Probes are instrumented in multiple software modules of a computer system having virtual machines running therein and executed in a coordinated manner. An output of one probe may be used to conditionally trigger another probe so that the precision of collected data may be improved. In addition, outputs of probes that are triggered in different software modules by related events may be synchronized and analyzed collectively. Probes also may be parallel processed in different processors so that multiple probes can be processed concurrently.

Various tools have been developed for monitoring performance of a virtualized computer system. One such tool, known as VProbes, which is developed by VMware, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., enables administrators to "dynamically" instrument various software modules of virtual machines (VMs) running in a virtualized computer system and gather performance data relating to the instrumented software modules for analysis. The tool provides for dynamic instrumentation because the code for probing the software modules can be injected while the VMs are running. As a result, answers to questions such as, "Why is an application running slowly in the virtual machine?" or "Which virtual machines are consuming the majority of the I/O bandwidth?" may be explored without recompilation or downtime. Further details of VProbes are described in the user's manual available from VMware, Inc. entitled "VMware VProbes User Guide," which is incorporated by reference herein.
A probe script is employed in VProbes as a mechanism to dynamically inject the code for probing the software modules of VMs. The probe script defines one or more probes, where each probe has a trigger and a body of code. The trigger specifies an event of interest in the instrumented software module, such as a read, a write, or a periodic timer tick, and the body of code is executed when the event of interest occurs, i.e., when the probe is triggered. When such a probe script is loaded into a virtualized computer system with running VMs, it is compiled into executable code that is dynamically injected into various executing portions of the virtualized computer system. For security purposes, the probe script is checked during compilation for infinite loops, bad pointers, and generally any portions that could cause the system to hang or crash. When the script is unloaded, the injected code is removed and the virtualized computer system returns to its original state.
VProbes, as described above, is safe, because it ensures through the script compiler that the state of the running virtualized computer system can never change. VProbes is also dynamic, because probes can be injected into a running virtualized computer system without recompilation and downtime of the virtualized computer system. Finally, VProbes has little or no impact on overhead, because it can be unloaded and not add to the overhead of the virtualized computer system when not in use.

Simultaneous probing of multiple software modules of a computer system


In a projection type image display device for combining an image by dichroic mirrors in a form of parallel plane plate, a projected image of high picture quality is presented by suppressing the astigmatism. In a projection type image display device comprising a light source for emitting blue light, green light, and red light, liquid crystal panels for modulating individual color lights, dichroic mirrors for combining the modulated lights, dichroic mirrors for combining the modulated lights, and a projection lens for projecting the combined light, the dichroic mirrors are disposed obliquely on a first plane including an optical axis linking the projection lens and liquid crystal panels, and a parallel plane plate for correcting astigmatism is disposed obliquely on a second plane orthogonal to the first plane. In particular, preferably, the thickness of the parallel plane plate for correcting the astigmatism should be greater than the thickness of the dichroic mirrors, and the light incident angle into the parallel plane plate for correcting the astigmatism should be smaller than the light incident angle to the dichroic mirrors.

The present invention relates to a projection type color image display device for combining an image on an image display device by a dichroic mirror, and projecting by a projection lens.
Previously, a projection type color image display device for obtaining a picture by projection lenses provided before cathode ray tubes (CRT) for displaying blue, green and red images has been proposed. On the other hand, a projection type color image display device comprising one projection lens has been also proposed. For example, a conventional projection type color image display device is shown in FIG. 4. In FIG. 4, the conventional projection type color image display device is composed of three liquid crystal panels with transmission type and one projection lens. The light emitted from a light source 101 is reflected by a reflector 102, and is separated into blue light, green light and red light respectively, by a first light-separating dichroic mirror 103, a second light-separating dichroic mirror 104, and a first reflecting mirror 105.
The separated lights are provided to a first liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106a, a second light crystal panel with transmission type 106b, and a third liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106c. In each liquid crystal panel, each color-light is modulated into light having an image. The color-lights modulated by the liquid crystal panels are combined by a first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107, a second color-light-combining dichroic mirror 108, and a second reflecting mirror 109. The first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 and second color-light-combining dichroic mirror 108 are plates having parallel planes.
The combined color-light is magnified and projected by a projection lens 110, and a color picture is displayed on a screen 120.
In such a device, however, as the picture elements of the liquid crystal panel are advanced in definition, the picture quality deteriorates significantly. This is caused by the astigmatism occurring in the image of the color-light transmitted through the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 and the image of the color-light passing through the second color-light-combining dichroic mirror 108, thereby extremely impairing the picture quality.
Since the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 and second color-light-combining dichroic mirror 108 are disposed obliquely to the optical axis linking the liquid crystal panel and projection lens, such astigmatism occurs. FIG. 5 is a magnified view of essential parts of FIG. 4, and explains the onset mechanism of astigmatism. In FIG. 5, supposing the thickness of the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 to be T, the refractive index of the substrate of the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 to be N, the incident angle of the light transmitted through the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 into the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 to be X.sub.1, and the angle of approach in the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 to be X.sub.2, the astigmatism Y is expressed in formula (1). ##EQU1##
From formula (1), the smaller the thickness of the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107, the smaller the value of astigmatism, but the thickness of the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 cannot be reduced due to the following reasons.
If the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 is thin, the shape may be deformed due to external force when assembling the first-color-combining dichroic mirror 107 into a support mechanism component (not shown), and the stress at this time causes the shape to change gradually. The first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 is composed by applying a dichroic coat on the substrate, but if the thickness is small, the substrate may be deformed by the heat in the process of applying the dichroic coat.
The first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 has the functions of transmitting the image-light from the first liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106a, and also reflecting the image-light from the second liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106b. Therefore, when reflecting the image-light from the second liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106b, in order that the reflected image may not be distorted, the surface of the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 is demanded to have a flatness of high precision.
As for the second color-light-combining dichroic mirror 108, too, the thickness cannot be reduced due to the same reasons as in the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107.
As explained herein, it is impossible to reduce the thickness of the color-light-combining dichroic mirror, and the thickness of the color-light-combining dichroic mirror is large , thereby resulting in large astigmatism.
Due to the astigmatism, a deviation occurs between the focusing position of the projected image in the longitudinal direction and the focusing position in the lateral direction. Therefore, the longitudinal line and the lateral line cannot be focused at the same time. As a result, a clear image cannot be obtained, and only a blurry image is produced.
In FIG. 4, the image modulated only by the third liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106c, out of the first liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106a, second liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106b, and third liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106c, is led into the screen through reflection by the second reflecting mirror 109 and second color-light-combining dichroic mirror 108 only, so that astigmatism does not occur.
However, the image modulated by the second liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106b is transmitted through the second color-light-combining dichroic mirror 108, resulting in astigmatism. The image modulated by the first liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106a is transmitted through the first color-light-combining dichroic mirror 107 and second color-light-combining dichroic mirror 108, resulting in astigmatism. Therefore, when combining the images by projection of these images and adjusting the convergence, the multiplying factor in the longitudinal direction is different from the multiplying factor in the lateral direction owing to the presence of astigmatism. Consequently, the aspect ratio of the projected image varies depending on the value of astigmatism. As a result, it is difficult to match mutually the images projected by the three modulating means, that is, the first liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106a, second liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106b, and third liquid crystal panel with transmission type 106c, and a color image having color blurring at end portions is obtained, and a clear image cannot be reproduced.
In this way, when the light passes through the parallel plane plates disposed obliquely on the optical path, the optical axis on the optical path is included, and the focusing position on the first plane along the incident light and transmitted light includes its optical axis, and hence a position deviation to the focusing position on the second plane orthogonal to the first plane occurs, so that astigmatism occurs.
To solve such problems of color blurring and clouding in the projected image caused by astigmatism, a projection type image display device using color combining dichroic mirrors of a wedge shape is proposed. Generally, however, the dichroic mirrors for color-light-combination must have a high surface precision and precise spectral characteristic. Therefore, machining the color-light-combining dichroic mirrors into a wedge shape has a low yield of processing and has a very high manufacturing cost because the shape is complicated.
Besides, the dichroic mirrors for color-light-combination are composed by applying a dichroic coat on the substrate, and the substrate is exposed to high temperature when applying the dichroic coat on the substrate, which requires the use of substrates that can withstand high temperature, such as glass and ceramics. Using such glass or ceramics, machining of dichroic mirrors into a wedge shape requires a further higher cost.
On the other hand, to decrease astigmatism, it is proposed to place a parallel plane plate of glass for correcting astigmatism at a position of distortion to the color-light-combining dichroic mirror, and at a position having the same light incident angle as the color-light-combining dichroic mirror. In such a constitution, however, since the astigmatism correcting glass must be placed at a position of distortion to the color-light-combining dichroic mirror, it requires a wide space. Hence, the size of the assembled projection type image display device is large depending on the angle of distortion. For the material, glass is needed, and the glass processing cost is high.

