An electrical coaxial connector comprising a signal-joining contacting conductor and a grounding contacting conductor each supported by an insulating base member, wherein a body portion of the signal-joining contacting conductor has a press-contacting part with a contacting protrusion for contacting with a signal-joining conductor in a mating connector and a first base part in such a manner that a measure of thickness of the press-contacting part including the contacting protrusion is not more than the maximum measure of thickness of the first base part, and an annular portion of the grounding contacting conductor has an engaging part with an engaging protrusion for engaging with a grounding conductor in the mating connector and a second base part in such a manner that a measure of thickness of the engaging part including the engaging protrusion is not more than to the maximum measure of thickness of the second base part.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electrical coaxial connector, and more particularly to an improvement in an electrical coaxial connector to be mounted on a circuit board for transmitting signals from the circuit board to the outside thereof or to the circuit board from the outside thereof under a condition of electro-magnetic shield.
2. Description of the Prior Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98
A high-frequency signal flowing through conductors arranged on a circuit board is mostly dealt with as a signal which requires to be put in a condition of electro-magnetic shield so as to be inactive to leak out from the conductors or to prevent noises from mixing into the signal from the outside when the high-frequency signal is transmitted from the circuit board to the outside thereof or to the circuit board from the outside thereof. For transmitting the high-frequency signal from a specific circuit board to the outside thereof, for example, to another circuit board, or to the specific circuit board from the outside thereof, for example, from another circuit board, under the condition of electro-magnetic shield, an electrical coaxial connector provided to be mounted on the specific circuit board is used.
The electrical coaxial connector thus provided to be mounted on a circuit board comprises usually an insulating base, a signal-joining contacting conductor provided on the insulating base for transferring a signal and a grounding contacting conductor provided on the insulating base for surrounding the signal-joining contacting conductor to be supplied with a ground potential so as to put the signal supplied to the signal-joining contacting conductor in a condition of electro-magnetic shield. In the electrical coaxial connector mounted on the circuit board, the signal-joining contacting conductor is connected with a signal terminal provided on the circuit board and the grounding contacting conductor is connected with a ground-potential terminal provided on the circuit board. When the electrical coaxial connector mounted on the circuit board is put to practical use, the electrical coaxial connector is coupled with a mating coaxial connector which is, for example, another electrical coaxial connector mounted on another circuit board, so that the signal-joining contacting conductor comes into contact with a signal-joining conductor provided in the mating coaxial connector and the grounding contacting conductor comes into contact with a grounding conductor provided in the mating coaxial connector. With the electrical coaxial connector and the mating coaxial connector coupled with each other in such a manner, the signal supplied to the signal-joining contacting conductor in the electrical coaxial connector or to the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector is transferred to the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector or to signal-joining contacting conductor in the electrical coaxial connector under the condition of electro-magnetic shield brought about by the grounding contacting conductor in the electrical coaxial connector and the grounding conductor in the mating coaxial connector. Thereby, the signal is transmitted between the circuit boards, on which the electrical coaxial connector and the mating coaxial connector are mounted respectively, under the condition of electro-magnetic shield.
Such an electrical coaxial connector as mentioned above is usually required to be miniaturized to have a reduced measure of thickness in a direction perpendicular to a parts-mountable surface of the circuit board under a condition wherein an electronic apparatus or the like having the circuit board built-in is put in miniaturization and weight saving, and in addition, is desired to reduce assembling time and labor with improved accuracy in assembly so that manufacturing cost is reduced. Further, under a situation wherein the above requirement and desire are filled, when the electrical coaxial connector is coupled with the mating coaxial connector, a condition wherein the signal-joining contacting conductor connected with the signal terminal provided on the circuit board and the ground-connecting contacting conductor connected with the ground-potential terminal provided on the circuit board are properly and surely connected respectively with the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector and the grounding conductor in the mating coaxial connector, is desired to be stably maintained for a relatively long period of time.
There has been proposed to provide an improved electrical coaxial connector which comprises an isolating base, a signal-joining contacting conductor provided on the insulating base and a grounding contacting conductor provided on the insulating base to surround the signal-joining contacting conductor to be mounted on a circuit board and with which a certain degree of miniaturization to have a reduced measure of thickness of the electrical coaxial connector on the circuit board is realized and it is intended to reduce assembling time and labor and to improve accuracy in assembly so that manufacturing cost is reduced, as disclosed in, for example, the Japanese patent application published before examination under publication number 2009-104836.
