. Although the first patent for these compounds was applied for in the year 1966 (U.S. Pat. No. 3,567,605), it was not until the 1990s that compounds suitable for use in eyeglasses were developed.
The dyes known in the prior art often have an inadequate long wavelength absorption in the excited state as well as in the unexcited state. In combinations with other photochromic dyes, this leads to problems. In addition, there is often too great a sensitivity with regard to the darkening effect, and the brightening takes place too slowly. In addition the dyes available in the state of the art often have an inadequate lifetime. Consequently, such sunglasses do not have an adequate stability. The latter is manifested in a rapid decline in performance and/or severe yellowing.
3H-Naphthopyrans derived from 2-naphthols and similar higher derivatives derived by annellation are a group of photochromic dyes whose longest wavelength absorption maximum of the excited form is mainly in the spectral range from 420 nm to 500 nm and thus they impart a yellow, orange or reddish orange color impression (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,869,658 and 6,022,495). For neutral darkening phototropic glasses, however, powerful blue to violet photochromic dyes are needed. Blue to violet photochromic dyes currently available in the state of the art usually come from the class of spiroxazines, fulgides or 2H-naphtho[1,2-b]pyrans. However, spiroxazine dyes are usually at a disadvantage with regard to high temperature performance, whereas fulgide dyes do not have completely satisfactory properties in terms of their lifetime and 2H-naphtho[1,2-b]pyrans do not have fully satisfactory properties with regard to their rate of lightening for use in sunglasses.
Introducing electron shifting substituents on the aryl groups in o-position to the pyran oxygen as described in WO 98/45281, WO 01/12619 and European Patent No. EP 945,451, for example, leads to 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyrans that darken to a red or reddish violet shade. WO 01/12619 discloses compounds whose one geminal aryl group has a para-amino-substituted group and whose other aryl group has an alkoxy or thioalkoxy group with a substituent in meta- or para-position; this substitution pattern has a positive influence on the rate of lightening. WO 98/45281 describes red hyperchromic compounds which also have an amine function mainly in position 6 on the 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyran unit. Compounds which do not have pronounced basic amino groups are described in European Patent No. EP 945,451; these compounds have a pinkish to violet color in the excited state and also have an attractive lifetime performance. WO 99/31082 also discloses 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyrans with aryl substituents in position 6. The effect of the aryl substitution in position 6 on the longest wavelength absorption maximum of the excited and unexcited forms is very minor with these compounds, however.
Corresponding substitution in the 8-position of the 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyran unit produces a bathochromic shift of the longest wavelength absorption maximum, especially by introduction of alkoxy groups as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,238,981. In addition, compounds with dialkylamino groups in the 8-position have also been disclosed. The use of nitrogen heterocycles as substituents in position 8 of the 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyran unit is mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 5,990,305, so that an improved lifetime is achieved in contrast with open-chain amino groups. This is also achieved with substituents containing so-called HALS (hindered amine light stabilizer) structure units. Finally, published German Patent application no. DE 102 00 040 describes blue to violet 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]-pyrans which have substituents with amino groups in positions 3 and 8.

Blue 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyran compounds and use thereof in photochromic articles

Abstract: in which the groups R1 to R7 and B′ have defined meanings and the use of such photochromic compounds in synthetic resin articles of all types, particularly for ophthalmic purposes. The photochromic 3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyran derivatives have particularly long-waved absorption maxima in the open form, and when used in photochromic eyeglass lenses, produce essentially blue color tones which have a high darkening capacity.


A long fiber reinforced plastic strand production device is provided with: a rotary type haul-off machine which forms a long fiber reinforced plastic strand by drawing out a reinforcing fiber bundle which has been impregnated with a plastic from an impregnation head while rotating the reinforcing fiber bundle around the axis thereof to apply twists in the reinforcing fiber bundle, and draws in the formed long fiber reinforced plastic strand; and a rotary type winding-up machine which introduces the long fiber reinforced plastic strand drawn from the rotary type haul-off machine to a winding bobbin while rotating the long fiber reinforced plastic strand around the axis of the strand in the same direction as the rotation direction of the reinforcing fiber bundle rotated by the rotary type haul-off machine, and winds the rotated long fiber reinforced plastic strand around the winding bobbin. The rotary type winding-up machine is constituted to be capable of rotating the long fiber reinforced plastic strand at a number of rotation smaller than the number of rotation of the reinforcing fiber bundle by the rotary type haul-off machine.

Fiber reinforced thermoplastics have a light weight and an excellent strength. In the fiber reinforced thermoplastics, long fiber reinforced thermoplastics, which includes a reinforcing fiber with a long fiber length, has a particularly excellent impact resistance or rigidity. The long fiber reinforced thermoplastic is used in a form of a string shape for, for example, a gut of a tennis racket or the like.
A long fiber reinforced plastic strand is obtained by forming the long fiber reinforced thermoplastic in a string shape. Hitherto, a production device disclosed in Patent Document 1 has been known as a device for producing a long fiber reinforced plastic strand wound on a bobbin by winding up a long fiber reinforced plastic strand on a winding-up bobbin. FIG. 3 illustrates a configuration of a main part of the production device of the related art. The production device of the related art will be described by referring to FIG. 3.
In FIG. 3, an impregnation head (cross head) 105 is provided. The impregnation head 105 is used to simultaneously impregnate, with a molten thermoplastic, a plurality of reinforcing fiber bundles continuously introduced from a plurality of fiber supply units (supply bobbins) (not illustrated) into the impregnation head 105. A shaping die 109 is attached to the exit end for deriving the fiber bundle which has been impregnated with the plastic from the inside of the impregnation head 105 in the impregnation head 105. Further, a cooling machine (cooling water bath) 110 is provided at the downstream side of the impregnation head 105 and the shaping die 109 in the fiber bundle sending direction. Further, a winding-up machine 118 which includes an arm portion 114, a rotation shaft 115, and a winding-up reel 117 is provided at the downstream side of the cooling machine 110. In the winding-up machine 118, the rotation shaft 115 is positioned on the extension line of the path line as the line along which the fiber bundle passing through the shaping die 109 flows from the impregnation head 105. Then, the winding-up reel 117 is configured to rotate, and is connected to the rotation shaft 115 through the arm portion 114. Further, in FIG. 3, guide rolls 116a and 116b are provided. The guide rolls 116a and 116b are used to assist the movement of the long fiber reinforced plastic strand 113 in the length direction thereof.
In the production device of the related art, the winding-up machine 118 with the above-described configuration twists the reinforcing fiber bundle which has been impregnated with the plastic in a manner that the reinforcing fiber bundle is rotated about its axis (a long axis) while the reinforcing fiber bundle which has been impregnated with the plastic is drawn out from the impregnation head 105. Accordingly, the long fiber reinforced plastic strand 113 is formed. Further, in the production device of the related art, the twisted long fiber reinforced plastic strand 113 is cooled and solidified by a cooling machine 110, and the cooled and solidified long fiber reinforced plastic strand 113 is wound up on the winding-up reel 117.
However, in the production device of the related art, since the winding-up machine 118 may twist the reinforcing fiber bundle which has been impregnated with the plastic and haul off the twisted long fiber reinforced plastic strand to directly wind up the twisted long fiber reinforced plastic strand thereon, the long fiber reinforced plastic strand which has a torsional elastic deformation caused by the twisting is directly wound on the winding-up reel 117. For this reason, when the long fiber reinforced plastic strand is drawn out from the long fiber reinforced plastic strand wound on the bobbin, torsion is generated in the drawn long fiber reinforced plastic strand. As a result, a problem arises in that the long fiber reinforced plastic strand may not be easily handled in the subsequent process.

