Designs of multiplexing/demultiplexing modules configured for N channels are disclosed. One of the features in the designs is to provide at least one concave mirror for compenstating filter tilting errors. The concave mirrors is placed where an incident traveling distance of a light beam is substantially similar or equal to the reflected traveling distance of the beam such that the filter tilting errors successively introduced over a number of optical filters can be successively reduced, compensated or removed over a subsequent number of optical filters as the light beams travels.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention is generally related to the area of optical components. In particular, the invention is related to compact wavelength multiplexer/demultiplexer and method for making the same.
2. The Background of Related Art
The future communication networks demand ever increasing bandwidths and flexibility to different communication protocols. WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) is one of the key technologies for such optical fiber communication networks. WDM employs multiple wavelengths in a single fiber to transmit in parallel different communication protocols and bit rates. Transmitting several channels in a single optical fiber at different wavelengths can multi-fold expand the transmission capacity of the existing optical transmission systems, and facilitate many functions in optical networking. An international standard wavelength grid has been suggested by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) for the center wavelengths of WDM systems. Different technologies have thus been developed to divide or combine channels or subgroups of channels in the ITU grid.
From a terminology's viewpoint, a device that multiplexes different wavelength channels or groups of channels into one fiber is a multiplexer, and a device that divides the multiplexed channels or groups of channels into individual or subgroups of channels is a demultiplexer. Specifically, a multiplexer combines several channels of optical signals into a single signal, or in reverse a demultiplexer separates a single multichannel signal into several individual channel signals, such multiplexer/demultiplexer is referred to a multiplexing/demultiplexing module, or simply multiplexer or demultiplexer.
Known devices for multiplexing/demultiplexing have employed, for example, diffraction gratings, arrayed waveguide gratings and various types of fixed or tunable filters. Gratings typically require complicated alignment systems and have been found to provide poor efficiency and poor stability under changing ambient conditions. Fixed wavelength filters, such as interference coatings, can be made substantially more stable, but transmit only a single wavelength or wavelength band.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,683 to Scobey discloses an optical multiplexing device that spatially disperses collimated light from a fiber optic waveguide into individual wavelength bands, or multiplexes such individual wavelength bands to a common fiber optic waveguide or other destination. An optical block has an optical port for passing multiple wavelength collimated light to be demultiplexed. Multiple ports are arrayed in spaced relation to each other along a multiport surface of the optical block to receive respective the individual wavelength bands. With respective collimators that must be precisely coupled to the multiple ports, the optical multiplexing device can be bulky, expensive and susceptible to varying ambient conditions (e.g. temperature and vibrations).
Another optical multiplexing device, called compact WDM device, is to mount all WDM filters and collimating means on a common substrate. As shown in FIG. 1, where each of the WDM filters 102–109 and collimators 0–9 can be tuned separately and fixed to the common substrate. Thus, when a multiplex optical signal including, for example, eight different channels or wavelengths (e.g. λ1 λ2 λ3 λ4 λ5 λ6 λ7 λ8), is coupled to a first collimator (i.e., Collimator 0), the optical signal is coupled to the filter 102 that transmits only λ1 and the rest is reflected to the filter 103 that transmits λ2 and reflects the rest. The rest of the signal continues to travel through the rest of the filters 104–109 and every time the signal hits a filter, a wavelength is filtered out and coupled to a collimator for output.
However, the compact WDM devices encounter serious problems with assembling tolerance. Analysis and experiment have proved that the assembly error that most sensitively degrades performance of the compact WDM devices is the amplified filter tilting error propagation. This situation can be understood from FIG. 2. If the first filter has a lateral tilt error of Δθ, the remaining signal hitting the next filter, or simply the next drop channel λ2 will experience two errors: the position has a lateral displacement ˜Δθ·l, and the incident angle has an error of Δθ. As a result, the drop channel λ2 suffers both in insertion loss and the central wavelength. For the next drop channel λ3, however, the performance degradation is amplified since the beam reflected from filter tilt is 2·Δθ and the position lateral shift is 2·Δθ·l. As the beam cascading further down, the subsequent drop channel will suffer even more degradation.
In summary, for the nth drop channel, the incident beam will result in an angular error of 2·Δθ angular and a lateral shift error of (n−1)·Δθ·l. This problem is significant in WDM modules configured for a large number of channels, where a minimal angular tilt of a filter, especially those used in the first few channels, will create amplified beam position deviation, both in lateral position and in angle, resulting in significant insertion loss.
There thus has been a need for compact WDM modules that minimize the problem of error amplification as discussed above and provide high tolerance for manufacturing with high yield.

Compact wavelength multiplexer/demultiplexer and method for making the same


The present invention provides an active matrix substrate which can be fabricated at a lower cost and a light emitting device having a large display area fabricated by a vapor deposition system which makes a film with uniform thickness for a large substrate. According to the invention, an organic light-emitting device can be fabricated by performing vapor deposition toward a large substrate provided with a pixel portion (and a driver circuit) including an n-channel TFT having a amorphous silicon film, semi-amorphous semiconductor film or an organic semiconductor film as an active layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device including a circuit fabricated from a thin film transistor (hereinafter, referred to as a TFT) and a manufacturing method thereof. For example, the invention relates to an electronic device equipped with a light emitting display device having an organic light emitting element as a component.
A semiconductor device in this specification refers to a general device which can be operated by using semiconductor properties, and an electro-optic device, a semiconductor circuit, and a electronic device are all referred as a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, research related to a light emitting device having an EL element as a self-luminous light emitting element has been advanced. The light emitting device is referred to as an organic EL display or an organic light emitting diode. Since these light emitting devices have characteristics such as fast response suitable for movie display, low voltage operation, low power consumption, or the like, they attracts much attention as a next generation display including new generation's cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDA).
An EL element having a layer containing an organic compound layer as a light emitting layer has a structure in which a layer containing a layer containing an organic compound layer (hereinafter, referred to as an EL layer) is sandwiched between an anode and a cathode. Electroluminescence is generated in the EL layer by applying an electronic field to the anode and the cathode. Luminescence can be obtained from the EL element when a singlet excited state returns back to a ground state (fluorescence) or when a triplet excited state returns to a ground state (phosphorescence).
The EL layer has a layered structure typified by "a hole transporting layer, a light emitting layer and an electron transporting layer". EL materials for forming an EL layer are classified broadly into low-molecular weight (monomer) materials and high-molecular weight (polymer) materials. The low-molecular weight materials are deposited using a vapor deposition (evaporation) system.
A conventional vapor deposition system has a substrate holder where a substrate is set, a crucible (an evaporation boat) encapsulating an EL material, that is a deposition material, a shutter for preventing the EL material to be sublimed from rising, and a heater for heating the EL material in a container. Then, the EL material heated by the heater is sublimed and deposited on a rotating substrate. At this time, the distance between the substrate and the crucible needs to be 1 m or more so as to perform uniform deposition.
As to a conventional vapor deposition system and a conventional vapor deposition method, when an EL layer is formed by vapor deposition, almost all the sublimed EL material is adhered to an inner wall of a film formation chamber of the vapor deposition system, a shutter or an adherence preventive shield (a protective plate for preventing a deposition material from adhering to an inner wall of the film formation chamber) inside of the film formation chamber. Therefore, in forming the EL layer, an efficiency of utilizing the expensive EL materials is extremely low i.e. about 1% or less, and thus, manufacturing costs of a light emitting device has been very high.
As to a conventional vapor deposition system, in order to provide a film with uniform thickness, it is necessary to separate a substrate from a source of the vapor deposition 1 m or more. Therefore, the vapor deposition system has grown in size, a period required for exhausting each film formation chamber of the vapor deposition system has been prolonged; thus, film formation speed is slowed down and throughput is reduced. Also, in using a large substrate, the film thickness between a center portion and a marginal portion of a substrate easily becomes uneven. Further, the vapor deposition system has a structure for rotating a substrate; therefore, there is a limit in a vapor deposition system for a large substrate.
In view of the above-described problems, the present inventors have proposed a vapor deposition system (Reference 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-247959 and Reference 2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-60926).