Projection type color image display device

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


An electrostatic capacitance fluid level sensor includes a hermetic terminal having two terminal pins inserted through a metal base, a detection device including two electrodes for fluid level detection by electrostatic capacitance and two connecting terminals configured to fix the pins to the electrodes respectively. The connecting terminals are formed into such a shape as to include parts parallel to the electrodes and parts orthogonal to the electrodes by bending the terminals at bends, respectively. The parallel parts are fixed to sides of the electrodes opposed to sides of the electrodes facing each other, respectively. The orthogonal parts are fixed to the pins respectively. One of the terminals has a larger thickness than the other thereby to have a sufficient stiffness to hold the detection device. At least one of the terminals is deformable by a weaker force than a force causing the electrodes to deform.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electrostatic capacitance fluid level sensor detecting an amount of fluid, and more particularly to an electrostatic capacitance fluid level sensor having integrally formed hermetic terminals via which the sensor is mounted on an electrically driven compressor and the like.
2. Related Art
Methods of detecting an amount of fluid have been conventionally known. Electrostatic capacitance sensors have been proposed as means for detecting an amount of electrically nonconductive fluid such as oil. This sensor detects the presence of fluid and an amount of the fluid, using changes in electrostatic capacitance between electrodes by causing electrically insulating fluid to penetrate into a space between the electrodes. For example, the electrodes are disposed in a cylindrical casing which is electrically insulating or one of the electrodes is formed into a cylindrical shape. When fluid flows into and out of the cylindrical member, electrostatic capacitance between the electrodes changes. An amount of fluid in the container is measured from the changing electrostatic capacitance.
The electrostatic capacitance fluid level sensors include a type which can detect continuous changes in an amount of fluid on a real-time basis as shown in the foregoing prior art documents. However, the determination to detect a subtle change in the electrostatic capacitance becomes more difficult as the measurement is precise. Furthermore, since the determination changes depending upon a type of liquid and/or a type or size of the container to which the sensor is mounted, actual gauging is required.
For example, FIGS. 6 to 8 show a proposed example of fluid level sensor having a simplified construction by limiting the use of the sensor only to detection of presence of fluid but not a continuous detection of fluid amount. The fluid level sensor 101 includes a base 102 to which two conductive pins 104 are fixed. The pins 104 have distal ends to which metal electrode plates 105 are fixed by welding and configured to face each other substantially in parallel with each other.
While the above-described fluid level sensor has a simple structure, a slight tilt of each electrode plate caused by the welding to the conductive pin changes an interelectrode distance. Accordingly, adjustment of interelectrode distance is necessary in order that the tilt caused during the welding may be removed for the purpose of uniforming the sensitivity. In particular, a slight tilt of the welded part has a large influence on the interelectrode distance as the electrodes are rendered long so that areas of the electrodes are increased for the purpose of obtaining electrostatic capacitance. Furthermore, since the cantilevered electrodes are bared, there is a possibility that the electrodes may be deformed when subjected to a force during assembly. Furthermore, when the strength of the electrodes is increased by thickening the electrodes for prevention of deformation, stress concentrates on welded parts which are relatively weaker. This has a possibility of changing the positional relationship of the electrodes.
Even when electrodes are adjusted to a proper positional relationship in manufacture, an increase in the internal pressure expands the base in the case where the sensor is mounted to a motor compressor. This slightly changes an angle between electrically conductive pins, resulting in a large change in the distance between electrode plates mounted on the distal ends of conductive pins. Accordingly, the electrostatic capacitance between the electrodes changes with the result of a problem that the performance of the fluid level sensor is reduced.
Furthermore, since two pieces of electrode are welded on the same straight line connecting between the conductive pins, one welding electrode needs to be inserted between the conductive pins. Furthermore, the firstly fixed electrode gets in the way of the welding of the second electrode. Additionally, the interelectrode spacing and the electrodes become slenderer and thinner as the sensor is small-sized, with the result of a problem that a sufficient pressure applied between the electrodes during welding cannot be obtained.
Accordingly, an electrostatic capacitance fluid level sensor is desired which is simple in the construction and easy to manufacture and handle.

Electrostatic capacitance fluid level sensor


A method and device for activating a media player enables efficient and convenient access to media files. The method includes determining that a wireless communication device (100) is not operatively coupled to a network. An operative coupling of a speaker system (205) to the wireless communication device (100) is detected. The media player is then activated automatically in response to detecting the operative coupling of the speaker system (205) to the wireless communication device (100).

Users continually seek increased functionality from portable electronic devices. Further, it is often desirable to integrate the capabilities and functionality of different portable devices into a single portable device, so as to eliminate the need to carry multiple devices. From a user's perspective, eliminating the need to carry multiple devices provides a significant advantage because carrying multiple devices can be cumbersome. Additional advantages that can be realized by integrating the capabilities of multiple devices into a single device include reducing costs by eliminating the need to purchase multiple devices, as well as eliminating the need to purchase and maintain separate batteries and accessories for multiple devices.
Mobile telephones are increasingly multi-function devices that can include, in addition to wireless telephony services, functions and applications commonly associated with digital music players, personal digital assistants, notebook computers, and various other devices. For example, mobile telephones often include applications for media playing, calendaring, personal information management, internet browsing, and processing emails. However, increased functionality often results in more complex devices that are more difficult to operate. For example, some multi-function devices require navigating complex menus or pressing multiple keypad entries to activate specific functions.
According to one aspect, the present invention is a method for activating a media player of a wireless communication device by determining that the wireless communication device is not operatively coupled to a network, detecting an operative coupling of a speaker system to the wireless communication device, and then activating the media player automatically in response to detecting the operative coupling of the speaker system to the wireless communication device.
According to another aspect, the present invention is a method for activating a media player of a wireless communication device by detecting operative coupling of a stereo speaker system to the wireless communication device, and then activating the media player automatically in response to detecting the operative coupling of the stereo speaker system to the wireless communication device.
Embodiments of the present invention therefore enable a media player of a wireless communication device to be activated quickly and with only a single input from a user. Operative coupling of a speaker system to a wireless communication device, such as the single action of plugging in a headset to a mobile telephone, can automatically activate a media player to provide immediate access to audio or video files. Some embodiments of the present invention further avoid delays associated with attaching a wireless communication device to a network during a conventional start up process, by activating a media player in a transmitter off mode, thus further accelerating access to the media player and conserving battery power. Still other embodiments of the present invention distinguish between operative coupling of a stereo speaker system, which may indicate that a user seeks to play an audio or video file using a media player, and operative coupling of a mono speaker system, which may indicate that a user seeks to use a wireless communication mode of a wireless communication device.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.

Method and device for activating a media player


A bus arbiter circuit for a system including a bus and a plurality of devices which can request access to the bus at various times. The bus arbiter circuit includes circuitry for receiving requests for access to the bus from those of the plurality of devices desiring access to the bus during an arbitration cycle; circuitry for arbitrating access to the bus during the arbitration cycle in response to the received requests, an outcome of the arbitration cycle being based on a corresponding priority level associated with each of the plurality of devices; circuitry for granting access to one of those devices requesting access to the bus based on the outcome of the arbitration cycle; and circuitry for increasing the corresponding priority level associated with those of the plurality of devices which requested access to the bus but which were not granted access to the bus as a result of the arbitration cycle.

As electronic devices such as personal computers, lap top computers, video cameras, hand-held data readers and other similar devices become increasingly complex, the amount of information which must be internally communicated among components has also significantly increased. For example, disk drive controllers, such as SCSI controllers, network interface cards (NICs), display controllers, and video graphic boards all must communicate with a host processor which acts as a central controller for the particular electronic device. Each component, or peripheral device, attempts to send information to a local bus associated with the host processor in order to communicate its messages. To handle the large number of peripheral devices, standard bus configurations have been developed to interface the peripheral devices with the local bus. An arbitration scheme is then used to prioritize which peripheral device should have access to the standard bus (i.e. be the bus master) at any given time so that data collisions between two or more peripheral devices attempting to communicate with the host processor are avoided.
The arbitration scheme is typically handled by an arbiter whose function is to receive bus request signals from devices wishing to communicate over the standard bus and then schedule when each device will gain such access. For example, one commonly known bus configuration to which peripheral devices would directly connect is the ISA bus. The ISA bus design allows an arbiter to use a Direct Memory Accessing (DMA) scheme to process and prioritize requests to use the ISA bus. The ISA bus, however, is limited in its ability to transfer high density data at fast rates and therefore new standard bus configurations are being developed.
Among the more popular of the newer standard bus configurations is the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. The PCI bus has many advantageous over the ISA bus in its ability to communicate data at a significantly faster rate. However, based on its design, the PCI bus no longer allows the associated bus arbiter to use a DMA scheme in prioritizing bus requests and therefore hardware prioritization schemes are being developed. For instance, some PCI bus arbiters are designed to give lowest priority to those devices which most recently requested and received permission to communicate over the PCI bus. However, as is pointed out in U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,590, this prioritization scheme has drawbacks in situations where a particular device has gained access to the bus and the host processor but needs to retry its communication due to some mishap. More specifically, although the original device was of high enough priority to gain access to the bus and host processor, the arbiter would automatically re-assign a low priority to this device even though the message never was properly passed along and processed.
The arbitration scheme described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,590 describes a system which reduces this problem by providing an arbiter which does not change the priority level of devices which must retry. Although this may be an improvement over known arbitration schemes, both of these schemes still have major drawbacks. More particularly, since devices cannot ever increase from their preset priority value, those devices with low priority may rarely have an opportunity to access the bus in a busy system. Unfortunately, even with a low initial priority rating such devices do eventually need access to the bus to avoid buffer overflow situations and other similar problems.
In view of the aforementioned shortcomings associated with conventional arbiters and arbitration methods, there is a strong need in the art for an arbiter and method which prioritizes access to a bus taking into account the concerns discussed above. In particular, there is a strong need in the art for an arbiter and method which better allocates bus access such that all devices may receive the bus regardless of their preset priority level or the amount of traffic in the system.