The previously proposed electrical coaxial connector (a plug connector (21)) disclosed in the publication mentioned above comprises a signal-joining contacting conductor (a socket type central conductor (22)) provided to be electrically connected with a signal-joining conductor (a pin type central conductor (12)) of a mating coaxial connector (a receptacle connector (11)), an insulating base (a second insulating housing (24)) mounted on a circuit board (a second board (2)) for supporting at its central portion the signal-joining contacting conductor, and a grounding contacting conductor (a second cylindrical outer conductor (23)) formed into a cylindrical shape for surrounding the insulating base supporting the signal-joining contacting conductor on the circuit board. The signal-joining contacting conductor has a top end portion made of a metallic tube and the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector is inserted into the top end portion of the signal-joining contacting conductor when the signal-joining contacting conductor is connected with the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector.
In the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector disclosed in the publication mentioned above, any structure impeding miniaturization to have a reduced measure of thickness of the electrical coaxial connector on the circuit board is not perceived. The manufacturing process of the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector includes a first step of producing by means of insert molding the insulating base supporting the signal-joining contacting conductor to be incorporated therewith and a second step of causing the insulating base and the signal-joining contacting conductor incorporated with the insulating base to engage with the inside of the grounding contacting conductor formed into the cylindrical shape so as to be attached thereto. That is, when the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector disclosed in the publication mentioned above, in which the signal-joining contacting conductor and the grounding contacting conductor surrounding the signal-joining contacting conductor are supported by the insulating base, is manufactured, first, the insulating base is produced for supporting the signal-joining contacting conductor to be incorporated with the insulating base by means of the insert molding, and then, the insulating base and the signal-joining contacting conductor incorporated with the insulating base is attached to the inside of the grounding contacting conductor formed into the cylindrical shape.
In such a case, since the signal-joining contacting conductor is incorporated with the insulating base by means of the insert molding in order to obtain the insulating base caused to support the signal-joining contacting conductor, it is expected in production of the insulating base caused to support the signal-joining contacting conductor that assembling time and labor are reduced and accuracy in assembly is improved so that production cost of the insulating base caused to support the signal-joining contacting conductor is reduced. However, since the insulating base and the signal-joining contacting conductor incorporated with the insulating base are attached to the inside of the grounding contacting conductor formed into the cylindrical shape in order to obtain the insulating base caused to support the grounding contacting conductor, it cannot be expected in production of the insulating base caused to support the grounding contacting conductor that assembling time and labor are reduced and accuracy in assembly is improved so that production cost of the insulating base caused to support the grounding contacting conductor is reduced.
In the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector as described above, which is manufactured through the manufacturing process wherein first the signal-joining contacting conductor is incorporated with the insulating base by means of the insert molding and then the insulating base and the signal-joining contacting conductor incorporated with the insulating base are attached to the inside of the grounding contacting conductor formed into the cylindrical shape, since the signal-joining contacting conductor is incorporated with the insulating base by means of the insert molding, the signal-joining contacting conductor is not provided thereon with any projection forming a contact point for coming into contact with the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector and the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector is inserted into the top end portion made of the metallic tube of the signal-joining contacting conductor when the signal-joining contacting conductor is connected with the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector.
With the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector in which the signal-joining contacting conductor without the projection forming the contact point is employed to be connected with the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector, it is feared that a condition wherein the signal-joining contacting conductor is properly connected with the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector is not able to be stably maintained when the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector is coupled with the mating coaxial connector.
The reason why the signal-joining contacting conductor of the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector is not provided thereon with any projection forming the contact point for coming into contact with the signal-joining conductor in the mating coaxial connector is that, if a projection forming the contact point is provided on the signal-joining contacting conductor, the insulating base with which the signal-joining contacting conductor has been incorporated by means of the insert molding is obstructed to be removed from a mold used for the insert molding by the projection on the signal-joining contacting conductor and therefore it comes to be quite difficult to cause the signal-joining contacting conductor to be incorporated with the insulating base by means of the insert molding or the mold to be used for the insert molding comes to be quite complicated in its shape and structure.
Further, with the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector as disclosed above, since the insulating base caused to support the grounding contacting conductor is obtained by means of attaching the insulating base and the signal-joining contacting conductor incorporated with the insulating base to the inside of the grounding contacting conductor formed into the cylindrical shape, the assembling time and labor are not reduced and the accuracy in assembly is not improved in the production of the insulating base caused to support the grounding contacting conductor so that the production cost of the insulating base caused to support the grounding contacting conductor is not reduced. Accordingly, as for the previously proposed electrical coaxial connector on the whole, assembling time and labor are not reduced and accuracy in assembly is not improved in manufacturing of the electrical coaxial connector so that manufacturing cost of the electrical coaxial connector is not reduced.