Manufacturing method of a light emitting device including moving the source of the vapor deposition parallel to the substrate

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


The thickness of a thin film can be measured based on the X-ray diffraction method. An X-ray is allowed to be incident upon a surface of the thin film. An intensity of a diffracted X-ray is measured with the incident angle α being changed to obtain a measured rocking curve. On the other hand, a theoretical rocking curve is calculated in consideration of an orientation density distribution function ρ of the thin film. A scale factor is predetermined for a standard sample having a known film thickness. A parameter fitting operation is carried out in a manner that the characteristic parameter of the function ρ and the film thickness t are adjusted so that the theoretical rocking curve including the scale factor can approach the measured rocking curve as closely as possible.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for film thickness measurement in which the thickness of a thin film is measured based on the X-ray diffraction method.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known to use X-rays in measuring nondestructively the thickness of a thin film. The typical X-ray-related method in the determination of a film thickness is to measure an X-ray reflectance. The X-ray reflectance method can determine not only the film thickness of a single layer but also each film thickness of two laminated layers composed of different materials as disclosed in, for example, Japanese patent publication No. 10-38821 A (1998) which will be called as the first publication hereinafter.
The film thickness measurement method based on the X-ray reflectance, however, can hardly determine a film thickness in the case that (1) the density of an object thin film to be measured is close to the density of a layer adjacent to the object thin film or (2) the boundary between the object thin film and the adjacent layer has a rough surface. Assuming that a tantalum layer is deposited on a tantalum nitride layer for example, since the densities of the two layers are very close to each other, the intensity of the reflected X-ray from the boundary of Ta/TaN is weak so that it is impossible to measure the film thickness of the tantalum layer in the X-ray reflectance method.
Then, it can be planned to measure a film thickness based on the diffracted X-ray intensity with a sample whose film thickness can be hardly measured in the X-ray reflectance method. Some methods about film thickness measurement based on the diffracted X-ray intensity are known: see for example Japanese patent publication No. 4-194611 A (1992) called as the second publication hereinafter, Japanese patent publication No. 10-103942 A (1998) called as the third publication hereinafter, Japanese patent publication No. 2000-88776 A (2000) called as the fourth publication hereinafter.
The second publication introduces that, in the description of the prior art, a film thickness can be measured based on a ratio of the first intensity of a diffracted X-ray from the object thin film to be measured to the second intensity of a diffracted X-ray from the foundation layer beneath the object thin film, the ratio being called as a diffraction intensity ratio hereinafter. This method includes the steps described below. Plural object thin films are prepared with known and different film thicknesses. The diffraction intensity ratio of an object thin film to the foundation layer is measured for each object thin film. An analytical line is constructed based on the known film thicknesses of the plural object thin films and the plural diffraction intensity ratios. The film thickness of any sample can be measured based on the measured diffraction intensity ratio and the analytical line. The diffraction intensity ratio method is, however, effective only when the preferred orientation of the object thin film is known. Namely, an analytical line is constructed at first about thin films having the same known preferred orientations and thereafter a film thickness can be determined about any thin film having the same preferred orientation. The second publication says that the diffraction intensity ratio method is not usable for a thin film having an unknown preferred orientation. Consequently, the second publication proposes to use the intensity of a diffracted X-ray from the foundation layer only to measure the thickness of a thin film deposited on the foundation layer. With this method, the thickness of the object thin film can be determined out of relation to the preferred orientation of the object thin film. This method is, however, effective only under the condition that a certain extent of a diffracted X-ray can be observed from the foundation layer. If a certain extent of a diffracted X-ray can not be observed as in the case that the foundation layer is amorphous, the method proposed in the second publication is unusable.
The third publication suggests that the diffraction intensity ratio is measured using two kinds of X-ray wavelengths so that the thickness of a thin film even having a preferred orientation can be determined because the effect of the preferred orientation is cancelled. Stating in detail, the third publication points out that even when the preferred orientation of the sample is changed, there is no relation between the diffracted X-ray intensity and the amount of a film deposited. There are used two kinds of X-ray wavelengths, e.g., the characteristic X-ray of Cr and the characteristic X-ray of Cu, to detect the two intensities of diffracted X-rays in the same direction and from the same lattice spacing. The diffraction intensity ratio of the two intensities depends upon the amount of deposition because the effect of the preferred orientation is cancelled. If an analytical line is constructed in advance about the relationship between the diffracted X-ray intensity and the amount of deposition, the amount of deposition can be determined with the measurement of the diffraction intensity ratio, noting that the relationship would become a curved line. It is noted in this method that it is necessary, for making an analytical line, to prepare plural object thin films having known and different film thicknesses and to measure the diffraction intensity ratio among the object thin films with the use of two kinds of X-ray wavelengths.
The fourth publication discloses that: the diffracted X-ray intensities are measured for both of a sample having a thin film thereon and another sample from which a thin film has been removed; a variation curve of the diffraction intensity ratio with an incident angle being changed is determined, the curve becoming a measured rocking curve; a theoretical rocking curve containing a film thickness and a film density as parameters is produced; and the film thickness and the film density can be determined so that the theoretical rocking curve can approach the measured rocking curve as closely as possible. The fourth publication is deeply pertinent to the present invention in view of the use of a parameter fitting operation about the diffracted X-ray intensity. It is necessary in this method, however, that: the diffracted X-ray intensity is measured for a sample having a thin film deposited thereon; the thin film is removed; and then the diffracted X-ray intensity is measured again for the sample from which the thin film has been removed. Accordingly, this method can not be said to be the nondestructive measurement. Since the greatest advantage of the X-ray-using film thickness measurement method is that it is the nondestructive measurement, the method disclosed in the fourth publication, which must have the step of removing the thin film, would lose the greatest advantage with the use of X-ray.
Noting that the present invention has a feature, which is one of the features of the invention, of using a theoretical formula about the diffracted X-ray intensity in consideration of the orientation density distribution function, the prior art involved with this feature is known and disclosed in H. Toraya, H. Hibino, T. Ida and N. Kuwano, Quantitative basis for the rocking-curve measurement of preferred orientation in polycrystalline thin films, (2003), Journal of Applied Crystallography, 36, p. 890–897 which will be called as the fifth publication.
The film thickness measurement methods disclosed in the second to the fourth publications have the problems described below. The method of the second publication is to measure the thickness of the object thin film based on the intensity of a diffracted X-ray from the foundation layer for the purpose of eliminating the effect of the preferred orientation of the object thin film. This method is effective only under the condition that a certain extent of a diffracted X-ray can be observed from the foundation layer, and accordingly the method is unusable in the case that the foundation layer is amorphous. Explaining with an example, the method of the second publication is unusable for measuring the film thickness of a tantalum layer which is deposited on a tantalum nitride layer, because the tantalum nitride layer is amorphous.
The method of the third publication suggests the measurement of the thickness of the object thin film based on the diffraction intensity ratio which is obtained with the use of two kinds of X-ray wavelengths. This method has problems that (1) an X-ray source which can generate two kinds of X-ray wavelengths must be prepared, for instance, an X-ray tube which can generate the characteristic X-ray of Cr and another X-ray tube which can generate the characteristic X-ray of Cu and (2) an analytical line indicating the relationship between the diffraction intensity ratio and the film thickness must be created beforehand, that is, the prior measurement operation must be carried out for plural object thin films having known and different film thicknesses.
The method of the fourth publication has problems that (1) the diffracted X-ray intensity must be measured again for the sample from which the thin film has been removed after the measurement of the diffracted X-ray intensity for the sample having the thin film deposited thereon, the method being not the nondestructive measurement and (2) a reliable film thickness would not be expected for a sample having a preferred orientation, because the method does not take account of the specific theory for the sample having a preferred orientation.