Method and apparatus for overriding bus prioritization scheme


A magenta ink composition used as a colorant, containing at least one type of compound represented by Formula (I) below and at least one type of compound represented by Formula (II) below:

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a magenta ink composition (including both a dark magenta ink composition and a light magenta ink composition) suitable for an inkjet recording method that has not only excellent print quality and stable ejection reliability wherein foaming is suppressed, but also makes it possible to obtain inkjet recorded product with excellent resistance to moisture, ozone, and light; an ink set and ink cartridge using the aforementioned magenta ink composition; and an inkjet recording method and recorded product utilizing the same.
2. Related Art
The inkjet recording method is a publicly known method wherein droplets of an ink composition are ejected from a fine nozzle, deposited on the surface of a recording medium, and letters and images are recorded thereby. Inkjet recording methods that have reached practical application include (i) a method wherein an electric signal is converted to a mechanical signal using a piezoelectric element, an ink composition stored in the nozzle head member is ejected intermittently therefrom in accordance with the mechanical signal, the ink composition is deposited on the surface of a recording medium, and letters and images are recorded thereby, and (ii) a method wherein a part very close to the ejection member of the nozzle head is rapidly heated, a bubble is generated in the ink composition stored in the nozzle head member, the ink composition is ejected intermittently therefrom due to the expansion in volume of the bubble, the ink composition is deposited on the surface of the recording medium, and letters and images are recorded thereby.
Recently a plurality of color ink compositions have been prepared, and color images using inkjet recording have been formed thereby. Generally speaking, the forming of a color image is accomplished with three colors involving a yellow ink composition, magenta ink composition, and cyan ink composition, and in some cases with four colors wherein a black ink composition is added thereto. Additionally, color images are sometimes formed with six colors wherein a light cyan ink composition and a light magenta ink composition are added to the aforementioned four colors, or even with seven colors wherein a dark yellow ink composition is added thereto. Such a combination of two or more ink compositions is called an ink set, and normally an ink set is used in the form of an ink cartridge containing the same that is installed in a printer.
It is desirable that the ink compositions used in the inkjet recording method are generally liquids wherein various dyes are dissolved in water, an organic solvent, or a liquid mixture thereof, and the ink compositions used in forming such color images not only have excellent color themselves, but exhibit excellent intermediate color when combined with a plurality of ink compositions, and do not discolor over time when matter printed thereby is stored.
Due to continuous improvements in printing heads, ink compositions, recording methods and recording media the printing of photographic images by color inkjet printers has recently become comparable to that of silver salt photography, and the image quality thereof is on the same level as that of a photograph. On the other hand, improvements in the storage properties of images obtained thereby have been sought through refinements in ink compositions and media. Resistance to light in particular has been improved to a level whereby it presents no practical problem (see JP-A-2000-290559, JP-A-2001-288392). Still, resistance to light has not reached the same level as that of silver salt photography. The standard for evaluating light resistance capability has been to make a judgment using the discoloration rate of a pattern of pure colors (optical density near 1.0) consisting of Y (yellow), M (magenta) and C (cyan). When the light resistance capabilities of ink compositions used in printers that are currently on the market are evaluated using the above criteria, the magenta ink compositions score lowest and in many cases are the rate-limiting factor of the light resistance life of an ink set. As a result, improvement of the light resistance properties of a magenta ink composition will be effective in enhancing the light resistance of photographic images and prolonging the light resistance life of the ink set.
However, because printed matter prepared using the aforementioned ink compositions are placed not only indoors, but also outdoors, they are exposed to a variety of light sources including sunlight and to the atmosphere (ozone, NOx, SOx, etc.), and therefore ink compositions with excellent light resistance and gas resistance are being developed. The properties of light resistance and gas resistance are largely determined by the colorant used in the ink, and the development of a magenta ink composition with excellent moisture resistance in addition to these properties is needed.
Among the above properties, the compound of JP-A-2002-371079 (azo dye) and the compound of JP-A-2002-332419 (anthrapyridone dye) have been proposed as colorants with excellent light resistance and gas resistance. A magenta ink composition with excellent light resistance and gas resistance comprising a combination of two colorants has also been proposed (JP-A-2005-105136).
It has become possible to obtain an image without graininess using an ink set comprising the above light magenta ink composition by providing therewith two types of magenta ink compositions having different color densities. With these kinds of ink sets comprising two types of ink compositions having different color densities, the primary purpose thereof being the printing of photographic images, ink compositions with low color densities are generally used in the formation of photographic images to diminish or eliminate graininess. Furthermore, in the evaluation of light resistance noted above, a pattern with an optical density near 1.0 is formed using ink compositions with low color density. As a result, an improvement in light resistance of a light magenta ink composition can be linked to enhancing the light resistance of photographic images and prolonging the light resistance life of the ink set. In comparison with an ink composition having high color density, an ink composition having low color density does not require such strong chromogenicity, and other properties such as light resistance and the like become important.
As noted above, the ink compositions used in the inkjet printing method are mainly solutions wherein various dyes are dissolved in water, an organic solvent, or a liquid mixture thereof, and various surfactants and additives are added thereto for the purpose of improving the properties of the ink and increasing print quality and storage life of the printed matter. However, some of these surfactants and additives have high foamability despite their great effectiveness in improving ink composition properties, and an ink composition has been proposed wherein a specific defoaming agent and the like is combined therewith (see JP-A-2004-315739).

Magenta ink composition, ink set, ink cartridge, inkjet recording method and recorded product

Abstract: (wherein A represents the residue of the five member heterocyclic diazo moiety A-NH2; B1 and B2 represent —CR1═ and —CR2═, or one represents a nitrogen atom, and the other represents —CR1═ or —CR2═; R5 and R6 each independently represents a hydrogen atom, aliphatic group, aromatic group, heterocyclic group, acyl group, alkoxy carbonyl group, aryloxy carbonyl group, carbamoyl group, alkyl sulfonyl group, aryl sulfonyl group, or sulfamoyl group, each group therein being optionally substituted; G, R1 and R2 each independently represents a hydrogen atom, halogen atom, aliphatic group, aromatic group, heterocyclic group, cyano group, carboxyl group, carbamoyl group, alkoxycarbonyl group, aryloxy carbonyl group, acyl group, hydroxyl group, alkoxy group, aryloxy group, silyloxy group, acyloxy group, carbamoyloxy group, heterooxy group, alkoxycarbonyloxy group, aryloxycarbonyloxy group, amino group substituted with an alkyl group or aryl group or heterocyclic group, acylamino group, ureide group, sulfamoylamino group, alkoxycarbonylamino group, aryloxycarbonylamino group, alkyl and aryl sulphonylamino group, aryloxycarbonylamino group, nitro group, alkyl and aryl thio group, alkyl and aryl sulfonyl group, alkyl and aryl sulfinyl group, sulfamoyl group, sulfo group, or heterothio group, each group therein being optionally substituted; and R1 and R5, or R1 and R5 may optionally bond together to form a 5 or 6 member ring);

Abstract: (wherein M represents a hydrogen atom, ammonium group, or alkali metal atom; X represents a diaminoalkylene group; and n represents either 1 or 2).


An image processing device performs: acquiring image data representing an image, the image data including a plurality of sets of pixel data each having a multiple-level gradation value, each gradation value falling within a predetermined range between and inclusive of a minimum gradation value and a maximum gradation value, a predetermined number of levels of gradation value falling within the predetermined range; setting a partial range of levels of gradation value, a first number of levels of gradation value in the partial range being smaller than the predetermined number; and determining that the image is a photograph image when the image meets a first criterion that a degree of change in distribution of gradation values is smaller than a reference value, the distribution of gradation value indicating a pixel number of sets of pixel data for each level of the gradation value falling within the partial range.

There are techniques known in the art for analyzing regions of an image (hereinafter referred to as target regions) based on image data representing the image in order to determine the type of the region (photo and text, for example). There are advantages in correctly determining the types of target regions, such as being able to process target regions using image processes that are most suitable for the image types. According to one technology known in the art, an image processor divides an image into a plurality of blocks and calculates the contrast for each block. Subsequently, the image processor categorizes each block as a photograph, text, and the like based on their contrast.