Production method and production device of long fiber reinforced plastic strand


This invention relates to a method for driving a display panel (DP) having pixels (P). The display panel (DP) is driven with a sequence of image frames. The image frames are converted to a drive signal (V2) comprising refresh frames with a refresh frame period (TR) shorter than the image frame period. A pixel (P) of the display panel (DP) is driven with an adapted drive signal having a first polarity during a first group of refresh frame periods, and having a reversed polarity during a subsequent second group of refresh frame periods. The first group and the second group each comprise at least two refresh frame periods.

An active matrix device, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,469,684, comprises an inversion circuitry coupled to drive signals, which inversion circuitry has at least one Cole sequence generator providing random, semi-random, or pseudo-random sequence patterns of the matrix. The Cole sequence generator provides a sequence of inversion patterns of pixel biasing over several frames. Over time each pixel is presented with a substantially equal number of positive and negative drive levels to prevent the generation of undesirable display artifacts, such as image retention or image sticking, that might occur under a direct current bias without inversion.
Generally for television applications, this pixel biasing inversion is carried out once per frame, that is, with a frequency equal to a display refresh rate and synchronous with a video signal. For the reduction of motion artifacts, often a scanning backlight is applied as light source for a liquid crystal display panel. The light of lamps of the scanning backlight is generally emitted in the form of light pulses. If the repetition rate of these pulses is rather low, for example in the order of 50 to 60 Hz, an undesirable flicker is visible due to these light pulses. The inventors have observed that, when increasing the display frame rate to solve this problem, other artifacts deteriorate the quality of the images displayed on the display panel.

Driving a display with a polarity inversion pattern


A protective cable frame for providing a portal for routing low voltage cables through a wall. The protective cable frame includes a substantially rectangular frame portion with an inner periphery having a rounded surface, two ends, and arms extending from each end. The arms include an outer bore and an inner slot therein. The inner slots enable insertion of fasteners for direct mounting of the cable frame to a low voltage bracket or an electrical box and permit squaring of the cable frame with respect to the wall. The outer bores in the arms of the protective cable frame enable receipt of fasteners for mounting a cover plate thereto. The protective cable frame is capable of receiving low voltage cables for routing them through a wall to an adjacent room. The rounded surface on the inner periphery provides a gentle bend radius to cables routed there through.

A wide variety of low voltage components such as telephone cables, coax cables for television and interne service, wiring for home entertainment systems and surround sound, and cables for connecting computers to peripherals such as printers and facsimile machines, are prevalent in today's homes and offices. Frequently it is necessary to route these low voltage wires and cables through walls in order to connect low voltage components in separate rooms.
In some cases, holes are simply made in the baseboard or walls and low voltage cables are simply routed through the holes. However, this is an unsightly solution and detracts from the overall appearance of the building.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/384,423, sharing inventorship with the present invention, disclosed a cable routing assembly including a low voltage bracket and a scoop or frame for acting as a sight barrier for substantially blocking the view of low voltage or communication cables entering the wall.
Although several cable routing devices with sight barriers have been proposed for routing cables through walls, there are also situations in which the primary concern is accommodating a large number of cables and providing a safe opening through the wall. What is needed therefore is a cable routing device that provides an attractive wall portal for low voltage cables. The cable routing device should be capable of accommodating and supporting a large number of cables while providing a gradual or gentle bend radius to the cables passing through the device. The cable routing device should be easy to install and provide a cable portal that is visually pleasing to the homeowner.

Protective cable frame for use with low voltage bracket or electrical box


The disclosure describes one or more embodiments of systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media that utilize a sharpness map that includes information on how to filter a displacement map on a per-texel basis to preserve sharp features while sampling a displacement map. For instance, the disclosed systems utilize a sharpness map that encodes combinable patterns to represent discontinuities of features within a displacement map. In some embodiments, the disclosed systems generate a sharpness map having texels encoded with discontinuity configurations that are referenced to control filtering (e.g., via interpolation) of a displacement map such that sharp features within the displacement map are not lost (due to smoothing during interpolation). For example, the disclosed systems filter feature values of a displacement map using discontinuities identified within a sharpness map to interpolate when the feature value(s) and a sampling point are identified as being on the same side of a discontinuity.

Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the use of computer graphics. In particular, digital content generated through the use of computer graphics techniques are increasingly utilized for a variety of applications (e.g., video games, videos such as animated films, and/or object libraries used in software tools of architecture, industrial design, video game development, virtual reality, augmented reality, and/or animation development). One such computer graphics technique is the use of tessellation and displacement map textures within a graphical processing unit (GPU) pipeline to create computer-generated textures and three-dimensional (3D) objects having detailed surface features.
As an example, while rendering 3D graphics objects in real time, the geometry of a 3D object can be decomposed into a macrostructure that defines a general shape of the 3D object through a polygon-based mesh, a microstructure having microgeometry that represents reflective properties of the 3D object (such as a Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function), and a mesostructure having high frequency details stored as surface offsets in a displacement map texture that form visible features of the 3D object. To generate a 3D object, many conventional graphics systems utilize a dedicated tessellation unit, on a GPU, controlled by programmable shaders to subdivide patches of a 3D-object mesh according to a tessellation pattern with positions of vertices being reconstructed along a normal direction from a displacement map. By utilizing a displacement map texture, many conventional systems achieve surface normal offsets representing depth and detail on surfaces of complex output 3D objects (in large scenes) in real time.
Unfortunately, despite recent advancements in utilizing displacement maps while rendering 3D graphics objects in real time, many conventional graphics systems that utilize displacement maps have a number of shortcomings with regard to accurately, efficiently, and flexibly rendering depth and detail on surfaces of complex 3D objects. For instance, many conventional graphics systems fail to accurately reproduce sharp features within textures using displacement maps. More specifically, conventional graphics systems often utilize bilinear or trilinear interpolation when sampling a displacement map for rendering of a 3D object. In many cases, such interpolation techniques smooth out sharp features represented in displacement map. Moreover, the resulting rendered 3D object often also includes smooth surface features instead of accurate depth and detail of features on the surfaces of the 3D object. Oftentimes, such conventional systems also render 3D objects that lead to blurry magnification of the 3D object due to the absence of sharp boundaries in the displacement map. In addition, conventional systems that utilize interpolation techniques with displacement maps also often inaccurately result in staircasing artifacts on the 3D object.
In order to address the issue of sharp features being smoothed while rendering a 3D object using a displacement map, many conventional systems preprocess a displacement texture to extract sharper features, but this excludes the preprocessed displacement texture from utilization in many real time applications. Furthermore, conventional systems oftentimes utilize vector graphics formats such as SVG due to their resolution independent properties. However, such vector graphics formats are traditionally rendered on a central processing unit (CPU) and rendering using vector graphics formats in the context of texture assets for 3D scenes on a GPU is an order of magnitude slower than utilizing a raster format. Accordingly, in order to improve accuracy, such conventional systems inefficiently reduce the speed at which 3D scenes are rendered. Furthermore, some conventional systems utilize a hybrid approach by sampling a raster format while using a vectorial representation to provide local resolution-independent features that is unable to efficiently and flexibly leverage the full potential of GPU texture units while rendering 3D objects.
In relation to image sampling, some conventional systems encode discontinuities to model sharp boundaries in images. For instance, some conventional systems attempt to encode discontinuities as a mesh in texture format for image sampling. These conventional systems are often inefficient in implementation and also inaccurately represent discontinuities. For instance, many conventional systems inefficiently encode discontinuities by including four points per texel in the grid mesh and accessing four sample values while using continuous interpolation based on patch functions. Furthermore, some conventional systems simplify an amount of information stored within the mesh having discontinuities such that the mesh introduces undesired (and inaccurate) discontinuities for certain configurations during interpolation of an image.
Furthermore, some conventional systems utilize an offset function to adjust the texture coordinates of a requested sample (from a sampled map) to shrink the texture space around features of the sampled map to avoid bilinear interpolations that cause smoothing in images. However, such conventional systems are rigid and unable to represent a T-junction discontinuity within a sampled map such that discontinuity artifacts are created between pixels. To resolve this obstacle, some conventional systems utilize more complex data structures that combine an array of curved segment and an additional texture storing per-pixel indices for the array. This complexity often results in inefficient processing time within a GPU pipeline.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Rendering textures utilizing sharpness maps


An OLED display and touch screen system, including: a) a substrate; b) an OLED display area including an array of individually addressable OLEDs formed on the substrate; and c) a touch screen including at least one OLED light emitter formed on the substrate and a plurality of light sensors formed on the substrate across the display area from the light emitter, each of the light sensors having an elongated surface area with a first relatively short dimension and a second relatively long dimension and being positioned adjacent to an edge of the display area, with the relatively long dimension positioned substantially perpendicular to the adjacent edge of the display area, and optics located around the display area above the light emitter and the light sensors for directing light emitted from the light emitter across the display area to the surface area of the light sensors. The system is advantageous in that it enables a thin, light, easily manufacturable display having an integrated optical touch screen having reduced weight, size, and cost, a greater reliability and improved sensitivity and resolution.

Modern electronic devices provide an increasing amount of functionality with a decreasing size. By continually integrating more and more capabilities within electronic devices, costs are reduced and reliability increased. Touch screens are frequently used in combination with conventional soft displays such as cathode ray tubes (CRTs), liquid crystal displays (LCDs), plasma displays and electroluminescent displays. The touch screens are manufactured as separate devices and mechanically mated to the viewing surfaces of the displays.
U.S. 2002/0175900 A1 by Armstrong, published Nov. 28, 2002, describes a touch system for use with an information display system including a frame defining an opening corresponding in size and shape to an information display area of a display. On each side is positioned an array of light emitting devices with a light-transmissive prism positioned along each array of light emitting devices such that light emitted from the light emitting devices is directed across the touch input area. The system also includes light detection devices positioned at each corner of the frame. In a preferred embodiment, the light emitting devices are organic light emitting diodes.
When such a touch screen is used with a flat panel display, the touch screen is simply placed over the flat panel display and the two are held together by a mechanical mounting means such as an enclosure. These prior-art arrangements combining touch screens and OLED displays suffer from a variety of drawbacks. The use of frames increases the parts count, weight, and cost of the device. The separation between the touch screen and display increases thickness. Redundant components found in the display and touch screen further increase cost and decrease performance as compared to more integrated solutions. Moreover, the need for separate cabling for the touch screen increases manufacturing costs.
Copending, commonly assigned U.S. Ser. No. 10/346,987 (filed Jan. 17, 2003) and Ser. No. 10/703,808 (filed Nov. 7, 2003) describe integrated OLED display and touch screen system comprising: a) a substrate; b) an OLED display area including an array of individually addressable OLEDs formed on the substrate; and c) a touch screen including at least one OLED light emitter formed on the substrate and at least one light sensor formed on the substrate across the display area from the light emitter, and optics located around the display area above the light emitter and the light sensor for directing light emitted from the light emitter across the display area to the light sensor. While advantageous, sensors employed in such an arrangement may not provide sufficient sensitivity and resolution to meet needs for some applications. Thus, there remains a desire for a further improved touch screen, flat-panel display system that minimizes device weight, removes redundant materials, decreases cost, eliminates special mechanical mounting designs, increases reliability, minimizes the degradation in image quality, and provides improved sensitivity and resolution.