Method and apparatus for film thickness measurement


A project system is automatically configured from project capabilities determined from an instance of a build system by a project capabilities analyzer. A flexible configuration based build system defines the consuming project system. Results of an evaluated project file are used to define the overall capabilities of the build system. The capabilities are used to dynamically load and assemble the project system code. Changes in the project capabilities due to a reevaluation of a result of a build can then redefine and reassemble the project system code. Hence project system configuration is data-driven rather than user-defined and utilizes a flexible, configuration based build system to define the consuming project system.

A build system is a set of rules, commands and processes that are used to convert source code to binary assets. A build process actually builds the product. It is generally considered a best practice to execute a build process in as automated a manner as feasible, with as little human interaction as possible. A build process typically includes at least compiling source code for an application into compiled code and may include additional steps associated with the compiling of the source code such as, for example, executing acceptance tests. An automated build process is a build process in which there is no human intervention during the performance of the automated build process. An automated build process is usually performed by executing a series of scripts that are manually coded from scratch. The scripts direct the execution of build tools.
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities for developers of software. An IDE normally includes at least a source code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter, build automation tools and a debugger. A version control system and various other tools may also be integrated into the IDE to simplify the software development process. Some IDEs also have a class browser, an object inspector, and a class hierarchy diagram, for use with object-oriented software development. Typically an IDE is dedicated to a specific programming language so that a set of features that match the programming paradigms of the language can be provided. However, some multiple-language IDEs are known, such as Eclipse, ActiveState Komodo, recent versions of NetBeans, Microsoft Visual Studio and WinDev.
An IDE typically presents a single environment in which all development occurs and provides a number of features for authoring, modifying, compiling, deploying and debugging software. The aim of the IDE is to increase programmer productivity. Some IDEs are graphical, while others are text-based and use function keys or hotkeys to perform various tasks. Software development can also be performed outside an IDE, using unrelated tools, such as vi, GCC or make.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Automatic configuration of project system from project capabilities


Embodiments contemplate techniques for managing aggregation between using an anchor channel over a first frequency band as the anchor band between an Access Point and a wireless receiver/transmitter unit (WTRU). One or more embodiments may include the WRTU receiving one or more beacons via the anchor channel, where the one or more beacons may provide allocation information for allocating a supplementary channel on a second frequency band as a supplementary band that may be different from the first frequency band. Embodiments also contemplate establishing the supplementary channel over the supplementary band using the allocation information provided in the one or more beacons. Embodiments also contemplate exchanging data over the established supplementary channel on the supplementary band.

The analog TV bands include the Very High Frequency (VHF) band and the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band. The VHF is composed of the low VHF band operating from 54 MHz to 88 MHz (excluding 72 MHz to 76 MHz), and the high VHF band operating from 174 MHz to 216 MHz. The UHF band is composed of the low UHF band operating from 470 MHz to 698 MHz, and the high UHF band operating from 698 MHz to 806 MHz. Within the TV bands, each TV channel has 6 MHz bandwidth. Channels 2 to 6 are in the low VHF band; Channels 7 to 13 are in the high VHF band; Channels 14-51 are in the low UHF band; Channels 52 to 69 are in the high UHF band.
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set Jun. 12, 2009 as the deadline for replacing analog TV broadcasting by digital TV broadcasting. The digital TV channel definitions are the same as the analog TV channel. The digital TV bands use analog TV channels 2 to 51 (except 37), while the analog TV channels 52 to 69 may be used for new non-broadcast users. The frequency allocated to a broadcasting service but not used locally is called White Space (WS). The TVWS refers to the TV channels 2 to 51 (except 37).
Besides TV signals, there are other licensed signals transmitted on the TV bands. Channel 37 is reserved for radio astronomy and Wireless Medical Telemetry Service (WMTS), where the latter may operate on any vacant TV channels 7 to 46. Private Land Mobile Radio System (PLMRS) uses channels 14 to 20 in certain metropolitan areas. Remote control devices use any channels above channel 4, except channel 37. The starting frequency of FM channel 200 is 87.9 MHz, with partial overlapping on TV channel 6. The wireless microphone uses channels 2 to 51 with a bandwidth of 200 kHz. The FCC has ruled that the wireless microphone usage is restricted to two pre-specified channels, and its operation on other channels requires a pre-registry.
Because of the transition from analog to digital TV transmissions in the 470-862 MHz frequency band, certain portions of the spectrum are no longer used for TV transmissions, though the amount and exact frequency of unused spectrum varies from location to location. The FCC has opened up these TVWS frequencies for a variety of unlicensed uses.


The invention relates to an energy saving headset 100. The headset 100 comprises a power management unit 150 that is operable to reduce the power consumption of the headset 100 when a user 110 is not present. The power management unit 150 uses capacitive sensing to detect the presence of the user 110. Capacitive sensing is advantageous since it provides a flexible and reliable sensor that can accurately detect the presence or absence of a user 110 either by detecting user proximity or user contact. Moreover, in various embodiments, the sensitivity of a capacitive sensor may be adjusted to account for user movement or changes in environmental conditions, such as, for example, the presence of water, or sweat, on the headset 100 to further improve sensing reliability. The invention further relates to headsets using user presence signals based on capacitive sensing to control other functions of the headset or to control external devices to which the headset is connected, either wirelessly or by wires.