Image processing device capable of determining types of images accurately


A diversity receiver in a radio apparatus has at least two reception branches and a RAKE receiver to combine signal received by the different reception branches as well as a measuring receiver to make frequency specific measurements. The radio apparatus includes a switch connected with at least one reception branch and has at least two states in the first of which the switch is arranged to direct a signal received by a reception branch to the RAKE receiver and in the second of which the switch is arranged to direct a signal received by a reception branch to the measuring receiver. The radio apparatus makes measurements at other than the operating frequency without the reception at the operating frequency being interrupted. In a communications system the measurements may be associated with a handover.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to measurements by means of which a radio apparatus attempts to find out the quantity and quality of radio-frequency oscillation in its operating environment. In particular the invention relates to measurements directed to frequencies other than that used for transmission and reception by a radio apparatus in a code division system during the measurements.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
A communications link between a cellular radio system base station and terminal requires that the terminal transmits at a certain first frequency and receives at a certain second frequency which may be the same as said first frequency if the transmission and reception are otherwise separated by means of a duplexing method. Optimal link quality requires that the terminal selects a base station with a strong signal, and a frequency with as little noise and interference as possible.
Cellular radio systems applying code division multiple access (CDMA) have so far been mainly so-called single frequency networks (SFN) in which the whole system uses only one frequency band. This kind of an arrangement is used e.g. in the North-American IS-95 (Interim Standard 95) system. Frequency ranges used by other types of cellular radio systems are usually divided into several parallel frequency bands which can be called carrier wave frequencies or just frequencies in short. Proposals for future cellular radio systems have also put forward systems based on code division multiple access which have several frequency bands e.g. to separate hierarchically arranged cells from each other. This requires that a system be developed with which a receiver in such a system can carry out measurements not only at the frequency used, but also at other frequencies in order to find out how much there is other traffic and noise at the other frequencies.
A measurement means that the receiver in a terminal is tuned to the frequency measured and the required observations are made concerning the quantity and quality of the signal received, such as the mean power level at the frequency measured and its temporal distribution, for example. The receiver is tuned by changing the mixing frequency brought to a mixer in the receiver. When the receiver is tuned to the frequency measured it naturally cannot simultaneously receive a signal at the communications frequency used. So, the measurement of parallel frequencies cannot be carried out coincidentally with the reception of the desired signal at the communications frequency used.
It is known from patent document U.S. Pat. No. 5,101,501 some arrangements for realising a handover in a CDMA-type cellular radio system, applicable in single frequency networks. In an arrangement discussed by said document in conjunction with the description of the prior art, measurements are carried out not by the terminals but by the base stations. This arrangement requires that each base station has at all times free demodulating units that can be instructed to receive and measure a transmission by a terminal the signal of which in a neighbouring cell is weakening, thus indicating that the terminal is moving toward the inter-cell boundary. The transmission from the terminal is received, if necessary, by both base stations and the total responsibility for the connection is handed over to the new base station only when the terminal has clearly crossed the inter-cell boundary. In this method the base station equipment is continuously under-utilised since there has to be so many demodulating units that some of them are always free. Furthermore, the inter-base station signalling needed for the coordination of connections received via two routes puts a heavy load on the base station systems and their mutual communications connections.
Said patent document also discloses an improved arrangement in which the terminals measure a so-called pilot channel transmitted by the base stations. The implementation of the measurement is in practice rather simple as all base stations transmit at the same frequency. A terminal need not tune its receiver separately to other frequencies for measurement. It is obvious that this arrangement does not work if the different base stations transmit at different frequencies.
A known proposal for the arrangement of reception and measurement timing in a multifrequency CDMA system is a so-called compressed mode in which base station transmissions comprise successive frames in the normal manner but in which certain frames are transmitted at double speed so that half of the time reserved for such frames is left free for the measurements.
The proposed compressed mode involves several problems. The terminals have to be capable of receiving at a speed two times higher than the normal reception speed, which makes their structure and operation more complex. Compressing the frames means compromises in the implementation of control functions such as transmission power adjustment, which degrades the performance of the whole system. Pauses in the reception result in more complex continuous-operation algorithms, such as the measurement of propagation delay and channel estimation. Operation control for the compressed mode increases the signalling between the base stations and terminals.
In addition, the compressed mode is bound to cause deterioration of the bit error ratio, which is reflected in a decrease in the system performance.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method and equipment with which a terminal in a multifrequency, continuous-transmission radio communications system can make measurements not only at the operating frequency but also at other frequencies without the disadvantages characteristic of the prior art.
The objects of the invention are achieved by using in the terminal a diversity receiver and by switching one receiver branch at times to measurement use so that during measurement, the other branches of the receiver are receiving normally.

Making measurements on parallel frequencies in a radio communications device


An array substrate for a display device includes an insulating substrate, a buffer layer which is disposed on the insulating substrate and is formed of silicon oxide with a refractive index equal to a refractive index of the insulating substrate, a first insulation layer which is disposed on the buffer layer and formed of silicon nitride, a second insulation layer which is disposed on the first insulation layer and formed of silicon oxide, a switching element including a semiconductor layer disposed on the second insulation layer, and a pixel electrode connected to the switching element.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an array substrate for a display device, and more particularly to the structure of an undercoat layer between an insulating substrate and a semiconductor layer.
2. Description of the Related Art
An array substrate, which is applied to an active-matrix flat-panel display device such as a liquid crystal display device or an organic electroluminescence display device, includes switching elements which are disposed in matrix-arrayed pixels. For example, in a case where a top-gate type thin-film transistor, which includes a semiconductor layer formed of amorphous silicon or polysilicon, is applied to the switching element, an undercoat layer is disposed between an insulating substrate and the semiconductor layer.
As is disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 11-163353, for instance, the undercoat layer, in usual cases, adopts a double-layer structure in which a silicon nitride (Si3N4) film on the insulating substrate and a silicon oxide (SiO2) film on the silicon nitride film are stacked. The semiconductor layer is disposed on the silicon oxide film.
In the process of fabricating the array substrate, it is possible that dust adheres to the insulating substrate or particles may mix in a step of forming the undercoat layer and semiconductor layer. In the case where the undercoat layer of the above-described double-layer structure is adopted, it is possible that a cleaning agent may permeate in foreign matter such as dust or particles in a cleaning process step which follows the formation of the semiconductor layer. In particular, in the case where hydrogen fluoride (HF) is used as a cleaning agent, foreign matter is dissolved and a void occurs. In worst cases, even the insulating substrate is etched, leading to deterioration in manufacturing yield.
The layer undercoat layer of the double-layer structure is formed of, e.g. a silicon nitride film with a thickness of 50 nm and a silicon oxide film with a thickness of 100 nm. In the case where a semiconductor layer with a thickness of about 50 nm is disposed on the undercoat layer, if foreign matter of a sub-micron level is present, it is difficult to completely cover the foreign matter with these films. In addition, if the thicknesses of the silicon nitride film and silicon oxide film are simply increased, deterioration may occur in optical characteristics of the display device, such as transmittance and chromaticity. Thus, the thicknesses of these films are set in a limited range.

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology Co., Ltd.


There are many inventions described and illustrated herein. In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a technique of, and system for simulating, verifying, inspecting, characterizing, determining and/or evaluating the lithographic designs, techniques and/or systems, and/or individual functions performed thereby or components used therein. In one embodiment, the present invention is a system and method that accelerates lithography simulation, inspection, characterization and/or evaluation of the optical characteristics and/or properties, as well as the effects and/or interactions of lithographic systems and processing techniques. In this regard, in one embodiment, the present invention employs a lithography simulation system architecture, including application-specific hardware accelerators, and a processing technique to accelerate and facilitate verification, characterization and/or inspection of a mask design, for example, RET design, including detailed simulation and characterization of the entire lithography process to verify that the design achieves and/or provides the desired results on final wafer pattern. The system includes: (1) general purpose-type computing device(s) to perform the case-based logic having branches and inter-dependency in the data handling and (2) accelerator subsystems to perform a majority of the computation intensive tasks.