A shower includes a fixed portion with a water outlet chamber. The fixed portion has a cover portion with a plurality of spouts for connecting to the water outlet chamber, and a movable portion including an operating member and a driving mechanism. The driving mechanism is drivingly connected to the movable portion and drives the movable portion to circulate, the movable portion is movably arranged in the fixed portion and comprises a movable plate and a plurality of protruding portion protruding on the movable plate, the protruding portion is inserted into the spout and there is a gap between the protruding portion and the spout, the operating member is drivingly connected with the movable portion and is driven by the operating member to move at least between the first position and the second position, and the movable portion discharges water differently in the first position and the second position.

A conventional shower includes a fixing portion provided with a water outlet chamber and a plurality of water diversion chambers, and a switching mechanism is disposed between the water diversion chambers and the water outlet chamber. The fixing portion has a cover portion. The cover portion has a plurality of water spouts which can be connected with the water outlet chamber, all the water spouts are divided into a plurality of regions, the plurality of regions and the plurality of water diversion chambers are corresponded to each other, and the different water outlet chambers generally discharge different functional water. By switching the switching mechanism to make different water diversion chamber connect to the water outlet chamber, so that the spout of the area corresponding to the water diversion chamber discharge water, in order to achieve water switching function. It has the following deficiencies: First, the water chamber, a plurality of water diversion chambers and switching mechanism are all arranged, resulting in a complex internal structure. Second, the spout corresponding to different regions discharge different functional water, only the spout of the corresponding area discharge water, the spout of other area does not discharge water, the discharge water area is small.

XIAMEN SOLEX HIGH-TECH INDUSTRIES CO., LTD.


A rotation detecting device, which is compatible regardless of whether a process control device for processing an output signal of the rotation detecting device is standard one or new one having high input signal resolving power, and, also, a rotation detecting device equipped bearing assembly having such rotation detecting device, are provided. The rotation detecting device includes an encoder provided rotatably and having a plurality of circumferentially equidistantly arranged to-be-detected poles, and a sensor for detecting the to-be-detected poles. The use is made of a multiplying unit for multiplying the phase of the to-be-detected poles from an output of the sensor. The use is also made of a pulse outputting unit for receiving an output of the multiplying unit or both the output of the multiplying unit and an output of the sensor and output pulses having two multiplying powers different from each other.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rotation detecting device, which is used with vehicle wheels or various machines and equipments for detecting the rotation or the angle of rotation thereof, and a rotation detecting device equipped bearing assembly having the rotation detecting device mounted thereon.
2. Description of Related Art
For accurately detecting a rotating condition of a rotating body of, for example, an automotive vehicle or a railway vehicle, demands have been made to secure a highly accurate rotation signal of a high resolution. In a wheel support bearing assembly for rotatably supporting a vehicle wheel relative to a vehicle body, an ABS sensor is generally employed for controlling an anti-lock brake system, that is, for the ABS control. This ABS sensor available at this time has an insufficient resolving power. If a rotation detection at a high resolving power is possible with such a sensor, it can be used in a sophisticated vehicle control such as, for example, automated driving, automated drive assistance, safety control or the like in the future. As the rotation detecting device, such a circuit system has hitherto been made in which a multiplication signal having a high resolving power is obtained from a rotation signal input of sin and cos detected by a magnetic sensor. In this respect, see the patent document 1 listed below. A schematic construction of this rotation detecting device is shown in FIG. 34 in the form of a block diagram.

Rotation detecting device and bearing equipped with rotation detecting device


A modular power generation system including a gasification reactor is disclosed for converting fuel, such as, but not limited to, biomass, to syngas to replace petroleum based fuels used in power generation. The system may include a reactor vessel with distinct reaction zones that facilitate greater control and a more efficient system. The system may include a sealing system for a continuous feed system of a gasifier enabling an inlet opening of a feedstock system to remain open yet seal the reactor without a mechanical system. The system may include a syngas heater channeling syngas collected downstream of the carbon layer support and to the pyrolysis reaction zone. The system may also include a syngas separation chamber configured to produce clean syngas, thereby requiring less filtering. The system may further include an agitator drive assembly that prevents formation of burn channels with in the fuel.