Many different types of headsets have been designed by numerous manufacturers with various types of end user application in mind. For example, stereo headphones for listening to music have been around for many years, as have ear pieces for use with hearing aids, portable radios such as GB 1,483,829A, U.S. Pat. No. 5,678,202 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,356,644.
Recently, many new types of headset that can be worn by a user have been developed with a view to using them with mobile cellular telephones or other portable electronic devices. Numerous headset designs have been created to enable a user to use such a portable electronic device without the need to hold the electronic device: the so-called "hands-free" mode of operation.
Many of the recently developed headsets are cordless devices that incorporate a Bluetooth™ receiver or a Bluetooth™ receiver/transmitter. Bluetooth™ is a radio-frequency communications standard developed by a group of electronics manufacturers that allows various types of electronic equipment to interconnect, without the need for wires, cables or detailed user intervention. The Bluetooth™ standard enables various electronic devices to inter-operate, since all electronic products that use Bluetooth™ have to use an agreed standard that dictates when data bits are sent, how many data bits are sent at any one time, how data transmission errors are handled, etc.
Whilst improved design has lead to improvements in the size and weight of headsets, the functionality of headsets has increased dramatically. This has increased pressure on engineers to consider how most efficiently to use the electrical power available, particularly for cordless battery-operated headsets where battery life and available power are limited.
With a view to improving power usage, various manufacturers have developed headsets that incorporate power management features.
One prior art design is that of the Sony™ MDR-DS8000 headset available from Sony™ Corporation. In this headset, an electromechanical switch is provided that changes state when the ear pieces are pulled apart when the headset is being put on by a user. This is done by the headband expanding and pulling on a switch mechanism.
In another prior art design JP2000278785 A, an inductive noise signal is provided by a metallic ring built into an ear piece when the ear piece contact a user. This signal is used to detect the presence or absence of a user to determine whether or not to power-down a signal amplifier.
While these known power-saving headsets fulfil the desired function, they are not without various drawbacks. For example, mechanical switches are relatively bulky and expensive, and they can also suffer from long-term reliability problems. Moreover, the mechanical headband switch approach is not transferable to non-headband based headsets such as single-ear devices, for example ones that operate wirelessly by Bluetooth™ or otherwise. Sensing user presence based upon detecting inductive noise is also less than ideal, particularly given the random nature of such noise and its amplitude variability according to differing physical conditions, such as the degree of electrode contact with the user (e.g. if a user is jogging), prevailing environmental conditions (e.g. if a user is sweating or is exposed to rain), etc.


Parental information of a video program recorded on an optical disk is always checked in a disk player. Even if a jump of laser beam tracing of an optical head erroneously occurs due to shocks or vibrations, the content of parental information assigned to the destination of optical head jumping is checked, to thereby achieve an accurate parental control of selective restriction for the video whose reproduction or presentation is restricted by the parental information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to (1) a recording medium such an optical disk on which data of different types with different application purposes, e.g., compressed moving picture data, audio data, character data, game programs, and so on, are recorded, (2) a recording apparatus for recording data on the recording medium, (3) a recording method of recording data on the recording medium, (4) a reproduction apparatus for reproducing data from the recording medium, and (4) a reproduction method for reproducing data from the recording medium.
More specifically, the present invention relates to an improvement of a parental control in which reproduction or presentation of part of or all of data recorded on the recording medium is restricted by a provider of the data or by a user of the data.
Further, the present invention relates to a parental control for a broadcasting or communication system by which data of different types with different application purposes, e.g., compressed moving picture data, audio data, character data, game programs, and so on, are broadcasted or transmitted.
2. Description of the Related Art
Optical disk reproduction apparatuses which can cope with moving pictures have recently been developed. These apparatuses are designed to reproduce data from an optical disk on which picture data, audio data, and the like are recorded as digital data. Various types of reproduction software for, e.g., movies and karaoke systems are expected to be provided. Nationality, religion, and age restrictions are imposed on some of these pieces of software. For example, in the U.S.A, movies are classified into movies which everybody can see, movies which minors can see only with their parents, movies which minors above 13 years old can see only with their parents, R-rated movies, and X-rated movies.
Audiences are restricted depending on the contents of software, or audiences allowed to partly listen to or watch software are restricted depending on pictures in this manner. A scheme for such restriction is called "parental control." Conventionally, determination on parental control and execution of restriction on listening/watching depend only on the users of software. For this reason, it is hard to reliably execute restriction on listening/watching of software which is subjected to parental control.
As described above, according to the conventional form of listening to or watching software, a user may see a restricted picture unintentionally or intentionally as long as he/she has the software. Therefore, a method of performing reliable parental control needs to be developed.

Information storage and information transmission media with parental control


The present invention provides a stable fat-soluble active ingredient composition, microcapsule and process for preparation and use thereof. The fat-soluble active ingredient composition comprises tocopherol, vitamin C palmitate and a fat-soluble active ingredient; wherein the weight ratio of tocopherol to vitamin C palmitate is 2-8:1, the weight ratio of a combination of tocopherol with vitamin C palmitate to the fat-soluble active ingredient is 7-13:100. The present invention obtains a novel antioxidant composition without hidden dangers for improving the stability of the fat-soluble active ingredient by screening a combination of antioxidants and adjusting their proportion and dose.

Vitamins are necessary for animal nutrition and production and have a very important role on the body's metabolism, growth, development and health. Vitamin A is a very important member of the vitamin A ester family and has a very important function on visual health, bone health, reproduction and cell division and reproduction. It would be inconceivable for the lack of vitamin A in the human body.
Vitamin A is a light yellow crystalline solid, insoluble in water, and is soluble in fat and varieties of fat solvents, and is easy to deteriorates in the light, heat and oxygen, and then is easily destroyed. Therefore, it must firstly be esterified in the preparation of vitamin A additive. Generally it would be made into microcapsules powder for use.
As for a microencapsulation embedding technology, vitamin A ester as a core material is melted to form an oil phase, and then dissolved with high molecular material as wall material. Small molecule filler and emulsifier in water forms an aqueous phase. The oil phase and the aqueous phase are mixed, and then emulsified, sprayed drying or crosslinked, and finally to obtain a microcapsule product.
An antioxidant is added to prevent from oxidation of vitamin A esters in the preparation of vitamin A ester microcapsules of the above process. At present, antioxidants generally includes ethoxyquinoline, tert-butyl hydroxytoluene and butylated hydroxyanisole. But these antioxidants have a trend to be limited uses even prohibited uses in the international food and feed industry due to their associated potential hazards.
There are some green safe and healthy antioxidants such as tocopherol or vitamin C palmitate without hidden dangers of limiting or prohibiting uses in the food and feed industry. Tocopherol is a fat-soluble antioxidant for effectively preventing from the formation of active oxides during the oxidation of fat. It would be necessary for normal growth and fertility of animals. Vitamin C palmitate is a highly effective oxygen scavenger and synergist, and evaluated as a nutritious, non-toxic, efficient, safe use food additive by the World Health Organization (WHO) Food Additives Committee and is also the sole antioxidant available for infant food in China, and also used as an antioxidants and has some effects on food color protection, nutrition enhancement for foods.
Chinese Patent CN102362864 (B) introduces a method for enhancing free-running property and bulk density of vitamin A or vitamin D3 microcapsules, wherein the antioxidant is tocopherol or vitamin C palmitate.
Chinese Patent CN102176833 (A) introduces a preparation method of ready-to-use stable emulsion, wherein the antioxidant is tocopherol, t-butylhydroxytoluene, t-butylhydroxyanisole, ascorbic acid or ethoxyquinoline, wherein the emulsifier is ascorbyl palmitate (vitamin C palmitate).
Chinese Patent CN103181566 (A) describes powder preparation of vitamin A ester, wherein the water-soluble antioxidant may be ascorbic acid and its salts, such as sodium ascorbate and so on. And the fat-soluble antioxidant may be tocopherol; fatty acid ascorbate, such as ascorbyl palmitate or stearate; BHT; BHA; propyl gallate; ethoxyquinoline.
Chinese Patent CN1279112 (A) introduces a carbohydrate matrix comprising a composition of fat-soluble substances, wherein the antioxidant is selected from sodium ascorbate, palmitate of ascorbic acid, dl-tocopherol, mixed tocopherol, lecithin and their mixtures.
All of above patents mentioned antioxidants comprising tocopherol or vitamin C palmitate, but do not describe a combination of tocopherol with vitamin C palmitate, and do not describe a dose of use and a proportion of the antioxidants.