A data processing system is operable in a multitasking mode to include at least one process having a plurality of threads. Exception management is done on a per thread basis, as opposed to a per process basis. Further, when a process termination exception occurs, each thread is accessed to execute any process termination exception handler associated with the thread.

The well known OS/2 (TM) operating system has been commercially available for a few years and was initially designed as an operating system for personal computers using an Intel 80286 microprocessor. Early versions of OS/2 are considered 16 bit versions in view of the 16 bit architecture of the 80286 microprocessor. Current and future versions of OS/2 are considered 32 bit versions in view of the 32 bit architecture in microprocessors such as the 80386 and 80486. While an operating system is a collection of programs that provide many different functions, the general function to which the invention pertains is that of task management and, more specifically, exception management. The OS/2 operating system can operate the microprocessor in a protected mode to provide multitasking. Such system thus allows more than one program to be concurrently run. The general function of task management is to allocate resources to the different programs so that the various programs can be concurrently run in different time slices. Under OS/2, application programs are part of "threads" and "processes".
A process is an entity which owns system resources assigned to the process and includes at least one thread of execution. A thread is a dispatchable unit of work or string of instructions to be executed. A process can have more than one thread and in such case is considered "multithreaded". A concurrent application can be created as distinct processes or as multiple threads in a single process. Thread code is written in reentrant form so that the same code can be used concurrently in plural threads. In the latter case, each thread has access to the system resources owned by the process which includes the thread. In contrast, other operating systems allowing multitasking but each task is in reality a single process having a single thread.
Multiple threads in a process execute asynchronously of each other and as this happens, an "exception" may occur in one or more threads, and such action creates the problem which the invention overcomes as described in more detail below. An "exception" is a hardware related error or event that occurs during execution of instructions. The operating system is notified by the processor when the exception occurs, allowing an exception management function to "handle" the exception. The handler may be either a system handler or a user defined handler dependent on the type of exception. A system handler automatically handles certain exceptions over which the user has no control. For other exceptions, the user or application may define an exception handler which the user can optionally invoke through exception registration. If the user does not provide a user defined handler or invoke one properly, the system will automatically apply default actions. Heretofore, 16 bit OS/2 allows a user or programmer to define handlers for the following exceptions: a divide by 0 fault, an overflow trap, a bounds check fault, an invalid opcode fault, and a processor extension not present fault. By writing the handlers in reentrant form, plural copies of the same handler can be used.
Exception handling in 16 bit OS/2 is managed on a per process basis and this has created problems which the present invention improves upon and overcomes. Each thread registers an exception handler by using an application programming interface (API) call and this causes an entry to be made in the exception vector of the kernel per process data area. The exception vector is common to all threads within the process and contains a table of pointers to handlers that have been registered. The pointers are stored in the table in accordance with the type of exception. Each thread has access to all pointers or table entries. This creates a problem in the situation where a first thread registers its own handler for a given type of exception and subsequently a second thread registers its own handler for the same type whereby the first pointer is overwritten. Should the exception occur while the first thread is executing, the second handler will be executed without informing the first handler that it is not the one originally registered. In other words, the threads have access to the table and can unknowingly corrupt access to handlers of other threads sharing the exception vector.
A second problem can occur when a first thread has requested from a subsystem a transaction that must complete. For example, a thread might request data from a remote data base subsystem. Suppose then that a second thread is executing and causes an abnormal termination to occur. Such exceptions are handled on a per process basis, and the whole process is terminated without notifying individual threads and allowing them a chance to terminate gracefully. In the example cited, the thread in the remote data base system never gets a chance to roll back its transaction, potentially causing integrity problems in the remote data base.

Per thread exception management for multitasking multithreaded operating system


A method of generating a quantized neural network comprises (i) receiving a pre-trained neural network model and (ii) modifying the pre-trained neural network model to calculate one or more statistics on an output of one or more layers of the pre-trained neural network model based on a current image and set up an output data format for one or more following layers of the pre-trained neural network model for one or more of the current image and a subsequent image dynamically based on the one or more statistics.

A neural network, more properly referred to as an "artificial" neural network (ANN), is a computing system made up of a number of simple, highly interconnected processing elements, which process information by respective dynamic state responses to external inputs. Neural networks are processing devices (algorithms or actual hardware) that are loosely modeled after the neuronal structure of a brain, but on much smaller scales. A large neural network can have hundreds or thousands of processing units.
Neural networks are typically organized in layers. The layers can comprise a number of interconnected nodes that perform an operation or activation function. Input data is presented to an input layer of the network, which communicates to one or more internal (or hidden) layers where the actual processing is performed via an arrangement of weighted connections. The process of determining the weights for the weighted connections of the neural network is typically referred to as training. The hidden layers connect to an output layer where the result of a prediction model implemented by the neural network is presented. Application of neural networks can require large amounts of memory and computations.
Neural networks typically are trained in floating point precision (e.g., FP(32)). Edge devices typically work at a lower container format to save on bandwidth and computation cost. In general, a container format represents how many bits are used to represent a number. In typical applications, numbers are represented by 8 bit, 16 bit, or 32 bit container formats. In general, any number range can be represented with these container formats. For example, if an 8 bit container format is used to represent a number range from 0-255 (i.e., 0=0, 1=1, etc.), the precision is said to be 1. If an 8 bit container format is used to represent a number range from 0-510, then 0=0, 1=2, 2=4, etc. In this case, precision is lost (i.e., the precision is 2 instead of 1). Similarly, an 8 bit container format with a precision of 0.5 would represent the number range from 0-128 as 0=0, 1=0.5, etc. A lower container format leads to a trade off between range and precision.
A lower fixed point container format is generally preferred for most edge devices because fixed point container formats offer more computational savings. Converting floating point data to fixed point data, generally referred to as quantization, is a lossy process. When a neural network is ported to an edge device, the inference accuracy of the neural network may be lower than the original floating point format model due to quantization.
On many hardware architectures, the fixed point data format (e.g., FIX8, FIX16, etc.) of each layer in the neural network can be set individually. This flexibility allows determining the output data format of each layer by running inference on a representative dataset. Statistics like min, max, histogram, and variance are recorded, and the statistics used to set the data format of each layer. This process is called post training quantization. At the end of post training quantization, the data format for each layer is locked.
Post training quantization tries to minimize the reduction in inference accuracy due to quantization. From a perspective of an end user, the effort required in porting the neural network to the edge device is minimal with post training quantization. However, the accuracy of the network generated utilizing post training quantization may still be lower than the original accuracy due to loss of precision. The amount of quantization loss depends on the complexity of the neural network and the size of the representative dataset.
Another technique to minimize the reduction in inference accuracy due to quantization is called quantization aware training. Quantization aware training ensures that the forward pass matches precision for both training and inference. Quantization aware training models the effect of quantization loss into the neural network and can result in better accuracy on edge devices. During the process of quantization aware training, the network learns the data format for a given container format. The "learned" data format chooses the right trade off between accuracy and precision from the given data set. However, on edge devices, the accuracy of the network is not determined just by quantization loss in convolution layers. Other constraints (e.g., concat operations) can restrict data format selections, which do not get modeled in quantization aware training. Typically, concat operations require the input number range to be identical so that there is one number range for output. If the input number range is not identical, the input gets quantized to bring the input to the same range. Other examples of constraints include transcendental operations (e.g., tanh, softmax, etc.). Since the constraints are not modeled in quantization aware training, the expected accuracy is not typically achieved. Quantization aware training is typically difficult and time consuming to perform.
It would be desirable to implement dynamic quantization for models run on edge devices