This invention relates to systems and techniques that are used to measure, inspect, characterize, simulate and/or evaluate the performance of lithographic systems and techniques; and more particularly, in one aspect, to measure, inspect, characterize, simulate and/or evaluate the optical characteristics and effects of lithographic systems and processing techniques (for example, systems and techniques implemented in the semiconductor fabrication/processing environments).
Briefly, in the semiconductor industry, microlithography (or simply lithography) is the process of printing the circuit patterns on a semiconductor wafer (for example, a silicon or GaAs wafer). Currently, optical lithography is the predominant technology used in volume semiconductor manufacturing. Such lithography employs light in the visible to deep ultraviolet spectrum range to expose the resist on wafer. In the future, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft x-rays may be employed. Following exposure, the resist is developed to yield a relief image.
In optical lithography, a photomask (often called mask or reticle) is first written using electron-beam or laser-beam direct-write tools. A typical photomask for optical lithography consists of a glass (or quartz) plate of six to eight inches on a side, with one surface coated with a thin metal layer (for example, chrome) of a thickness of about 100 nm. The chip pattern is etched into the metal layer, hence allowing light to transmit through. The area where the metal layer is not etched away blocks light transmission. In this way, a pattern may be projected onto a semiconductor wafer.
The photomask contains certain patterns and features that are used to create desired circuit patterns on a wafer. The tool used in projecting the mask image onto wafer is called a stepper or scanner (hereinafter collectively called "photolithographic equipment", "scanner", or "stepper"). With reference to FIG. 1, the block diagram schematic of an optical projection lithographic system 10 of a conventional stepper includes an illumination source 12, an illumination pupil filter 14, lens subsystem 16a–c, mask 18, projection pupil filter 20, and wafer 22 on which the aerial image of mask 18 is projected.
With reference to FIG. 1, by way of background, illumination source 12 may be laser source operated, for example, at UV (ultra-violet) or DUV (deep ultra-violet) wavelengths. The light beam is been expanded and scrambled before it is incident on illumination pupil 14. The illumination pupil 14 may be a simple round aperture, or have specifically designed shapes for off-axis illumination. Off-axis illumination may include, for example, annular illumination (i.e., the pupil is a ring with a designed inner and outer radius), quadruple illumination (i.e., the pupil has four openings in the four quadrant of the pupil plane), and other shapes like dipole illumination. FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate exemplary annular and quadruple illumination, respectively.
With continued reference to FIG. 1, after illumination pupil 14, the light passes through the illumination optics (for example, lens subsystem 16a) and is incident on photomask (or mask) 18. The mask 18 contains the circuit pattern to be imaged on wafer 22 by the projection optics. As the desired pattern size on wafer 22 becomes smaller and smaller, and that pattern becomes closer and closer to each other, the lithography process becomes more challenging. In an effort to improve imaging quality, current processing techniques employ resolution enhancement technologies ("RET"), such as, for example, optical proximity correction ("OPC"), phase shift masks ("PSM"), off-axis illumination ("OAI"), condenser and exit pupil filters, and techniques applying multi-level illumination (for example, FLEX).
Many of the RET technologies are applied on or directly to mask 18. For example, OPC and PSM, which modify the light wave to (1) compensate the imperfection of the imaging property of the projection optics, for example, the OPC technology is used to compensate the optical proximity effect due to light interference, and/or (2) take advantage of designed light interferences to enhance the imaging quality, for example, the phase shift mask technology is used to create phase shifting between neighboring patterns to enhance resolution.
Notably, mask 18 may not be "perfect", due to its own manufacturing process. For example, corners on mask 18 may not be sharp but may be rounded; and/or the linewidth may have a bias from design value where the bias may also depend on the designed linewidth value and neighboring patterns. These imperfections on mask 18 may affect the final imaging quality.
The projection optics (for example, lens subsystems 16b and 16c, and projection pupil filer 20) images mask 18 onto wafer 22. In this regard, the projection optics includes a projection pupil filter 20. The pupil 20 limits the maximum spatial frequency of the mask pattern that can be passed through the projection optics system. A number called "numerical aperture" or NA often characterizes pupil 20. There are also proposed RET techniques that modify pupil 20, which is generally called pupil filtering. Pupil filtering may include modulation for both the amplitude and the phase on the passing light beams.
Due to the wavelength of light being finite, and current techniques employing wavelengths that are larger than the minimum linewidth that is printed on wafer 22, there are typically significant light interference and diffractions during the imaging process. The imaging process is not a perfect replication of the pattern on mask 18. Current techniques employ physical theory to model this imaging process. Further, due to the high NA value of current lithography tools, different polarizations of the light provide different imaging property. To more accurately model this process, a vector-based model may be used.
The projection optics may be diffraction-limited. However, lens subsystem 16c in the projection optics is most often not completely "perfect". These imperfections may be modeled as aberrations, which are often abstracted as some undesired phase modulation at the pupil plane, and are often represented by a set of Zernike coefficients. After the light finally reaches the surface of wafer 22, they will further interact with the coatings on wafer 22 (for example, the photo-resist). In this regard, different resist thickness, different optical properties of the resist (for example, its refractive index), and different material stack under the resist (for example, bottom-anti-reflection-coating or BARC), may further affect the imaging characteristics itself. Some of these effects may also be abstracted by a modulation at the pupil plane.
When the resist is exposed by the image and thereafter baked and developed, the resist tends to undergo complex chemical and physical changes. First principle and empirical models have been developed to simulate these processes.
To design and evaluate the specific implementations of the mask, including a mask implementing RET, and to assess the impact on the quality of the printed pattern on wafer from the RET design combined with the stepper settings and characteristics, computer simulations have been employed to imitate the anticipated and/or expected results. Notably, physical models have been developed for nearly every step of the lithography process, including mask making, stepper's imaging path from illumination to on-wafer image, and the resist exposure and development.
Currently, there are a number of computer software techniques that address needs in lithography simulation. For example, there is first-principle-modeling-based simulation software that conducts detailed simulation of the physical and chemical processes, but runs extremely slow and hence limited to extremely small area of chip design (on the order of a few square microns), for example, "SOLID-C" from Sigma-C (Campbell, Calif., USA) and "Prolith" from KLA-Tencor (San Jose, Calif., USA). Although there is computer software that executes and provides simulation results faster, such software uses empirical models that are calibrated to the experimental data (for example, "Calibre" from Mentor-Graphics (Wilsonville, Oreg., USA). Even for the "fast" simulation that uses empirical model, a simulation at a full-chip level often requires tens of hours to many days.
Moreover, to more fully understand, design, analyze and/or predict the lithography process, the entire process, from illumination—to mask—to imaging—to resist, should, or may need to be analyzed and/or simulated. Due to the complex models and the large amount of design data (today's VLSI design data can reach tens of GB per layer), brute-force computation on general-purpose microprocessors tends to be unwieldy and time-consuming. Further, employing highly specialized mainframe computers would likely require an extensive investment thereby making the process uneconomical.
There is a need for a system and technique that accelerates lithography simulation, inspection, characterization and/or evaluation of the optical characteristics and/or properties, as well as the effects and/or interactions of lithographic systems and processing techniques that overcome one, some or all of the shortcomings of the conventional systems and approaches. There is a need for a system and technique that facilitates verification, characterization and/or inspection of RET designs, including detailed simulation of the entire lithography process to verify that the RET design achieves and/or provides the desired results on final wafer pattern.
Moreover, there exists a need for a system and technique that rapidly simulates, characterizes, inspects, verifies and/or enables RET designs and photolithographic equipment optimization and processes (for example, critical dimension ("CD", i.e., linewidth of the critical lines in the integrated circuit design), line-end pullback, edge placement error for one, some or every pattern at one, some or every location, and/or printing sensitivity to process variations such as mask error, focus, dose, numerical aperture, illumination aperture and/or aberration).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System and method for lithography simulation


Patterns are formed in a semiconductor device by defining a lower layer that includes a first region and a second region on a semiconductor substrate, forming first patterns with a first pitch that extend to the first and second regions, forming second patterns with a second pitch in the second region that are alternately arranged with the first patterns, forming a space insulating layer that covers the first and second patterns and comprises gap regions that are alternately arranged with the first patterns so as to correspond with the second patterns, forming third patterns that correspond to the second patterns in the gap regions, respectively, etching the space insulating layer between the first and second patterns and between the first and third patterns, such that the space insulating layer remains between the second patterns and the third patterns, and etching the lower layer using the first, second, and third patterns and the remaining space insulating layer between the second and third patterns as an etching mask.

The present invention disclosed herein relates to semiconductor devices, and, more particularly, to methods of forming patterns in semiconductor devices.
With a tendency toward a higher integration of semiconductor devices, a technique that is capable of forming patterns having fine sizes beyond an exposure limit may be desirable. Recently, a self aligned double patterning (SADP) technique has been developed, in which first patterns are formed and then second patterns are formed therebetween so that pitches of the patterns can be reduced.
Patterns formed in a cell region of a semiconductor memory device typically have small pitches, while patterns formed in a peripheral circuit region are typically larger than those of the cell region.
When SADP is used to form the cell region and the peripheral circuit region, additional time and effort may be required to design the peripheral circuit region as it is typically more complicated. Often, a peripheral circuit that is designed using SADP may be re-analyzed and corrected according to the results of the analysis.

Methods of forming a semiconductor device that allow patterns in different regions that have different pitches to be connected


Machine for manufacturing a web that may include a dryer section having a plurality of dryer cylinders and a plurality of guide rolls, a transport belt that guides the web through the dryer section in a meandering path, a moistening apparatus, and a controlling device. The controlling device may include a device for detecting a web break and a device that activates the moistening apparatus to cool the dryer cylinders in response to the detected web break.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a machine for manufacturing a web that includes a control device for activating the moistening apparatus in the event of a web break or tear. Further, the present invention relates to a method for moistening a conveyor belt of a machine which includes activating a moistening device in the event of a web break or tear.
2. Discussion of Background Information
Devices and processes similar in general to those generally described above are known in the art. In these devices and processes of the prior art, when a web breaks, a temperature of the dryer cylinders increases so that a desired cross-sectional moisture profile of the web cannot be adjusted. Thus, in many instances after a web breaks, the web is reconveyed with difficulty which increases the break period, i.e., prolongs the machine downtime.