Stable fat-soluble active ingredient composition, microcapsule and process of preparation and use thereof

ZHEJIANG MEDICINE CO., LTD. XINCHANG PHARMACEUTICAL FACTORY

ZHEJIANG MEDICINE CO., LTD. VITAMIN FACTORY


The present invention is to provide a resonance circuit, which is applicable to a circuit board of a first electronic device provided thereon with a circuit layout, a high-speed connector (e.g., a USB 3.0 connector) at a lateral side of the circuit layout for connecting with a second electronic device, and an antenna for enabling the circuit board to receive and transmit wireless information at a predetermined frequency. The connector and antenna are respectively connected to first and second connecting points of the circuit layout, and the distance between the two connecting points is not less than one wavelength. The resonance circuit is connected to a third connecting point of the circuit layout provided between the above two connecting points, such that the resonance frequency of the resonance circuit covers the reception and transmission frequencies of the antenna, for effectively inhibiting interference between the connector and the antenna.

With the progress of electronics, the development of electronic devices has tended toward miniaturization and lightweight. In particular, as the market of portable electronic devices (e.g., mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and tablet computers) prospers in recent years, the demand for ease of carry has driven these devices to extreme compactness. Meanwhile, in order to satisfy people's needs to watch or listen to various multimedia information through such electronic devices, the sizes of digital files or digital information flows have increased so much that the speed and stability of digital information transmission have been important factors in developing electronic devices.
Now that electronic devices are made increasingly thinner, external antennae have been almost completely dispensed with and replaced by built-in ones, and the internal space of an electronic device is reducing. On the other hand, in order to improve the transmission speed of digital information, it is common practice nowadays to equip an electronic device with a high-speed connector capable of fast digital information transmission, some examples of which are connectors conforming to the Universal Serial Bus (USB) 3.0 specifications, High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connectors, DisplayPort connectors, and Thunderbolt connectors. While the pursuit of miniaturization has rendered electronic devices much more convenient to carry, and high-speed connectors have substantially increased the transmission efficiency of digital information, an attempt to achieve the above two goals at the same time gives rise to new problems.
Today, the antennae of the foregoing electronic devices typically transmit digital information over the 2.4 GHz radio frequency band via a wireless transmission protocol such as the IEEE 802.11 b/g/n or Bluetooth. As to wire-based transmission, the aforementioned high-speed connectors are now widely used in place of their low-frequency counterparts. Although the radiation signals generated by a low-frequency connector during signal transmission does not interfere with the reception and transmission of digital information by the 2.4 GHz antennae described above, the same cannot be said of high-speed connectors. When transmission of information takes place between two electronic devices by way of high-speed connectors, the radiation signals generated by the connectors will contain noise whose frequency is close to the reception and transmission frequency of the antennae of the electronic devices, and which therefore compromises the stability with which the antennae receive and transmit digital information. Moreover, as electronic devices become progressively smaller, it is practically impossible to "increase the distance between a high-speed connector and an antenna" as a way to keep the antenna from noise interference. To solve the problem, some manufacturers provide high-speed connectors, or their high speed transmission signal lines, with a shielding housing for blocking the noise generated by the high-speed connectors during signal transmission. Alternatively, some manufacturers add a wave-absorbing material to the signal lines of high-speed connectors in order to absorb the noise generated by the high-speed connectors during signal transmission. While the approaches stated above do offer solutions to the noise interference problem, the provision of the shielding housing or the wave-absorbing material causes an increase in production costs, which leaves something to be desired.
To sum up, the design of a conventional electronic device often fails to balance between miniaturization and high signal transmission speed. Although attempts have been made to solve the problem, the proposed solutions incur high production costs. Hence, the issue to be addressed by the present invention is to inhibit interference between a high-speed connector and an antenna in an effective and cost-effective way.

Resonance circuit for inhibiting interference between high-speed connector and antenna


A method and system manages media stream connections in a media session, for example a multimedia conference, that is to take place over multicast capable links provided in networks configured for Internet Protocol operation, (i.e., the communications network known as the MBone (Internet Protocol Multicast Backbone)). The method comprises receiving a session description of a media session by way of a session announcement over a network; parsing the session description to determine appropriate media application program(s) for processing at least one media stream of the session description, and connecting the one or more selected media streams to one or more respective media application programs utilising a session control configured for managing media stream connections for the one or more media application programs.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the announcement of media stream connections for a media session over a communications network.
2. Description of Related Art
Multicast transmissions are becoming increasingly common on the Internet. In contrast to standard Internet Protocol (IP) point to point transmissions (unicast), IP multicast allows the simultaneous transmission of information to a group of recipients from a single source. Routing support for IP multicast transmissions is provided by the MBone (IP Multicast Backbone) which is a virtual network layered on top of the Internet.
IP multicast allows real-time communications over wide area IP networks and typical transmissions include video and audio conferencing, live multimedia training, university lectures and transmission of live television programmes.
A multicast transmission usually consists of a multimedia session made up of several individual media streams typically carrying video, audio, whiteboard or raw data. Some sessions are persistent, but the majority exist for a specific period of time, although need not be continuous. Multicast based transmissions on the MBone differ from unicast IP transmissions in that any user receiving the transmission can join the session (unless the transmission is encrypted) and to receive a transmission, a user need only know the appropriate transmission address and timing information.
Prior to a multicast transmission an appropriate announcement containing a session description is made, usually at an IP group multi-cast address. Standard session descriptions are generated using a Session Description Protocol (SDP), as defined in the Internet Engineering Task Force's draft RFC 2327. SDP is a simple ASCII text based protocol that is used to describe real time multimedia sessions and their related scheduling information. SDP messages are wrapped in a carrier protocol, known as a Session Announcement Protocol (SAP), which, in addition to containing the necessary IP addressing and routing information for transmission across the Internet or MBone, allows the SDP message to be encrypted, signed or compressed. An announcement can then be sent at regular intervals to the announcement group address. As an alternative to SAP, a session may be announced by placing an SDP message on a World Wide Web site (WWW) or by sending it to individuals by email or as a unicast transmission inviting them to participate.
An SDP message conveys information about each media stream in the multicast multimedia session to allow the recipients to participate in the session. A typical SDP message will include the session name and purpose, the time(s) and date(s) the session will be active, the component media streams of the session and information required to participate in each media stream (IP multicast address, port, media format). The SDP message may also include details of the session's bandwidth requirements, an encryption key necessary to participate in a secure multicast transmission using public key encryption, contact information for the organiser of the multicast session, and a Unique Resource Indicator (URI) pointing to a WWW or an Intranet web site where further information on the session may be found, for example, background information relating to the conference.
The level of participation a user may make in a session or stream depends on its purpose. In a multicast television session, typically users would only be able to receive the session streams whilst in a multicast conference session the communication would be bidirectional with a central server (such as group address 120) receiving each participants transmissions and relaying them to the other participants. The level of participation expected of a user in a session or stream may be explicitly stated in the session description or it may be inherent from the session description, for example when a receive-only application is associated with a media stream type in the session description.
A common front end interface used by multicast end users is known as Session Directory Rendezvous (SDR). This interface takes the received announcements, decodes the SDP message and displays the names of those sessions that are still current in a list. The end user may then select one of the listed announcements to view further technical and user-oriented details of the announced session. From the displayed information, the end user can then select to join individual streams of the session or to join the entire session. Once the streams to be joined are selected, SDR starts the necessary multicast-enabled multimedia application on the end user's computer, such as Vic and Vat, and passes the relevant stream information (a transport port address) from the announcement onto the application allowing the application to establish the link to the associated IP multicast address and participate in the stream at transmission time. Having initiated the applications and passed the relevant transport port address SDR plays no further part in the session.
Recent increased usage and demand for (multi)media sessions has highlighted a number of limitations in SDP. SDP limits session descriptions to defining a session having a single set of timings that apply to all of the streams within it. A session in which a stream starts mid-way through the transmission cannot easily be described using SDP. The structure of a session description written in SDP must be a simple linear list of streams which may not reflect the intuitive structure of a complex session. SDP supports a limited and predefined set of applications which can receive the streams and a limited and predefined set of transport mechanisms (e.g. Simple layering, RTP and UDP). As guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) is becoming more and more desirable to the consumer and the supplier, the need to define QoS policies for the entire session and individual streams in terms of required system resources, bandwidth requirements and supported applications also needs to be met. There may also be requirements on the prioritisation of streams and subsessions or more complicated rules about receiving streams. A further requirement on the part of the supplier will be the need for charging facilities permitting the charging of an end user for a multicast transmission to which they subscribe according to the QoS and types of streams received etc. There is little scope to include information about QoS policies or charging within the conventional structure of an SDP session description, or any metadata about the session.
A problem faced by providers of current (multi)media sessions and the developers of the associated (multimedia applications is the spread of skills required to implement an application that can initiate and manage a real-time data connection over a communications network and perform the (multi)media functions the end user would expect. For example, developers of multimedia applications require teams with skills in audio and video coding, network transport protocols, real time programming, user interface design and integration techniques. Furthermore, until now the only way a QoS policy could be implemented was to process a session description to determine which streams of a session could or should be run and then to initialise the applications so they connect to the respective streams. This required the communications manager not only to know about the session requirements and available system resources but also the capabilities of each application.