Dynamic quantization for models run on edge devices


A low output capacitance, double-diffused field effect transistor effectively realizes the reduction in the output capacitance, by providing a drain electrode on one surface of a first conduction type semiconductor substrate, forming on the other surface of the substrate, through a double diffusion, second conduction type well regions and first conduction type source regions for connection therewith of a source electrode, forming channel regions in surface zone of the well regions disposed between first conduction type zone of the semiconductor substrate and the source regions, above which channel regions being provided gate electrodes through an insulating film, forming a guard ring region surrounding the well regions, and connecting at least one capacitance component means to the gate electrodes.

This invention relates generally to power semiconductor devices of low output capacitance and, more particularly, to a double-diffused metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (which shall be hereinafter referred to simply as "DMOSFET").
The DMOSFET of the kind referred to can be effectively utilized in such devices demanding high breakdown voltage, high speed switching and high noise resistance as the power semiconductor device of a solid-state relay and so on.

Low output capacitance, double-diffused field effect transistor


This invention relates generally to an electro-luminescent strip that is placed on or integrally molded with a standard windshield wiper arm. Electro-luminescent strip is attached to housing which is placed on wiper arm by a strap, by a clip, by adhesive, or integrally molded into wiper arm. Power for electroluminescent strip is provided by an automobile battery. Power from the battery is first run through an inverter to translate the DC current into AC current. Electro-luminescent strip can also be placed into recess in wiper arm.

The present invention relates generally to a lighting device for windshield wiper arms and more specifically to a custom automotive part or after market device which is attached to or incorporated into a front or rear windshield wiper arm to provide safety and decorative illumination.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that electro-luminescent lamp technology (EL lamp or strip) has been practiced for many years. The first use of EL lamps as a decorative lighting device was on the 1978 Buick Riviera. Several major automobile manufacturers have since followed with the use of EL lamps as decorative lighting members, as well as for back lighting for dashboards in many late model automobiles. It will be further appreciated by those skilled in the art that many individuals like to add custom details to their automobiles, such as vanity license plates, curb feelers, mud flaps, and brake lighting templates.
The standard automobile has at least one windshield wiper with an arm. Onto this arm, there is placed a windshield wiper blade. Unfortunately, as time goes by, automobile manufacturers are opting for the monochromatic look which causes molded plastics to be painted to match the body instead of the bright chrome of cars of the past. Not only will this monochromatic trend create lookalike sameness among automobiles, but it also decreases the ability of oncoming traffic to see the vehicle at night. This lack of night visibility is caused by the lack of illumination of monochromatic molded plastic when compared to the previously reflective chrome.
What is needed, then, is a lighting device for windshield wiper arms which increases the aesthetic appearance of a motor vehicle. This needed lighting device must also increase the visibility of the vehicle to oncoming traffic. The device must be easily attachable and versatile. This device is presently lacking in the prior art.