An apparatus is disclosed comprising a hopper and an auger conveyor for conveying solid items, wherein the auger conveyor comprises an auger and an outlet pipe enclosing the auger along at least a part of the length of the auger, the outlet pipe having an inlet end and an outlet end, wherein the outlet pipe is mounted at its inlet end to the hopper for receiving solid items from the hopper through an outlet opening near the bottom of the hopper, and the auger extends partly along at least a part of the bottom of the hopper, partly inside the outlet pipe along substantially the full length thereof, and wherein at least a part of the inner surface of the hopper above the outlet opening is inclined towards the direction of conveyance of the auger conveyor.

In the production of frozen ice cream mass with solid ingredients, it is well-known to use an auger conveyor for conveying the solid ingredients from a hopper to a pump, which may for instance be a lamella pump or a piston pump, by means of which the solid ingredients are mixed into a flow of ice cream mass.
It is also known to use auger conveyors having augers with increasing pitch and/or decreasing core diameter along the direction of conveyance. This results in an increasing volume along the auger, which assures that the amount of solid ingredients entering the auger conveyor is more evenly distributed across the hopper, whereas an auger with a constant pitch and core diameter will typically be filled shortly after its starting point, meaning that almost no ingredients will be drawn from the other side of the hopper.
However, even with such measures having been taken, it has proven to be difficult to avoid clogging and lumping of the ingredients and damage to fragile types of ingredients, especially at the outlet from the hopper to the auger conveyor, which in turn results in an uneven dosing of the ingredients at the end of the auger conveyor.

Apparatus comprising a hopper and an auger conveyor for conveying solid item


The present invention discloses a V-BLAST detection method for a MIMO system, including: a first detecting step for acquiring in sequence the old detection components of a transmitting symbol vector with the optimum ordering-successive interference cancellation detection method; a second detecting step for taking the detection component with the highest space diversity degree among the old detection components as a first new lo detection component, and acquiring in sequence the other new detection components of the transmitting symbol vector in an inverse order of the optimum detection order with the optimum ordering-successive interference cancellation detection method; an outputting step for outputting the first new detection component and the other new is detection components as the final detection result. The method according to the invention employs the outer close loop iteration technology to further reduce inter-layer error propagation of V-BLAST. This method has less complexity.

With the development of wireless communication technology and diversification of information demands, people gradually transfer their attention from pure voice services to multi-media services. However, different from wire communication, wireless communication is restricted by various factors such as spectrum resource, transmission power and multi-path fading, among which the spectrum efficiency becomes a focus of attention because it directly affects the capacity of a wireless communication system.
In order to improve the spectrum efficiency of a wireless communication system, a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system is proposed, wherein a plurality of transmitting antennae and a plurality of receiving antennae are used to transmit and receive the signals. FIG. 1 illustrates a MIMO system by taking a V-BLAST scheme with M transmitting antennae and N receiving antennae as an example.
As shown in FIG. 1, there are M transmitting antennae and N receiving antennae in the MIMO system, where 1<M≦N. An information bit stream transmitted by a signal source forms M data sub-streams by channel encoding, constellation modulation and serial/parallel conversion. During the same symbol interval, the parallel M data sub-streams constitute a transmitting symbol vector a. The data sub-streams, which respectively correspond to the components a1,a2, . . . ,aM of the transmitting symbol vector a, are transmitted by M transmitting antennae respectively, and received by N receiving antennae after passing through space channels in a scattering environment. The obtained receiving symbol vector r is transmitted to a signal target after V-BLAST detection, parallel/serial conversion, constellation demodulation and channel decoding. Since the M data sub-streams are transmitted to the channels simultaneously, they occupy the same frequency band. Thereby the capacity and the spectrum efficiency of a wireless communication system can be remarkably improved without bandwidth increasing.
To make a full use of the channel space of a MIMO system, people proposed different schemes of space-time process, among which the most remarkable one is a system model of layered space-time code, i.e. the Vertical Bell Laboratories Layered Space Time (V-BLAST) code, which is proposed in 1998 in an article (hereinafter referred to as D1) titled "V-BLAST: An Architecture for Realizing Very High Data Rates Over the Rich-Scattering Wireless Channel" by Wolniansky, Foschini, Golden and Valenzuela. No code circulation phenomenon appears among the antennae of this V-BLAST. The separation and cancellation method of a receiver is an iteration method that selects the optimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and linearly weights receiving symbol vector, which simplifies the receiving process greatly. Therefore, a MIMO system based on V-BLAST technology increasingly becomes a focus of study.
It can be seen from FIG. 1 that the information transmission of the whole MIMO system based on V-BLAST technology realizes high spectrum efficiency and large capacity via a plurality of transmitting antennae and a plurality of receiving antennae. The key step in the whole processing scheme is the serial/parallel conversion and the V-BLAST detection. However, in a MIMO system based on V-BLAST technology, since V-BLAST codes get in return high band efficiency at the cost of partial diversity gain, the V-BLAST detection method for signal detection used in the receiving side is crucial to the improvement of the performance of the whole system.
The V-BLAST detection method disclosed by the above D1 is a detecting method based on the optimum ordering-successive interference cancellation (Ordering-SIC). Within a symbol time, this method uses a1,a2, . . . ,aM to respectively represent the components of the transmitting symbol vector a transmitted from the transmitting antennae. The receiving symbol vector r corresponding to the transmitting symbol vector may be represented as:r=H·a+v  (1)
where H is a channel matrix of N×M, a=(a1,a2, . . . ,aM)T stands for the transmitting symbol vector, i.e. a vector having M rows and 1 column obtained by transposing the vector (a1,a2, . . . ,aM), v is a column vector of N×1, indicating an additive white Gaussian noise.
Furthermore, a detection sequence is set as:S≡{k1,k2, . . . ,kM−1,kM}  (2)
wherein k1,k2, . . . ,kM−1,kM is a certain permutation of M, M−1, . . . , 2, 1, representing an optimum detection order.
The first decision estimated value yk1 can be firstly obtained by using the aforesaid Ordering-SIC V-BLAST detection method.yk1=wk1·r1  (3)
wherein wk1 is a zero-forcing vector, r1 is the first receiving symbol vector of the receiving symbol vector r, the initial value is r per se, then the first decision estimated value yk1 is a linear combination of the zero-forcing vector wk1 and the aforesaid receiving symbol vector r.
Then, a first detection component âk1 of the transmitting symbol vector is obtained:âk1=Q(yk1)  (4)
wherein Q(yk1) represents the constellation demodulation of the first decision estimated value yk1.
After that, assuming âk1=ak1 ak1 is cancelled from the receiving symbol vector r to obtain the second receiving symbol vector r2:r2=r1−âk1(H)k1  (5)
wherein (H)k1 stands for the k1th column of H, r1 is the first component of the receiving symbol vector r, and the initial value is r per se.
Then, the second receiving symbol vector r2 is used to replace r1, and the above steps (3) to (5) are repeated to obtain the second detection component âk2 of the transmitting symbol vector and the third receiving symbol vector r3. The rest may be deduced by analogy till the M-th detection component âkM of the transmitting symbol vector is obtained.
In this method, a key vector is the zero-forcing vector wk1 used in step (3). The methods of calculating the zero-forcing vector wk1 include a minimum means-square error (MMSE) detecting method and a zero-forcing (ZF) detecting method, the latter being simpler.
Below we take the ZF method as an example to explain in detail the steps of calculating zero-forcing vector and performing V-BLAST detection in the Ordering-SIC V-BLAST detection method disclosed by D1.
Fist of all, initialization starts:Making G1=H+  (6){tilde over (H)}=H  (7)r1=r  (8)i=1  (9)
wherein, H+ represents a Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse matrix of channel matrix H, r is the receiving symbol vector represented by the above equation (1).
After that, iteration steps 1) to 6) are executed as follows:
1) determining the sequence number ki of detection symbol;
                                          k            i                    =                                                    arg                                                                                min                                            j                ∉                                  {                                                            k                      1                                        ,                    …                                                                                ,                                          k                                              i                        -                        1                                                                              }                                                                                                                                      (                                          G                      i                                        )                                    j                                                            2                                      ,                            (        10        )
wherein (Gi)j represents the j-th row of the matrix (Gi), ∥ ∥2 represents 2 Norm of the matrix (Gi)j,
            arg                                      min              j      ∉              {                              k            1                    ,          …                                                    ,                      k                          i              -              1                                      }                                                  (                      G            i                    )                j                    2  stands for j corresponding to the minimum value of the target function ∥(Gi)j∥2 in the case that j does not belong to k1, . . . ,ki−1.
2) calculating a zero-forcing vector:wki=(Gi)ki  (11)
3) calculating the decision estimated valueyki=wki·ri  (12)
4) obtaining the detection component âki of the transmitting symbol vector aâki=Q(yki)  (13)
5) taking the detection component as a known signal and canceling it from the receiving symbol vector:ri+1=ri−âki·(H)ki  (14)
6) calculating a new initial value used for the next iteration:{tilde over (H)}={tilde over (H)} ki  (15)Gi+1={tilde over (H)}+  (16)i=i+1  (17)
where {tilde over (H)} ki represents that the ki th column of the matrix {tilde over (H)} is set to zero. It should be noted that the new Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse obtained from the equation (16) is based on the "reduced" H, where the k1,k2, . . . ,ki-th columns have already been set to zero. The column that is set as zero corresponds to the component of a as detected, thereby canceling the components of the transmitting symbol vector a which have been detected from the receiving symbol vector. At this time, the system becomes a system of removing transmitting antennae k1,k2, . . . ,ki, or equals to a system of ak1= . . . =aki=0.
This method uses the interference cancellation technology so that the space diversity degrees of the symbols that are detected in sequence are 1, 2, . . . M respectively.
It can be seen from the above Ordering-SIC V-BLAST detection method that this method needs to perform Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse to the channel matrix for M (the number of the transmitting antennae) times, each time obtaining a zero-forcing vector, and then carrying out an ordering operation. Therefore, this method is relatively complicated in case of comparatively many transmitting antennae. In addition, the performance of error ratio of the method is much restricted due to error propagation between layers of V-BLAST.
On the basis of the aforesaid Ordering-SIC V-BLAST detection method, an improved detection method was proposed in an article titled "Detection algorithm improving V-BLAST performance over error propagation" (hereinafter referred to as D2) by Cong Shen, Hairuo Zhuang, Lin Dai and Shidong Zhou in 2003.
First of all, in this method, the Ordering-SIC V-BLAST detection method disclosed by D1 is used to detect, with respect to a transmitting symbol vector a of a V-BLAST system having M transmitting antennae and N receiving antennae, M detection components that are respectively represented as âM0,âM−10, . . . ,â20,â1. Here the optimum detection order is assumed to be M, M−1, . . . , 1.
After that, iteration steps begin. In the first loop of this iteration steps, the detection component â1 with the highest space diversity degree among the detection components of the current transmitting symbol vector a is cancelled from the receiving symbol vector as a known signal, then the residual (M−1, N) system with M−1 transmitting antennae and N receiving antennae is further detected using the Ordering-SIC V-BLAST detection method to obtain the first detection estimate âM1,âM−11, . . . ,â21 of the transmitting symbol vector a. The first detection estimate together with the above known signal â1 forms the first update estimate âM1,âM−11, . . . ,â21,â1. The first loop ends.
Then, the second loop is executed. In the second loop, both the signal â1 and the signal â21 with the highest space diversity degree among the detection estimate âM1,âM−11, . . . ,â21,â1 are cancelled from the receiving symbol vector as known signals, then the residual (M−2, N) system with M−2 transmitting antennae and N receiving antennae is further detected using the Ordering-SIC V-BLAST detection method to obtain the second detection estimate âM2,âM−12, . . . ,â32 of the transmitting symbol vector component. The second detection estimate together with the above known signals â1 and â21 form the second update estimate âM2,âM−12, . . . ,â32,â21,â1. Similar performances are executed till the (M−1)-th update estimate âMM−1,
            a      ^              M      -      1              M      -      2        ,  …            ,            a      ^        2    1    ,â1 is obtained. This (M−1)-th update estimate is just the final detection result.
The V-BLAST detection method disclosed by D2 can, over the Ordering SIC V-BLAST detection method disclosed by D1, further reduce error propagation between the V-BLAST layers, so that the detecting performance of V-BLAST is improved to a certain extent. However, the detecting procedure is too complicated, and still has inter-layer error propagation. Its error performance is still restricted to a certain extent.