A drill bit is disclosed that in one embodiment includes a pad configured to extend and retract from a surface of the drill bit, a motor, a linearly movable member coupled to the motor, a hydraulic unit configured to apply force on the pad, and wherein motion of the motor in a first direction causes the linearly movable member in a first direction to cause the hydraulic unit to exert a force on the pad to extend the pad.

1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates generally to drill bits and systems that utilize the same for drilling wellbores.
2. Background of the Art
Oil wells (also referred to as "wellbores" or "boreholes") are drilled with a drill string that includes a tubular member having a drilling assembly (also referred to as the "bottomhole assembly" or "BHA") attached at end thereof. The BHA typically includes devices and sensors that provide information relating to a variety of parameters relating to the drilling operations ("drilling parameters"), behavior of the BHA ("BHA parameters") and the formation surrounding the wellbore ("formation parameters"). A drill bit attached to the bottom end of the BHA is rotated by rotating the drill string and/or by a drilling motor (also referred to as a "mud motor") in the BHA to disintegrate the rock formation to drill the wellbore. During drilling, a drilling fluid is supplied under pressure to the tubular that discharges at the drill bit bottom and returns to the surface via an annulus between the drill string and the formation. A large number of wellbores are drilled along contoured trajectories. For example, a single wellbore may include one or more vertical sections, deviated sections and horizontal sections through differing types of rock formations. Rate of penetration (ROP) of the drill bit is an important parameter relating to efficient drilling of the wellbore and depends largely on the weight-on-bit (WOB) and rotational speed (revolutions per minute or "RPM") of the drill bit. The drilling operator controls WOB by controlling the hook load on the drill bit and RPM by controlling the rotation of the drill string at the surface and/or the mud motor in the BHA (if one is provided). Drillers attempt to obtain high ROP while avoiding high drill bit fluctuations. The drill bit, however, often experiences high fluctuations and controlling the drill bit fluctuations and ROP by such methods requires the drilling system or operator to take actions at the surface. The impact of such surface actions on the drill bit fluctuations is not substantially immediate. For a given WOB and ROP of the drill bit, aggressiveness of the drill bit contributes to the drill bit fluctuations. Aggressiveness of the drill bit can be controlled by controlling the depth of cut of the drill bit and thus the excessive drill bit fluctuations.
The disclosure herein provides a drill bit configured to control the aggressiveness of a drill bit and a drilling system using the same for drilling wellbores.

Drill bit with electrohydraulically adjustable pads for controlling depth of cut


An optical apparatus for irradiating a surface to be scanned with laser light comprises rotary deflecting means for deflecting laser light emitted by a laser emitting means in a shape of a plane, a mirror for reflecting the laser light, an enclosure for housing the mirror, a first mirror supporting part capable of moving in a direction parallel to the laser light irradiated toward the mirror and supporting the mirror; and a second mirror supporting part capable of supporting the mirror in such a way that the mirror can rotate around an axis where the laser light is in close agreement with a scanning line with which the mirror is scanned.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical scanning unit used for an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine and a printer of an electrophotographic type, and an image forming apparatus provided with the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a laser scanning unit used for an image forming apparatus of an electrophotographic type, laser light emitted from a semiconductor laser is deflected by a rotary polygon mirror and a photosensitive member (surface to be scanned) is scanned with the laser light, whereby an electrostatic latent image is formed on the surface of the photosensitive member.
In most of such laser scanning units, an optical path is bent by a mirror for reflecting laser light to reduce the size of the unit.
In the above-mentioned laser scanning unit, some deviations are caused by the faulty dimensional accuracy and faulty mounting accuracy of constituent components. Among of them, typical deviations are a deviation in parallelism between the generating line of the photosensitive member and the main scanning line of the laser light (inclination of main scanning), a deviation in magnification in the direction of main scanning (magnification of main scanning), a deviation in the irradiation position in the direction of sub-scanning (irradiation position of sub-scanning), and the like.
Conventionally, these deviations are corrected by adjusting the mounting angle and position of a reflecting mirror for reflecting the optical path of laser light.
FIG. 7 shows a mirror construction of the above-mentioned conventional type and a construction for supporting a reflecting mirror of the type and a method for adjusting the mirror will be described below.
A rotary polygon mirror 101 shown in FIG. 7 deflects laser light. The deflected laser light is reflected by a deflecting mirror 102 toward a photosensitive drum 103. Three set screws 106a, 106b, 106c are mounted in a protruding manner on supporting metal plates 104, 105 mounted on a base member (not shown) and the reflecting surface of the reflecting mirror 102 is supported by the tips of the three protruded set screws 106a, 106b, 106c.
The set screws 106a, 106b support two points in a portion close to one end of the reflecting mirror 102 and the set screw 106c supports one point in a portion close to another end of the reflecting mirror 102. There is provided a construction in which a plane including a triangle formed by the tips of the three set screws 106a, 106b, 106c agrees with the surface of the mirror (reflecting surface) and in which the plane formed by the triangle (=surface of the mirror) can be freely inclined or shifted by screwing or unscrewing the respective set screws or by changing the amount of protrusion of them (refer to FIG. 8 and FIG. 9).
The irradiation position of sub-scanning is adjusted by adjusting the amount of protrusion of the set screw 106a or 106b to incline the reflecting mirror 102 in an A direction. The inclination of main scanning is adjusted by adjusting the amount of protrusion of the set screw 106c or the two set screws 106a, 106b to rotate the reflecting mirror 102 in a B direction. The magnification of main scanning is adjusted by changing the amount of protrusion of the three set screw 106a, 106b, and 106c by the same amount to shift the reflecting mirror 102 in a C direction. The adjustment is made as follows: first, the inclination of main scanning is adjusted; then, the magnification of main scanning is adjusted; and finally, the irradiation position of sub-scanning is adjusted.
Moreover, in addition to the above-mentioned conventional adjustment method, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-277785 discloses an optical scanning unit that includes a mechanism for supporting the reflecting surface of a mirror at two supporting points and capable of swinging the reflecting surface of the mirror around the two supporting points and has a swinging axis connecting the two supporting points set in such a way as to be in close agreement with the path of scanning light moving on the mirror.
Meanwhile, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 11-352427 discloses a construction in which supporting members provided on both ends of the reflecting mirror can move together.
Moreover, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-180748 and No. 2002-277785 discloses a construction in which the reflecting surface is made to agree with the rotational center of the mirror.
However, according to the above-mentioned adjusting methods, when the amount of protrusion of the set screw 106a is changed so as to adjust the irradiation position, the surface of the reflecting mirror is rotated around an imaginary straight line passing the tips of the other two set screws 106b, 106c and hence the inclination and magnification of main scanning are deviated at the same time. Then, the inclination and magnification of main scanning are readjusted, which in turn deviates also the irradiation position of sub-scanning. Therefore, these three adjustments need to be repeated several times to converge the respective adjustment items on specifications. This presents the problem of increasing the number of man-hours required for adjustment work.
Moreover, according to the construction disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-277785, by causing the rotational axis of the mirror to agree with the scanning line of laser in the longitudinal direction of the mirror so as to adjust the irradiation position of sub-scanning, it is possible to prevent an optical path length from being deviated by the rotation of the mirror. However, according to the construction disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-277785, the mirror cannot be moved in the direction of irradiation of laser and hence the direction of main scanning cannot be adjusted.