Lighting device for windshield wiper arms


A fuel injector for a gas turbine engine includes a nozzle body defining a central axis and having a main fuel circuit. An air circuit is formed within the nozzle body inboard of the main fuel circuit. A primary pilot fuel circuit is formed within the nozzle body inboard of the air circuit. A secondary pilot fuel circuit is formed within the nozzle body inboard of the air circuit and outboard of the primary pilot fuel circuit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fuel injectors and nozzles, and more particularly to injectors and nozzles for gas turbine engines.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of devices and methods are known in the art for injecting fuel into gas turbine engines. Of such devices, many are directed to injecting fuel into combustors of gas turbine engines while reducing undesirable emissions. With the increased regulation of emissions from gas turbine engines have come a number of concepts for reducing pollutant emissions while improving the efficiency and operability of the engines.
Modern gas turbine engine designs include providing high temperature combustion temperatures for thermal efficiency throughout a range of engine operating conditions. High temperature combustion minimizes emissions of some undesired gaseous combustion products, such as carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbons (UHC), and particulates, among other things. However, high temperature combustion also tends to increase the production of nitrogen oxides (NOX). Thus measures must be taken to provide thermally efficient operation within a temperature range that minimizes NOX, CO, and UHC.
One method often used to reduce unwanted emissions is staged fuel injection, wherein the combustion process is divided into two (or more) zones or stages, which are generally separated from each other by a physical distance, but still allowed some measure of interaction. Each stage is designed to provide a certain range of operability, while maintaining control over the levels of pollutant formation. For low power operation, only the pilot stage is active. For higher power conditions, both the pilot and the main stages may be active. In this way, proper fuel-to-air ratios can be controlled for efficient combustion, reduced emissions, and good stability. The staging can be accomplished by axial or radial separation. Staged fuel injectors for gas turbine engines are well known in the art.
It is difficult to provide thermally efficient, low emissions operation over the widening range of conditions in gas turbine engine designs. Additionally, during low power operating conditions, conventional staged fuel injectors only have fuel flowing through one of the staged fuel circuits. Measures must be taken to control temperatures in the stagnant fuel circuit to prevent coking within the injector. In the past, attempts were made to extend injector life by passively insulating, actively cooling, or otherwise protecting the fuel circuitry of fuel injectors from carbon formation during low power engine operation.
Along with staged combustion, pollutant emissions can be reduced by providing a more thoroughly mixed fuel-air mixture prior to combustion wherein the fuel-to-air ratio is below the stoichiometric level so that the combustion occurs at lean conditions. Lean burning results in lower flame temperatures than would occur with stoichiometric burning. Since the production of NOX is a strong function of temperature, a reduced flame temperature results in lower levels of NOX. The technology of directly injecting liquid fuel into the combustion chamber and enabling rapid mixing with air at lean fuel-to-air ratios is called lean direct injection (LDI).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,389,815 to Hura et al. describes a lean direct injection system, which utilizes radially-staged combustion within a single injector. The pilot fuel delivery is of the "swirl-cup" type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,884 to Ekstedt, wherein a pressure swirl atomizer sprays liquid fuel onto a filming surface where the liquid film is stripped off into droplets by the action of compressor discharge air. The main fuel delivery system utilizes a series of discrete atomizers that spray radially outward into a swirling cross-flow of air. The main fuel delivery is staged radially outboard of the pilot, and operates in the fuel-lean mode. Separation of the pilot combustion zone from the main combustion zone is achieved by radial separation as well as an air jet located radially between the two combustion zones.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,272,840 to Crocker et al. discloses a lean direct injection system, which also utilizes radially-staged combustion within a single injector. The pilot fuel delivery is of either a simplex air-blast type, or a prefilming air-blast type, and the main fuel delivery system is of a prefilming air-blast type. The radial staging of the pilot and main combustion zones is achieved by ensuring that the pilot combustion zone remains on-axis with no central recirculation zone.
U.K. Patent Application No. GB 2 451 517 to Shui-Chi et al. describes a pilot circuit divided into a primary and secondary fuel split. The primary circuit includes a pressure atomizer (simplex) on the centerline that is used for low power operation. The secondary pilot circuit is radially outboard of the primary circuit and is in the form of circumferentially spaced ports aimed towards the centerline. These circumferentially spaced ports are prone to external and internal carbon concerns.
Such conventional methods and systems have been generally considered satisfactory for their intended purposes. However, there still remains a continued need in the art to provide for staged operation in a pilot only mode for a substantial portion of the operating thrust while having lower requirements of fuel delivery pressure and reducing the chance of carbon formation. There also remains a need in the art for such methods and devices that are easy to make and use. The subject invention provides a solution for these problems.

Lean burn injectors having multiple pilot circuits


A wet-etch composition may include: peracetic acid (PAA); and a fluorinated acid; a relative amount of the PAA in the composition being sufficient to ensure an etch rate of (P-doped-SiGe):(P-doped-Si) that is substantially the same as an etch rate of (N-doped-SiGe):(N-doped-Si). Such a wet-etch composition is hereafter referred to as a PAA-based etchant and can be used to make, e.g., a CMOS MBCFET, an electrode of a capacitor, etc.

The need to reduce transistor size is a perennial problem to be solved in the art of integrated circuits. One way that the Background Art reduced transistor size was to reduce the length of the channel. Doing so effectively reduced the overall footprint of the transistor. But then a minimum channel length (relative to other physical parameters of the transistor) was achieved below which problems were created, e.g., short channel effects.
The Background Art responded by developing a transistor architecture that reduced the transistor's footprint size while maintaining at least the minimum channel length. Whereas the larger footprint transistor architecture used a planar channel, the smaller footprint transistor architecture used a folded channel.
FIG. 9 is a three-quarter perspective view of the smaller footprint architecture according to the Background Art, which is generally referred to as a FinFET and particularly here as a triple-channel FinFET 900 having a body 902 (in which is formed the channel) in the shape of a fin (obscured in FIG. 9 but see 902b in FIG. 10) formed on a buried oxide (BOX) structure 901 between a source region 902a and a drain region 902C. Gate electrode 906 conforms (as does interposed gate oxide layer 904) to the shape of body 902.
FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional view of Background Art FinFET 900 taken along line X-X′ of FIG. 9. Recall that the inversion layer induced in a channel is located in body 902 next to gate oxide 904 and tends to be rather shallow. An idealized effect of gate electrode 906 being adjacent to three sides of body 902 is as if three separate inversion layers are induced, namely a first inversion layer 908a, a second inversion layer 908b and a third inversion layer 908C. Hence, FinFET 900 can be referred to as a triple-channel FinFET.
Continuing efforts to reduce transistor size has led to the multi-bridge-channel FET (MBCFET). An MBCFET can be described as an FET having a stack of quadruple-channel bridges. FIGS. 1A and 1B are perspective views showing an active pattern and a gate electrode of an NMOS or PMOS MBCFET according to the Background Art.
Referring to FIG. 1A, an active pattern formed on a surface of an integrated circuit substrate such as a semiconductor substrate (not shown) includes a bridge-region 1 having plurality of bridges 4a, 4b and 4c formed in a vertical direction. Multiple channels can be induced in each bridge 4a, 4b and 4c of an operational MBCFET.
A plurality of tunnels 2a, 2b and 2c are formed between bridges 4a, 4b and 4c. Source/drain regions 3 are formed at the both sides of the bridge-region 1 (or, in other words, a central portion of the active pattern) so as to be connected to the plurality of bridges 4a, 4b and 4c (and the channels induced therein). Source/drain regions 3 are formed to have a width wider than that of bridges 4a, 4b and 4c. Between source/drain regions 3 and bridges 4a, 4b, 4c, there may be formed source/drain extension layers 5 connecting source/drain regions 4 to bridges 4a, 4b and 4c.
The plurality of tunnels 2a, 2b and 2c are formed between the bridges 4a, 4b and 4c. The lowest tunnel 2a is formed between the lowest bridge layer 4a and the underlying surface portion of the semiconductor substrate. A groove 2′ corresponding in shape to tunnels 2a, 2b and 2c of a tunnel shape is formed on the uppermost bridge 4c.
Referring to FIG. 1B, a gate electrode 6 is formed on the active pattern. A gate-insulating layer 7 is formed between gate electrode 6 and the plurality of bridges 4a, 4b and 4c. Gate electrode 6 extends through and/or fills up the plurality of tunnels 2a, 2b and 2c and tunnel groove 2′. As such, gate electrode 6 is formed to surround the plurality of bridges 4a, 4b and 4c.
During operation, an MBCFET gate electrode 6 can induce four channels in each of bridges 4a, 4b and 4c. More particularly, an idealized effect of gate electrode 6 being adjacent to four sides of one of the brides 4a, 4b and 4c is as if four inversion layers (channels) are induced in the bridge. The four inversion layers are analogous to inversion layers 908a, 908b and 908c in FIG. 10.
Returning to FIG. 1A, before tunnels 2a, 2b and 2c are formed, the precursor to bridge-region 1 of the active pattern includes not only the plurality of bridge layers 4a, 4b and 4c (in which will be induced corresponding channels) but also a plurality of interbridge layers (which will become tunnels 2). The bridge and interbridge layers are stacked alternately with each other. Bridges 4a, 4b and 4c can include a single crystalline semiconductor film, such as silicon (Si) film. The interbridge layers can include silicon-germanium (SiGe). To obtain the arrangement of bridges 4a, 4b and 4c and tunnels 2a, 2b and 2c in FIG. 1A, the precursor to bridge-region 1 of the active pattern is etched with an etchant that is selective to SiGe over Si. In other words, such an etchant is used to form tunnels 2a, 2b and 2c.