Gasification systems have been used for power generation by converting biomass fuel sources into combustible gases that contain nearly all of the energy of the biomass. The gasification systems convert carbonaceous materials, such as coal, biomass, biofuel, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and petroluem, into charcoal, wood-oils, and tars using both combustion and pyrolysis with a controlled amount of oxygen or steam. The gasification systems produce syngas, which is used as a fuel within engines, such as internal combustion engines and turbine engines. Syngas may be combusted at higher temperatures than other fuels courses, thereby making internal combustion of syngas potentially more efficient than other fuel sources.
A challenging aspect of using gasification systems for power generation from waste fuel sources is efficiently producing power while handling the waste products developed within the systems. The highly efficient method of converting syngas to electric power is offset by power consumption in waste fuel preprocessing and gas cleaning. The gasification byproducts including tars must be filtered from the syngas before the syngas can be burned in an engine, otherwise, the life of the engine will be greatly shortened.
Gasification systems used for power generation systems typically have a large footprint, such as an acre or more, and are typically constructed on-site. As such, skilled tradesman are required to construct and often to operate such a gasification system, which limits the locale in which the conventional gasification systems may be constructed efficiently. The costs associated with constructing and operating conventional gasification systems in remote locales often outweighs the benefit of the power generated. Thus, a gasification system is needed that produces syngas efficiently with few contaminants and overcomes the challenges of remote site construction and operation.
Many conventional gasifiers include mechanical inlet closure systems configured to close an inlet of a reactor to prevent ingestion of air into the reactor to create the pyrolysis process rather than enable combustion of the fuel. While mechanical inlet closure systems are superior in sealing the reactor, such systems require that feedstock be provided to reactors in a batch process only after the reactor is brought offline and the mechanical inlet closure system is opened. Batch processes are typically time intensive. Thus, a need exists for a more efficient reactor closure system.

Sealing system for a continuous feed system of a gasifier


The present disclosure relates to a magnetic medium that includes a substrate and a bit patterned magnetic layer applied to the substrate. The bit-patterned magnetic layer includes islands and each island includes a first magnetic material having a first magnetic anisotropy and that has a top surface, a bottom surface, and a peripheral surface. Each island also includes a second magnetic material covering the peripheral surface of the first magnetic material and having a second magnetic anisotropy that is higher than the first magnetic anisotropy. In one embodiment, the first magnetic material may comprise a nucleation domain in a centrally located surface portion of the magnetic islands and/or the second magnetic material may comprise an outer shell on the peripheral surface of the islands.

For many years conventional magnetic storage devices have been used to store data and information. Magnetic storage devices generally include units of magnetic material that can be polarized to distinct magnetic states, where the direction of the magnetization points in different directions and those different directions can be referred to as a positive state and a negative state. In this application we will refer to those different directions of magnetization as corresponding to different polarities. Each bit can store information (generally binary information in the form of either a 1 or a 0) according to the magnetic polarization state of the bit. Accordingly, magnetic storage devices generally include a "read" element that passes over the magnetic material and perceives the magnetic polarization state of each bit and a "write" element that passes over the magnetic material and changes the magnetic polarization state of each bit, thereby recording individual units of information. Therefore, the amount of information that can be stored on a magnetic storage device is directly proportional to the number of magnetic bits on the magnetic storage device.
There are various types of magnetic storage devices and each type involves different fabrication techniques. For example, conventional granular magnetic recording devices are disks that have multiple grains in each magnetic bit. In granular magnetic devices, all of the domains are co-planar and the surface of the disk is relatively smooth and continuous. In order to increase the amount of information that can be stored on a granular magnetic disk, the number of grains per magnetic bit can be decreased while keeping the grain size approximately the same. However, with fewer grains in each bit, there is decreased signal to noise ratio (less signal, more noise). In order to maintain a better signal to noise ratio, methods have been developed that decrease both the size of the magnetic bit and the size of the individual grains making up each magnetic bit, thus keeping the same number of grains in each magnetic bit. However, when the grains become too small, thermal fluctuations can cause the grains to spontaneously reverse polarity, thus resulting in unstable storage and a loss of information.
Bit-patterned media (BPM) is another example of magnetic storage media. In bit-patterned media, each bit is a single domain magnetic island or region, rather than a collection of contiguous magnetic grains. The BPM bits can be topographically patterned using lithographic and etching techniques to form magnetically isolated bit islands surrounded by trenches. In some instances, the trenches are formed by etching away a magnetic material and in other instances the physical patterns are etched into a non-magnetic substrate followed by a deposition of magnetic material over the patterned substrate. Because of the physical separation between the elevated bit islands and the trenches, the width of each distinct bit island can be decreased in order to increase the areal bit density of the device while still maintaining a high signal to noise ratio and high thermal stability.
However, etching bit-patterned media with bit densities exceeding one trillion bits per square inch (Tbit/in2) pushes the resolution of conventional etching techniques to their limits. Such etching techniques generally include covering a portion of the material to be etched with a mask or a protective material that shields portions of the underlying material from the etching process—i.e. the mask protects the islands while leaving exposed the portions of the material that will be etched to form the trenches. Such etching processes degrade the peripheral walls of the islands. This damage to the walls of the islands may decrease the magnetic anisotropy of the magnetic material at the islands' periphery, thus increasing the likelihood of spontaneous magnetic switching initiated at the peripheral edges of the islands.
Thus, conventional bit-patterned media is susceptible to spontaneous magnetic reversal caused by adjacent track exposure. In other words, as the read/write head passes over a particular track of nano-sized islands on a bit-patterned medium, occasionally the magnetic field from the read/write head will interact with the peripheral edges of magnetic islands in adjacent tracks. This inadvertent interaction with adjacent tracks may initiate magnetic switching in adjacent islands and may therefore cause a loss or corruption of information stored on the bit-patterned magnetic recording device.