Optical scanning unit and image forming apparatus


Systems and methods of detecting and identifying objects are provided. In one exemplary embodiment, a method performed by one of a plurality of network nodes, with each network node having an optical sensor and being operable to wirelessly communicate with at least one other network node, comprises sending, by a network node over a wireless communication channel, to another network node, an indication associated with an object that is detected and identified by the network node based on one more images of that object that are captured by the optical sensor of the network node. Further, the detection and identification of the object is contemporaneous with the capture of the one or more images of that object. Also, the network node is operable to control a spatial orientation of the sensor so that the sensor has a viewing angle towards the object.

In the retail environment, there is a need to autonomously detect, identify and classify retail products placed on a surface (e.g., shelf in an industrial, commercial or retail environment). In particular, such detection, identification, and classification of retail products may address various problems within a retail setting such as theft, out-of-stock product, misplaced product, and the like. Computer vision systems and artificial intelligence (AI) may utilize information about products and product locations on a surface to help resolve these problems. For instance, these systems can facilitate detection and/or prediction of out-of-stock or misplaced merchandise based on analysis of interactions between customers and specific product on a retail shelf. In current applications, products are detected, identified and classified by hand or through the use of video cameras and depth sensors.
In the retail environment, organizations are trying to find answers to various questions, including: What interests the buyer? How does the customer behave inside the store? How often and where does he go inside the store? Is there a product on the shelves that interests the client? Are the rules of laying out on the shelf observed?
There are numerous similar questions that interest retailers. Many answers to these questions may be obtained using computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI). For example, video cameras that may capture and transmit a video stream for further processing somewhere else on local or remote servers may be installed in a retail location. This approach may be used to identify a client and/or a client's sex, age, emotions, or the like. Further, this approach may calculate the frequency of visits, draw a heat map of the movement of customers inside the store, and so on. In this approach, the location of goods on the shelves of the store may be analyzed and compared with the planned layout to determine if products have ended up correctly on the shelves.
In addition, the use of computer vision and AI allows for various types of analysis of the staff working inside the store and/or monitoring the state of the store. For example, speech analysis may be performed to determine whether an employee is following established scripts. In another example, appearance of smoke within a room may be detected prior to smoke sensors in a ceiling detecting the smoke. In still another example, cleanliness of a floor may be observed and control.
In various existing solutions, information processing (e.g., video stream from many cameras, data from other sensors or the like) may be performed on local/remote servers of a retailer. And since the volume of collected information is extremely large, the implementation of this processing task requires a large server farm and a complex network infrastructure for data collection and storage, as well as complex and operationally expensive algorithms for information processing.
The high complexity and cost of these solutions is associated with the need to simultaneously transmit and synchronize an extremely large number of video streams and other data from sensors available at the facility in the processing center. In the process of collecting and sending information, there may be difficulties such as time delays and asynchronization in receiving information, loss of packets when sending and transporting, deterioration of the quality of transmitted information due to compression/encoding of the video stream for transmission, the complexity of synchronizing the work of various devices with each other and so on. The primary reason for the described difficulties lies in the field of remote processing of the huge data amount.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved techniques for detecting and identifying objects such as in a retail space. In addition, other desirable features and characteristics of the present disclosure will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying figures and the foregoing technical field and background.
The Background section of this document is provided to place embodiments of the present disclosure in technological and operational context, to assist those of skill in the art in understanding their scope and utility. Unless explicitly identified as such, no statement herein is admitted to be prior art merely by its inclusion in the Background section.

Systems and methods of detecting and identifying an object


Embodiments of the present invention provide improved circuit board stiffeners. In one embodiment the present invention includes a circuit board stiffener comprising a lower stiffener piece having a first lower surface for abutting an upper surface of a test system and a first upper surface, and at least one upper stiffener piece having a second lower surface for abutting the first upper surface of the lower stiffener piece and a second upper surface for attaching to a circuit board.