Method and device for detecting vertical bell laboratories layered space-time codes


The present invention involves methods and compositions for synthesizing catalysts/porous materials. In some embodiments, the resulting materials are amorphous sulfide sieves that can be mass-produced for a variety of uses. In some embodiments, methods of the invention concern any suitable precursor (such as thiomolybdate salt) that is exposed to a high pressure pre-compaction, if need be. For instance, in some cases the final bulk shape (but highly porous) may be same as the original bulk shape. The compacted/uncompacted precursor is then subjected to an open-flow hot isostatic pressing, which causes the precursor to decompose and convert to a highly porous material/catalyst.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to catalysts and molecular sieves. In particular, the present invention relates to methods and compositions concerning catalytic and amorphous sulfide sieve materials.
2. Description of Related Art
Molecular sieves are microporous or mesoporous materials with pores of a well-defined, substantially uniform diameter in the range of less than about 20 Å (microporous) and between about 20 and about 500 Å (mesoporous). Most molecules, whether in the gas or liquid phase, both inorganic and organic, have dimensions that fall within either of these ranges for their operating environments. Selecting a molecular sieve with a suitable pore size therefore allows separation of a molecule from a mixture through selective adsorption, hence the name "molecular sieve". Apart from the selective adsorption and selective separation of uncharged species, the well-defined pore system of a molecular sieve enables selective ion exchange of charged species and selective catalysis. In the latter two cases, significant properties other than the porous structure are, for instance, ion exchange capacity, specific surface area and acidity.
Molecular sieves can be classified in various categories, for example according to their chemical composition or by their structure (e.g., crystalline, amorphous). Traditional molecular sieve materials include crystalline sieve materials such as zeolites and metal silicates. Zeolites are crystalline aluminum silicates with well defined, versatile pore structures that make them useful in a wide variety of applications. Similarly, metal silicates are structurally analogous to zeolites except that they do not contain aluminum or only very small amounts thereof. They are typically based on oxide frameworks.
Metallic sulfides are another type of sieve material. They are a relatively new family of sieves based on sulfide chemistry. An example of early sulfide sieve materials is disclosed in Bedard et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,880,761. Bedard disclosed a process for preparing a crystalline, metallic sulfide composition having a three-dimensional, micro-porous framework structure of MS2, where M is a metal such as germanium or tin, and S is sulfur (or selenium). Bedard teaches that the sulfide sieve material is formed by reacting a mixture of a templating agent, an anion, a metal sulfide, and water at a temperature, pressure and time sufficient to form the crystalline composition. Bedard teaches that the resulting crystalline three-dimensional microporous composites exhibit adsorption/desorption properties and fluorescence showing that this family of sieves have applications in adsorptive separations, as luminescent display materials, luminescent sensor substrates, and as catalysts, and catalyst supports in metal sulfide-based catalysts such as in hydrogenation, dehydrogenation, dehydration, hydrotreating and conversion reactions.
Other sulfide sieve materials have also recently been developed. (See, e.g., Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 37 (2000) 243–252). They have typically been close analogs of oxide-based, microporous materials. Most of these newly synthesized microporous sulfide materials have layered structures. For example, SnS is a good semiconductor and is used in chemical sensing devices. Jiang et al (1998) have prepared large single crystals of SnS-n materials. The S-S-1 series A2Sn3S7 (A+=Et4N+, Me4N+, and mixture of NH4+ and Et4N+) has hexagonal-shaped 24-atom rings with diameters of about 10.5 Å in the tin sulfide layer, and interlamellar spacings of 8.5–9.0 Å depending on the templates. (Et4N)2Sn3S7, which has 24-atom rings partially occupied by the template, selectively adsorb H2O over CO2. The SnS-3 series [A2Sn4S9 (A+=Prn4 N+ and Bun4 N+)] has elliptical 32-atom rings of 20×10 Å in size within the tin sulfide layer, and an interlamellar spacing of 14 Å. The tin sulfide trigonal bipyramidal and tetrahedral connecting units make the tin sulfide layer very flexible, and this can undergo elastic deformation to alter the void spaces within and between the layers to accommodate the size and shape of the templates.
Another type of recently developed sulfide sieve material is MoS2 having a large surface area (60 m2/g) and pore size (110 Å in diameter). For example, it has been synthesized via decomposition of (NH4)2Mo3S13xH2O under heating and vacuum treatment (Leist et al., 1998). High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) shows an interlayer spacing of 6–7 Å, and unusually bent lamellae. This bent lamellar structure makes MoS2 an effective lubricant. Driving out the volatile species from the precursor under vacuum assists the MoS2 in forming lamellae with curvature and large pores.
The above-described sieve materials are generally crystalline in structure with atoms and channels that are arranged in complete regularity. Unfortunately, forming such crystalline sieve materials can be difficult and costly in that they typically require relatively expensive precursor solution materials and template removal processes. In addition, they are generally not well suited for reactions with large molecules (e.g., greater than 13 Å).
Another type of sieve materials are amorphous (or noncrystalline) materials. Even though they are not crystalline in structure, they have generally uniform, porous morphologies that allow them to be used in various sieve applications. For example, a group of researchers at Mobil Co. recently reported a series of mesoporous molecular sieves, named the M41S series including MCM-41 and MCM-48, which are noncrystalline (or amorphous) materials. (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,057,296 and 5,102,643). These mesoporous molecular sieves have regularly arranged channels larger than those of existing zeolites, thus enabling their application to adsorption, isolation or catalyst conversion reactions of relatively large molecules. The sieves consist of a structure in which mesopores uniform in size are regularly arranged. In contrast to crystalline sieves that have been produced by using inorganic or organic cations as templates, these mesoporous molecular sieves are synthesized through a liquid crystal template pathway by using surfactants as templates. These mesoporous molecular sieves have the advantage that their pore sizes can be adjusted in a range of 16 to 100 Å by controlling the kinds of surfactants or synthetic conditions employed during the production process.
There is a need, however, for new molecular sieves and methods for making such sieves, particularly methods that simplify the process or ones that generate improved molecular sieves.