Reduced adjacent track errors in bit-patterned media


A method and apparatus for increasing system functionality through a predefined interface is disclosed. Signal lines which are not used or which are not used in certain modes are connected to an interconnection device instead of being connected to an interface wherein the output of the interconnection device is connected to the interface where such lines would have been connected. The interconnection device also has a set of inputs for receiving signals from a device providing the desired functionality. A controller chooses between the two sets of inputs to control what signal lines are connected to the predefined interface. Accordingly, during certain modes of operation, the added functionality from a device whose output is being switched into the interface can be supported. In one embodiment, speaker phone capability is provided for even though the predefined PCMCIA interface does not support such capability. The disclosed design continues to maintain capability with all systems adapted to be used with such predefined interface.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to signal transmission and more particularly to the transmission of control signals or of data signals from one device to another through a predefined interface.
2. Description of Related Art
Compatibility between products supplied by different vendors has become a very important concern to vendors as well as consumers in recent years as computer technology has converged to the point that a few significant product suppliers play a major role in defining standards and architectures for the rest of industry to follow. Along these lines the marketplace has established standards for audio circuitry, for example, SoundBlaster compatible audio devices, for so-called plug and play automatic configuration, and for communications interfaces including external modems, internal modems, and PCMCIA modem cards, which are typically used with portable computers. With the particular example of PCMCIA modem cards, predefined interfaces and performance standards allow different vendors of PCMCIA modem cards to produce products which are compatible with computers produced by the various computer vendors. Thus, the use of such standard and predefined interfaces for PCMCIA cards leads to a greater supply at lower prices.
A drawback, however, to the use of predefined interfaces and to developing market compatible products is that change is often slow, thereby resulting in long term performance limitations. The reason, of course, is that change must be accompanied by changes in standards. Thus, new capabilities are often precluded from being incorporated into new products because their inclusion would require additional non-standard circuitry and non-standard interfaces. To include new functionality, vendors often design circuitry which requires special wiring and additional non-standard interfaces.
Current PCMCIA modem cards and established interfaces do not support speaker phone capability. Accordingly, to include speaker phone capability into a computer which utilizes PCMCIA modem cards, a designer has one of at least three possible design implementation choices, each of which includes non-standard circuitry. First, the designer could embed speaker phone circuitry onto the system board of the computer. With this implementation, the system microphone and speaker signals are available to the modem and there is no interconnection requirement. However, a disadvantage of such an approach is that the embedded modem hardware is fixed and can not be upgraded. Moreover, such an embedded implementation will have a larger overall system size and increased system power requirements and power supply size and cost.
A second technique for including speaker phone capability through PCMCIA modem cards involves using a proprietary module and proprietary interface. An advantage to this solution is that the manufacturer has complete freedom to design an interconnect scheme. However, such a design results in non-compatibility and therefore lower demand in the marketplace given the market's overall emphasis toward compatibility. A third possible implementation includes utilizing an external speaker and microphone instead of the system microphone or speaker and to provide a connection, also known as an umbilical cord, from the external speaker and microphone to the onboard modem. Disadvantages of this implementation, however, include increased size and cost, and inconvenience and unsightliness (with a dangling cord) of the additional speaker/microphone unit.
Thus, while it is advantageous to utilize predefined interfaces to achieve compatibility between the products of the various vendors, it is often difficult to achieve increased functionality without unnecessarily adding to the complexity of circuitry, increasing power and space requirements for the circuitry which supports the new functionality, and without creating a noncompatible device. As discussed above, the solutions around fixed interfaces frequently involve having duplicative equipment with extra cabling, as in the case of the umbilical cord, thereby affecting the appearance as well as ease of use of the given system. Thus, what is needed is an apparatus and a method of utilizing existing predefined interfaces in a manner which continues to maintain compatibility between the products of the various vendors but which also can increase the functionality of a system utilizing the predefined interface.