PAA-based etchant, methods of using same, and resultant structures


An exposure system is provided which can maintain a predetermined performance of the exposure apparatus stably by maintaining a cooling capacity by preventing a negative pressure from being generated in a circulation path of the liquid and preventing the back pressure from increasing even if at least a part of a temperature adjusting device is disposed under a disposition surface of the exposure apparatus due to the disposition area. A sealed tank which stores the cooling agent which is circulated in the circuiting systems and a pump, etc., which circulates the cooling agent are disposed under the disposition surface FL of the exposure system. The reticle stage and the wafer stage which are objects of which the temperature is supposed to be controlled are disposed above the disposition surface FL. A tank which open to air is provided so as to prevent the negative pressure from being generated in the reticle stage, etc. such that the tank and the tank are connected by a connecting piping arrangement. Also, the piping arrangement which eliminates the bubbles which are contained in the cooling agent which is circulated in the circulating systems are connected to the circulating systems.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exposure system which transfers a pattern formed on a mask or a reticle onto a substrate such as a wafer, and to a method for manufacturing devices such as a semiconductor element, a liquid crystal displaying element, an image-capturing element, a thin film magnetic head, and other devices by using the exposure system.
The present application is based on Patent Application No. 2002-122567, filed in Japan, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
An exposure apparatus which transfers a pattern which is formed on a mask or a reticle (hereinafter generally referred as a mask) onto a wafer or a glass plate, etc., on which a photosensitive agent such as photoresist is applied is used in a photolithography step which is a step for manufacturing a semiconductor element, a liquid crystal displaying element, an image-capturing element, a thin film magnetic head, and other devices.
For an exposure apparatus which is used commonly in recent years, there is an exposure apparatus which employs a step and repeat method such as a reduction projection exposure apparatus (a so called stepper) and an exposure apparatus which employs a step and scan method. An exposure system employing the stepped and repeat method is an exposure apparatus which moves a wafer in a step manner and repeats a movement which transfers a pattern which is formed on a reticle onto each shot area at once. Also, an exposure system employing the step and scan method is an exposure apparatus which repeats a movement which transfers a pattern which is formed by a reticle to a shot area successively for every shot area while moving the reticle and the wafer synchronously.
In recent years, in particular, semiconductors have become highly integrated; therefore, improvement in resolution by realizing a shorter wavelength for an exposure light and by realizing a high NA (Numerical Aperture) of an optical projection system, and an improvement in an overlapping accuracy by an accurate and strict control of a baseline amount are desired. Here, a baseline amount is a distance between a reference point (for example, a center of projection) for a pattern image of the reticle which is projected on the wafer and a reference point (for example, a center of measured perspective) of an alignment sensor according to an off-axis method.
Also, an improvement in productivity is required for a production of a device in recent years. An acceleration for a reticle stage and a wafer stage increases so as to improve a through-put (number of wafers which are processed per unit time); thus, heat generated in a motor which drives these stages increases. The motor which drives the stage is disposed inside the exposure apparatus; therefore, the temperature in the exposure apparatus fluctuates to a great extent every time the exposure operation is repeated. In particular, both the wafer stage and the reticle stage are driven by a motor during an exposure operation in the exposure apparatus according to step and scan method; therefore, the temperature fluctuates to a greater extent. Here, the varies in the exposure apparatus not only due to motor which are disposed in the wafer stage and the reticle stage but also due to a driving system (for example, a lens driving system of the optical projection system and a reticle blind driving system) in the exposure apparatus are driven.
If the temperature in the exposure apparatus varies, the resolution may be reduced by variation (for example, fluctuation in the best focusing position and a variance in aberration) of the optical characteristics of the optical projection system. Also, a baseline amount may fluctuate due to thermal expansion and thermal deformation of the alignment sensor and the stages; thus, an accuracy for overlapping the projected pattern and the shot area may be reduced. In order to avoid these disadvantages, an exposing system is formed by an exposure apparatus and a temperature controlling device which maintains the temperature in the exposure apparatus. In recent years, it is common for an exposure system to be provided with a large-scale temperature controlling device which is according to a liquid cooling method in which cooling capacity is high. In such a case of preventing an increase of installation area (footprint) of the exposure system in a clean room, it is common that at least a part of the temperature controlling device is disposed under (also called "under a floor surface" or "under an installation surface" in this specification) a floor surface (an installation surface) on which the exposure apparatus is disposed.
In addition, in a case in which the temperature controlling device is disposed in the above-explained manner, an object (reticle stage, wafer stage, etc.) of which the temperature is supposed to be controlled is disposed higher than a floor surface on which the exposure apparatus is disposed, and a tank which collects the cooling medium which is circulated in the object of which the temperature is supposed to be controlled, a pump which circulates the cooling medium, and the temperature adjusting device which sets the temperature of the cooling medium are disposed under the floor surface. Therefore, the cooling medium is compressed so as to be transported by the pump to the height position of the object of which temperature is supposed to be controlled. Consequently, the cooling medium is collected in the tank after passing the object of which temperature is supposed to be controlled and falling therefrom due to a vertical positioning difference; thus, the cooling medium is compressed to be circulated in a path by the pump again.
In the controlling device which has the above-explained circulation path, the cooling medium descends after passing the object of which the temperature is supposed to be controlled; therefore, there may be a case in which a negative pressure is generated at a position of the object of which the temperature is supposed to be controlled. For example, a larte negative pressure is generated when a circulation of the cooling medium is stopped in the circulation path. When this negative pressure is generated, a case may occur in which some kinds of deformation may occur in the cooling pipe (which forms a part of the circulation path) which is disposed in the reticle stage and the wafer stage as an object of which the temperature is supposed to be controlled; thus, there may be a concern that an operation performance of the stage will be undesirably affected. As an example, in a case in which a cooling pipe is disposed in a linear motor (moving-magnet type) which drives the stage, if the cooling pipe is deformed by the negative pressure, a gap between the fixed element (coil) and the cooling pipe is unstable. As a result, the fluid amount of the cooling medium which flows in the gap is unstable; thus, temperature stability is unstable in the motor. Therefore, there are concerns that a stability of a thrust force of the motor may be unstable, or there may be a temperature distribution on a surface of the cooling pipe; thus, there is undesirable influence on accuracy for overlapping the baselines.
Also, in a case in which the temperature controlling device is disposed in the above-explained manner, it is necessary to eliminate air which remains in the circulation path so as to fill the circulation path with the cooling medium. If the pump is a large scale pump which has a high compressing performance, it is possible to raise the cooling medium to the highest position of the circulation path even if the position which supplies the cooling medium to the circulation path and the position for eliminating the air are lower than the highest position of the circulation path. Therefore, it is possible to eliminate the air from the circulation path so as to fill the circulation path with the cooling medium there.
On the other hand, in a case in which a small pump must be used due to a limitation such as that due to an installation area, a method is used which supplies the cooling medium from a vicinity of the highest position of the circulation path into the circulation path and eliminating the air from the vicinity of the highest position of the circulation path so as to fill the circulation path with the liquid (the cooling medium) by gravity and only so as to use the pump as a circulating capacity. However, air cannot necessarily be removed from the highest point of the circulation path if this method is used; therefore, there may be a case in which it is not possible to eliminate air in the circulation path completely. Moreover, there is a case in which air remains there for unknown reasons. If air remains in the circulation path, a back pressure is generated in the circulation path; therefore, if a small pump is used which does not have a sufficient compressing capacity so as to resist the force of air which ascends upwardly, there is a concern that a cooling capacity for the stage may be reduced because it is no possible to flow a desirable fluid amount in the circulation path as a result. In addition, there is a concern that an operability performance of the stage may be reduced. Also, quite often, a cooling pipe which does not have a high pressure resistance from a space point of view is used for a linear motor, etc.; thus, there is a problem in that it is not possible to increase the fluid amount of the liquid when the back pressure increases in the circulation path.