The present invention relates to stiffeners, and in particular, to circuit board stiffener that may be used with an automated test system.
Circuit boards are typically used for connecting a variety of electronic devices together to implement a variety of different functions. Typically, different types of integrated circuits (i.e., "ICs"), passive components, or other devices may be mounted on the surface of the circuit board. Circuit boards further include multiple layers to metal or other conductive material for conducting electric current and carrying electrical signals between the devices. Circuit boards are typically manufactured from fiberglass, and therefore, are typically only semi-rigid structures. The electrical devices and components, as well as the electrical connections between them, can be very sensitive to stress or bending when the circuit board is used in a real world application. Many electronic applications attach stiffeners to circuit boards to protect the circuit boards from various physical shocks, disturbances, impacts, or other types of bending or stress. A stiffener is a rigid piece of material that may be used to reinforce and support the circuit board.
FIG. 1 is an example application of a circuit board stiffener. FIG. 1 illustrates an automated test environment including automated test equipment 101 ("ATE") coupled to a test head 102. ATE 101 may be any of a variety of automated testers such as, for example, an integrated circuit tester by Teradyne, Inc.®. Testers typically include electronic systems and resources in the main tester body 101. The resources may be coupled to a test head 102, which may include yet more electronic resources and systems. The resources and systems of the tester may be coupled to a circuit board 103 (sometimes referred to in this application as a "load board") by placing the circuit board in contact with connectors on the test head (not shown). Numerous integrated circuits may be sequentially tested by coupling circuit board 103 to a parts handler 104. Circuit board 103 and parts handler 104 are typically coupled together at a contact point so that one or more integrated circuits in parts handler 104 may be sequentially brought into electrical contact with the circuit board and tested.
Generally, the testing of different integrated circuits requires different circuit boards because the different ICs typically require different tester resources to be properly tested. Thus, in a production environment, circuit boards on a given tester may be interchanged on a regular basis. The process of installing a circuit board on a tester and connecting the handler (sometimes referred to as "docking") can result in severe stress on the circuit board. Moreover, when the handler is operating, individual ICs may be physically forced against the circuit board by motors, actuators or other mechanisms, which may also result in severe shocks and stresses on the circuit board. Thus, it has become common for circuit boards to be provided with a stiffener to provide structural support.
FIGS. 2A and 2B show an example of a circuit board and stiffener that is used in an ATE environment. FIG. 2A shows a side view of the circuit board and stiffener, and FIG. 2B shows a bottom view. Stiffener 201 typically provides peripheral support to circuit board 202 and defines an opening through the center. Tester resources may be coupled to circuit board electronics using connections (e.g., pogo pins, ribbon cables or other types of connectors) that pass through the opening in the stiffener. Circuit board 202 may be attached to stiffener 201 using screws (not shown), for example. Stiffener 201 typically includes a lower surface 203A for abutting to a test system. A variety of mechanisms may be used that allow a user to attach and detach the stiffener to the test system. The upper surface 203B of stiffener 201 may be attached to circuit board 202. In some applications, a contactor 204 such as a edge connectors, for example, may be used to provide electrical connections between the circuit board and ICs in the handler.
FIG. 3 illustrates another stiffener 301 and circuit board 302. As the complexity of integrated circuits grows, correspondingly more complex testers and circuit boards are required to properly test the ICs. For example, modern digital, analog, or mixed signal ICs may include hundreds of device pins, which may require several hundred separate tester resource connections between the tester and the circuit board. Thus, the circuit boards used to test such devices can be very large, and the stiffeners used to support these circuit boards may also be very large. Stiffener 301 is attached (e.g., by screws) to circuit board 302. Stiffener 301 may be constructed from aluminum or other strong rigid material, and thus may become very heavy as the size of the circuit board grows. Two handles 310A and 310B are attached to the outer sidewall of the stiffener to facilitate handling of the circuit board when it is being attached to or removed from the tester and moved around the production facility. Attachment bars 311A and 311B are included to allow the stiffener to engage an attachment mechanism on the tester. Stiffener 301 further includes transverse beams 320 and 321 to add additional support to the stiffener frame. The periphery and transverse beams of the stiffener define openings 350, 351, and 352. As shown in FIG. 4, tester resources, such as channel cards, may be coupled through the openings using spring actuated pogo pin blocks to bring tester resources into contact with the circuit board electronics.
As mentioned above, as integrated circuits become more complex, the circuit boards and stiffeners (together, "load board") used to test them become larger. As the circuit boards become larger, the stiffeners used to support them become heavier. If many different ICs are being tested, a user may be required to attach and detach many load boards to an ATE. The excessive weight of the stiffeners can make interchanging load boards burdensome and difficult. Moreover, these large load boards may take up a lot of space for storage. As mentioned above, each IC product may require a corresponding load board. Additionally, multiple copies of the same load board are typically built so that the same IC product can be tested simultaneously on more than one tester. Thus, in a production environment hundreds or even thousands of load boards must be transported between testers and stored while not in use. To add to these problems, each stiffener may be very expensive. Stiffeners for use in an ATE environment may cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. It would generally be desirable to reduce to weight, cost, and storage burden of contemporary stiffeners.
Thus, there is a need for improved circuit board stiffeners. The present invention solves these and other problems by providing an improved circuit board stiffener that may be used in automated test environments.


DDR PHY interface bit error testing and training is provided for Double Data Rate memory systems. An integrated circuit comprises a bit error test (BERT) controller that provides a bit pattern; and a physical interface having a plurality of byte lanes. A first byte lane is connected by a loopback path to a second byte lane and the BERT controller writes the bit pattern that is obtained using the loopback path to evaluate the physical interface. The evaluation comprises (i) a verification that the bit pattern was properly written and read; (ii) a gate training process to position an internal gate signal; (iii) a read leveling training process to position both edges of a strobe signal; and/or (iv) a write bit de-skew training process to align a plurality of bits within a given byte lane.

When a computer system interfaces with a Double Data Rate source synchronous memory, a DDR controller typically manages the flow of data between the host device for the DDR controller and the DDR memory device(s). The DDR protocol specifies the transfer of data on both the rising and falling edges of the data bus strobe (typically referred to as DQS) signals. The DDR controller typically interfaces with the DDR memory device using a Physical (PHY) interface that converts digital signals and commands from the DDR controller logic into waveforms that the DDR memory can interpret.
As the data rates between the DDR memory and DDR controller increase, it becomes increasingly important to test the robustness of the functionality and timing of the DDR PHY interface. Thus, a number of techniques have been proposed or suggested for the testing of bit errors due to functional and timing issues related to the DDR PHY interface. Existing techniques typically employ external test equipment to exercise and implement a bit error test of the DDR PHY interface. The time required to setup such external test equipment, however, is significant and a relatively large number of pins are typically required to implement the testing. In addition, existing bit error testing techniques typically require that the DDR memory is connected to the DDR controller during testing, via the DDR PHY interface. Furthermore, existing external bit error testing techniques do not permit the DDR controller and the DDR memory to be bypassed to permit proper testing of the PHY interface in isolation.
A need therefor exists for improved methods and apparatus for functional/timing bit error testing of the DDR PHY interface of the overall DDR memory system. A further need exists for improved techniques for bit error testing and training of the DDR PHY interface that do not require the presence of the DDR memory or the DDR memory controller.

Bit error testing and training in double data rate (DDR) memory system

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES GENERAL IP (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.


An ergonomic adjustable work surface system (12) comprising a cabinet (14) having a counter top (16) thereon. An assembly (18) is for setting the cabinet (14) in a height up and down movable manner against a wall (20) in a room (22) of a building (24). A facility (26) is for adjusting the height of the counter top (16) of the cabinet (14) with respect to a floor (28) in the room (22) of the building (24), so as to greatly reduce a lower back problem caused by an individual working in a standing position at the cabinet (14), by affording the individual easy height adjustment of the counter top (16) to ergonomically correspond to the individual's statue.

1. Field of the Invention
The instant invention relates generally to workbenches and more specifically it relates to an ergonomic adjustable work surface system. The ergonomic adjustable work surface system will greatly reduce or completely eliminate lower back problems caused by individuals working in the standing position, by affording the worker the option of easily adjusting the height of the work area to ergonomically correspond to the individuals stature.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The majority of workbenches, counter tops, sinks and stoves in use today average between thirty three inches and thirty six inches in height, while not so with human beings. There can be no average calculated, as individuals have particular and varying postures which cannot be ergonomically standardized with their numerical vertical measurements. Even at an "average" five feet eleven inches, a person can find the simple task of washing a sink full of dishes uncomfortable, to say the least, as well as the task of preparing a dinner, notwithstanding. Experience with working for extended periods of time at a kitchen counter or sink that is too low for the individual involved, bears witness to the aching lower back that generally follows such a task.
Numerous workbenches have been provided in prior art that are sturdy tables at which manual work is done at fixed heights off of floors. While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described.

Ergonomic adjustable work surface system