System for increasing functionality through a predefined interface by use of an interconnection device to switch a non-standard echo cancellation processor onto the interface


An apparatus for breaking a wafer into individual devices. An anvil 100 is pressed against a flexible membrane 304 on which a wafer 300 is attached. A vacuum is applied to the anvil 100 which allows the flexible membrane 304 and the wafer 300 to be pressed against the face of the anvil 100. As the flexible membrane 304 is deformed against the anvil 100, the wafer 300 breaks into individual devices 302. Dicing debris that is created when the wafer 300 is broken falls into a base fixture 408 so that the debris does not contact and damage the devices 302.

The fabrication of integrated circuits is most cost effective when many circuits, or devices, are simultaneously fabricated on a single semiconductor wafer. This form of batch processing, or wafer processing, allows the cost of each step of the fabrication process to be spread among many devices and reduces the handling that would be required to process each device individually. A typical process flow includes many lithography, deposition, doping, etching, and testing steps. The lithography and testing steps require that the processing equipment be precisely aligned to each device in order to accurately fabricate or probe the very small features of the device. Wafer-level processing allows the processing equipment to align itself to each device on the wafer by aligning to the wafer one time. After the devices on a wafer are fabricated, the devices are tested and the wafer is separated, typically by sawing or breaking the wafer. The individual devices are then packaged, completing the fabrication process.
Dicing debris, comprised of wafer particles and dust, is created when the devices are separated from a wafer. This dicing debris is washed from the surface of the device prior to bonding the device to the package. Micro electronic mechanical systems (MEMS), or micromechanical devices, often have structures that are too fragile to survive exposure to some of the standard device fabrication steps such as device separation and cleanup. The fragile nature of some MEMS requires that the standard IC process steps be reordered to avoid damaging the completed devices. For example, digital micromirror devices and some accelerometers, as described in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,061,049 and U.S. patent Ser. No. 07/883,616, have very small structures suspended over electrodes formed on the surface of a silicon substrate. Once these structures are formed and a sacrificial material is etched from the gap between the structure and the electrode, the devices are very fragile. The devices cannot be exposed to liquids, such as would occur during wafer cleanup steps, without risking the destruction of the suspended structures. Therefore, the devices must be separated and the dicing debris washed away before etching the sacrificial material from underneath the mirror.
Separating the wafer before the devices are completed results in extensive device handling during the remaining device fabrication steps such as passivation and device testing. Performing the remaining steps, especially device testing, on individual devices greatly increases the necessary handling and therefore the cost of the completed devices. A need exists for a method and apparatus for breaking and separating semiconductor wafers which eliminates the need to clean the dicing debris. Such a process and apparatus would allow debris sensitive devices to be completely manufactured in wafer form, eliminating the need for costly device level processing.

Apparatus for breaking and separating dies from a wafer


The present invention relates to a process for the preparation of a silicate compound, comprising (1) providing at least one layered silicate; and (2) mixing said layered silicate with water and at least one silicon containing compound according to formula R4-mSi[—(SiR2)n—R]m wherein at least one residue R is a leaving group and none of the residues R contains Si; m is 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4; and n is an integer greater than or equal to 0.