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


A cache memory controller in a computer system, such as a multicore processing system, provides compression for writes to memory, such as an off-chip memory, and decompression after reads from memory. Application accelerator processors in the system generate application data and requests to read/write the data from/to memory. The cache memory controller uses information relating location parameters of buffers allocated for application data and sets parameters to configure compression and decompression operations. The cache memory controller monitors memory addresses specified in read requests and write requests from/to the first memory. The requested memory address is compared to the location parameters for the allocated buffers to select the set of parameters for the particular application data. Compression or decompression is applied to the application data in accordance with the selected set of parameters. The data size of the data transferred to/from memory is reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer system operations, in particular a cache memory controller and associated software driver modules to accelerate data transfers between an on-chip cache and a memory.
2. Description of Related Art
In some computer systems, including multicore processors systems, various application accelerator processors or application accelerator processor cores are specialized for particular computationally intensive applications. Examples include video codec processors to perform video compression and decompression operations in real time, image sensor processors to perform compression or processing of image sensor data, and display processors to format image data for display on a display device. The computations for these applications may require reads and writes of large amounts data between on-chip cache memory and off-chip DRAM (dynamic random access memory). The data transfer bandwidth may present a major bottleneck, particularly for real time applications such as video. Memory is generally organized hierarchically. The memory hierarchy can include a relatively small first level (L1) cache memory and a larger second level (L2) cache memory on the same integrated circuit as the processor core circuitry, along with off-chip, large scale memory implemented often using DRAM. In some configurations, a third level (L3) cache can be included on-chip. Other memory can be used for sharing data among processor cores, such as shared cache memory and message-passing memory. Additional memory in the hierarchy can include persistent stores, such as flash memory, magnetic disk drive memory, network-attached storage and so on. Given the variety of memory technologies, the organization of memory systems is very diverse.
There are many varieties of computer system architectures, each of which can include different memory system configurations. The co-owned and co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/891,312, entitled "Enhanced Multi-Processor Waveform Data Exchange Using Compression and Decompression," filed 27 Sep. 2010 (US 2011/0078222), which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, describes several computer system architectures, and demonstrates the variety architectures and memory configurations. The commonly owned non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 13/534,330 (the '330 application), filed Jun. 27, 2012, entitled "Computationally Efficient Compression of Floating-Point Data," incorporated herein by reference, describes several embodiments for compression floating-point data by processing the exponent values and the mantissa values of the floating-point format. The commonly owned non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 13/617,061 (the '061 application), filed Sep. 14, 2012, entitled "Conversion and Compression of Floating-Point and Integer Data," by Wegener, incorporated herein by reference, describes algorithms for converting floating-point data to integer data and compression of the integer data. The commonly owned non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 12/605,245 (the '245 application), entitled "Block Floating Point Compression of Signal Data," incorporated herein by reference, publication number 2011-0099295, published Apr. 28, 2011, describes efficient bit packing for integer samples. The commonly owned non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 13/358,511 (the '511 application), filed Jan. 25, 2012, entitled "Raw Format Image Data Processing," incorporated herein by reference, describes compression of raw format image data at least as fast as the image data rate. The commonly owned patent application Ser. No. 13/617,205 (the '205 application), filed Sep. 14, 2012, entitled "Data Compression for Direct Memory Access Transfers," by Wegener, incorporated herein by reference, describes providing compression for direct memory access (DMA) transfers of data and parameters for compression via a DMA descriptor.
As processor performance has improved, processors are executing programs over larger and larger data sets. Also, one processor or group of processors may concurrently execute many programs, each of which requires access to different sizes and types of data sets. For example, broad varieties of application programs acquire, collect, process, and display numerical data. Numerical data includes a variety of data types, such as integers, floating-point numbers, image data, video data, and graphics objects. Numerical data can be accumulated in large files, or acquired at high speeds, and movement of such data among elements of processor system memory hierarchies can cause bottlenecks in system performance.
Thus, the amount of memory available, in terms of the number of bytes, at each element of a memory system for a given computer system, and the bandwidth of the data channels among the elements of the memory system, can limit the efficiency and speed with which a given program can be executed. Given the variant computer systems architectures and variant memory system configurations, the control of data flow among the memory elements is often implemented in a platform-specific manner. This platform-specific memory management interferes with users' ability to individually manage data flow to improve the efficiency of accessing memory resources in a given computer system.
It is desirable to provide technologies that increase the effective bandwidth for data transfers between on-chip and off-chip components of the memory system in computer systems in a manner that is transparent to the application program.

Cache memory controller for accelerated data transfer


The present disclosure provides a resin suitable for use in rotational molding having an environmental stress crack resistance of greater than 1000 hours. The resin has a density from 0.937 to 0.942 g/cm3, a melt index I2 determined according to ASTM D 1238 (2.16 kg/190° C.−I2) from 4.0 to 7.0 g/10 min, an I21 determined according to ASTM D 1238 (21.6 kg/190° C.−I21) from 160 to 200 g/10 min, an I21/I2 from 30 to 40 and a terminal vinyl unsaturation greater than 0.06, per 1000 carbon atoms; and a primary structure parameter (PSP2) of from 4 to 7, and an overall Mw/Mn from 2.7 to 3.5 comprising from 2 to 5 weight % of one or more C4-8 alpha olefin comonomers.

There are a number of different considerations for manufacturing a resin suitable for use in rotomolding manufacture. The resin needs to be: capable of production at commercially acceptable rates of production; suitable for use in the rotomolding process (e.g., for example, having a suitable sintering temperature and a suitable cooling rate to be removed from the mold) and finally have suitable properties for the end use application. One important property sought is environmental stress crack resistance. The resin should not develop cracks due to exposure to chemicals, sunlight, etc. in applications, such as, tank sprayers for agricultural use, cisterns, and smaller rotomolded parts.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,382,630, and 5,382,631 issued Jan. 17, 1995 to Stehling, assigned to Exxon, teach bimodal resins having superior physical properties. The patent requires that the blend have two or more components each having a polydispersity (Mw/Mn) less than 3 and the blend having a polydispersity greater than 3 and no component in the blend having a relatively higher molecular weight and a lower comonomer content (i.e., the comonomer incorporation is reverse). The reference does not suggest improved ESCR.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,969,741 issued Nov. 29, 2005 to Lustiger et al., assigned to ExxonMobil teaches a blend of polyethylenes suitable for rotomolding. The patent teaches the difference in the density of each component is not less than 0.030 g/cm3. The difference in the densities of the component polymers in the present composition is less than 0.030 g/cm3.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,486,323 issued Jul. 16, 2013 in the name of Davis, assigned to Dow Global technologies Inc., teaches polymer blends used in rotational molded articles and having a high impact resistance. The blends have a residual unsaturation of less than 0.06 per 1000 carbon atoms. Embodiments in the present disclosure have a residual unsaturation of greater than 0.06 per 1000 carbon atoms.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,492,498 issued Jul. 23, 2013 from an application filed Feb. 21, 2011 in the name of Buck et al., assigned to Chevron Phillips discloses a high density polymer suitable for rotational molding that has a bent strip ESCR condition A greater than 1000 hours, as determined by ASTM D 1693 in 100% IGEPAL CO-630. The polymer also has a primary structure parameter (PSP2) of greater than 8.9. Embodiments in the present disclosure have a primary structure parameter (PSP2) of from 4 to 7.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,114,946 issued Feb. 14, 2012, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,475,899 issued Jul. 2, 2013, both claiming a priority date of Dec. 18, 2008 in the name of Yang et al., assigned to Chevron Phillips teach a polymer prepared using a bridged metallocene catalyst and having a long chain branch (LCB) content of less than 0.008 per 1000 carbon atoms, by implication LCB are present in the polymer. The catalyst and process used to make the compositions of the present disclosure do not produce detectable long chain branching.
The present disclosure seeks to provide a high density polyethylene resin having exceptional environmental stress crack resistance (ESCR) and good flow properties. Flow properties are important for rotomolding resins as the resin must soften and flow in the mold. If the flow properties are too low the resin does not sinter together in a reasonable amount of time and the product cannot be made in an economical manner.