Exposure system and method for manufacturing device


A method, a controller, and a system for encoding a sequence of video frames captured by a camera mounted to a moving object. The method comprises receiving input indicating an amount of movement of the camera, receiving input regarding a predetermined distance, and selecting between intra-coding and inter-coding of the video frames of the sequence based on the amount of movement of the camera and the predetermined distance, such that the camera moves at most the predetermined distance between capturing video frames which are intra-coded.

The use of video cameras for monitoring and surveillance purposes is increasing. This applies especially to cameras mounted on moving objects, such as body-worn cameras or cameras used on trains or buses. Body-worn cameras may be used by police or security staff, and the video captured by the camera may be used for forensic purposes. In order for the video to serve as evidence, it is important that the quality of the video is high enough, regardless of how the person wearing the camera moves. As many video encoding methods are adapted and optimized for stationary cameras, there is a need for improvements.

Method, controller, and system for encoding a sequence of video frames


A pressure relief valve useful in vehicle fuel delivery systems includes a spring biased, concave conical flow directing surface and a spherical valve seat.

Various types of pressure relief valves are known for controlling fuel delivery pressure in so-called single-line forward fuel injection systems. Diaphragm-type pressure regulating valves have been used but are large and expensive. Smaller and less expensive ball-on-seat valves have also been used but are not sufficiently sensitive to changes in the fuel consumption rate of the motor for application as a pressure regulating valve in single line forward motor vehicle injection systems.
A prior art pressure regulating valve is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,762,101 issued to General Motors Corporation, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. The valve of the '101 patent includes a valve element having a surface which is spring biased to close against a circular valve seat. An annular orifice is created when the flow overcomes the bias of the spring and moves the valve element away from the valve seat. The flow directing surface of the valve element redirects fluid flow upstream of the orifice. The fluid is redirected at an included angle less than 180° to induce on the valve element a force reaction, which cooperates with a fluid pressure force reaction on the valve element to improve sensitivity of the valve element to changes in fluid pressure upstream of the annular flow orifice, attributable to changes in the rate of fuel consumption by the motor. A skirt of the flow directing surface downstream of the annular flow orifice directs fluid flow substantially parallel to the direction of movement of the valve element to minimize the sensitivity of the valve element to a velocity-induced pressure gradient across the valve element. While the valve of the '101 patent improves the sensitivity response to fuel consumption at the motor, a reliable seal between the concave hemispherical valve element and truncated valve seat is sometimes difficult to achieve. It would therefore be desirable to have an improved pressure relief valve which is sensitive to fuel consumption at the motor and reliably maintains a seal in the closed position of the valve even in the event of non-axial movement of the valve element, for example.

Conical concave cap pressure relief valve