In the field of catalysis, and also, for example, in the field of adsorption or absorption processes, providing novel framework topologies with novel pore architectures plays a crucial role in the development of catalysts, catalyst components, and catalyst support materials displaying novel reactivity and/or improved performance. For example, the condensation of layered silicates into new zeolitic frameworks via topotactic procedures has been investigated in the past.
This synthesis and characterisation of products resulting from the reaction of selected layered silicates having the MWW, FER, CDO, and MCM-47 topologies with diethoxydimethylsilane is disclosed in P. Wu et al.; J. Am. Chem. Soc., 130, 2008, pp. 8178-8187. In particular, the silylation products described therein are obtained by refluxing the specific layered silicate precursors in 2M HNO3, followed by a calcination procedure.
The silylation procedures of the prior art, however, are only limited to a very narrow range of silicate topologies.

Process for the preparation of pillared silicates


An information processing apparatus with which a user can establish a personal information environment in a group work by enabling the user to individually control information from his viewpoint, which is distributedly controlled by respective unique control methods in a variety of systems concerning the group work, and user can arrange information freely and without any distinction between files managed by a group and personal local documents.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus for establishing a personal information environment in a group work by enabling a user to individually control information from his viewpoint of which is distributedly controlled by respective unique control methods in a variety of systems concerning the group work.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical functions of a groupware system which aids a smooth group work are such as a mail, a library and a forum. Among the foregoing functions, information of, for example, the library and the forum are centrally arranged by a manager of the system. Thus, this management style is effective in routine work or the like which require a specific management.
However, each user has a peculiar method in information arrangement which usually disagrees with the managed arrangement method. If, for example, each person individually gives or changes names of the documents which a group manages by a file server, the document file is substantially lost though the contents of the original file exist. In a case where a plurality of members in the group individually store files in a folder which the group commonly manages, an icon which is unimportant for a certain member may be placed adjacent to an icon of an important file for the member on a folder view, or, icons of files important and unimportant for a member are displayed disorderly.
However, if each user intends to arrange information in an individual manner, a method of arranging information is determined in each system, such as a position and size of icons of a file, folder, mail and the like, a pattern of a figure to be pasted on a view for displaying icons of grouped files by a folder, a mail or the like, an arrangement order of data when being displayed as a list, and a position of insertion of a blank line into data lines. Further, a sharer of a shared document stored in a server or the like cannot be identified. Thus, a user is unable to manage information from his viewpoint.


Pliers having, for example, needle-nose and blunt-nose heads are manipulated using handles connected to pivot and move between a needle-nose head, grip-ready, position and a blunt-nose head, grip-ready, position. Each handle has a stop member having two faces. One face of each stop member is adapted to abut a needle-nose head and the other face is adapted to abut a blunt-nose head.

In many industries tools include two or more functions. An example of such a tool is a dual-headed pliers which include two pairs of jaws for providing multiple jaw tool functions. One type of dual-headed pliers include a single pair of free-swinging handles for actuating both pairs of jaws with a biasing spring for positioning those jaws to a preferred position for use. Examples of dual-headed pliers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,245,721 and 6,023,805.

Dual-headed pliers and method of manufacture


The separation efficiency of carbon dioxide is improved by making the temperature of exhaust gas further low. An exhaust gas purification apparatus for an internal combustion engine includes a first heat exchanger arranged in an exhaust passage of an internal combustion engine and configured to carry out heat exchange between outside air and exhaust gas of the internal combustion engine, a second heat exchanger arranged in the exhaust passage and configured to carry out heat exchange between a circulating heating medium and the exhaust gas, and a carbon dioxide separator arranged in the exhaust passage at the downstream side of the first heat exchanger and the second heat exchanger and configured to separate carbon dioxide from the exhaust gas.

There has been known a technology in which the temperature of a sensor mounted on an exhaust passage of an internal combustion engine is estimated based on the temperature of exhaust gas and the amount of running wind so as to prevent the temperature of the sensor from rising excessively, and when the sensor temperature thus estimated reaches a predetermined temperature, the temperature of the exhaust gas is decreased by increasing the amount of fuel supply to the internal combustion engine (for example, refer to patent literature 1).

Exhaust gas purification apparatus for internal combustion engine


A magnet-type generator 1 has a stator 20 having a stator core 21, bobbins 40, 41 and a coil 60. The stator core has through holes 35A, 35B, 35C passing through the stator core parallel to a rotation axis of the rotor so that lead wires 64A, 64B, 64C for outputting current generated at the magnet-type generator 1, which are corresponding to respective phases, are inserted into the through holes. The lead wires inserted into the through holes are connected with outgoing wires 60a, 60c′, 60b, 60a′, 60c, 60b′ of the coil at one side (clamping surface side) of the stator core 21 via a terminal (metal connection terminal) 53 fixed to a substrate portion (plate portion) 48 extending from the bobbin. The terminal is arranged near the through holes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnet-type generator mounted on an engine of a two-wheel vehicle (motorcycle), a buggy, a jet ski bike, or the like in order to charge a battery or for other purposes.
2. Description of Related Art
In stators of magnet-type generators having an outer rotor-inner stator configuration, as shown in FIG. 15, the following structure is adopted to connect outgoing wires of a coil with lead wires for outputting power to outside the generator. A through-hole 102 is formed on an annular base portion 101 located at a center of a stator 100, a tubular insulator 105 formed together with a bobbin 104 is inserted into the through-hole 102 to cover an inner surface of the through-hole 102, lead wires 107A, 107B, 107C are inserted into the through-hole 102 covered with the tubular insulator 105 from the side of a mounting surface 100a of the stator 100 (mounting surface side on an engine cover, a side shown in FIG. 15A), and the lead wires 107A, 107B, 107C, which are corresponding to a plurality of phases, are connected with outgoing wires 108A, 108B, 108C of a coil 108 at the side of a clamping surface 100b of the stator 100 (opposite surface of the mounting surface side, a side shown in FIG. 15B). Note that the above explained conventional structure is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010-273482.
In the above explained structure of connecting wires, the lead wires 107A, 107B, 107C, which are corresponding to a plurality of phases, are inserted into the through-hole 102 and therefore, as shown in FIG. 15B, the lead wires 107A, 107B, 107C pulled out of the through-hole 102 should be complicatedly arranged so as to reach near the outgoing wires 108A, 108B, 108C at one side of the stator 100 (side of clamping surface 100b). Therefore, it is desired that workability of wire connection and vibration resistance of the lead wires 107A, 107B, 107C should be improved.
In addition, thicker lead wires compared to the conventional lead wires are often used in recent years to increase the output power of the generator. When using such thick lead wires, it is remarkably inefficient in viewpoint of workability to insert the lead wires of a plurality of phases into one through-hole and complicatedly arrange the lead wires.
The present invention has an aim to provide a magnet-type generator capable of improving the workability to connect the lead wires with the outgoing wires of the coil and improving the vibration resistance.


An apparatus and method for dynamically configuring a PCMCIA compatible card permits new or modified configuration parameters to be loaded into an FPGA on the card. In accordance with the invention, the PCMCIA card is initially configured to operate as a memory device. While in this mode, an FPGA on the card is loaded from a host computer using memory write commands through the PCMCIA interface. Thereafter, the card is reconfigured to operate as an I/O device using the FPGA code newly loaded on the card. The invention permits new PCMCIA card designs to be quickly changed and tested by downloading code into the FPGA and operating the card as an I/O device. The nonvolatile nature of an FPGA permits the card to retain its new or modified functions even after it has been powered down. Moreover, the invention permits code changes to be made dynamically without powering down the computer.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for dynamically configuring a PCMCIA compatible device. More particularly, the invention provides an easy method of loading new or modified configuration parameters into a PCMCIA peripheral controller such as a tape controller for a notebook computer.
2. Related Information
Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) compatible devices such as modems, memory modules, and disk controllers are well known. The PCMCIA interface defines a physical size and electrical interconnection for a class of computer peripherals. The size of each PCMCIA device is approximately that of a credit card, and each device connects mechanically and electrically through a standard connector to a host computer such as a notebook PC. The small size is a major advantage for small computer footprints. The PCMCIA standard has recently become referred to as the "PC card" standard.
The PC card standard provides physical specifications for 3 types of PC cards, all having the same length and width and using the same 68-pin connector. However, the 3 types (type I, type II, and type III) have a different thickness. The card types have features that fit the needs of different applications. Type I cards are typically used for memory devices such as RAM, flash, and SRAM cards. Type II cards are typically used for I/O devices such as data/fax modems, LANs, and mass storage devices. Type III cards are typically used for devices having thicker components, such as a rotating mass storage device. Although the initial PC card standard in 1990 defined only memory cards, later versions of the standard added I/O cards as a different device type.
The PC card standard also defines a software architecture to provide "plug and play" capability across a range of products. For example, host software known as "socket services" is a BIOS level interface that masks the hardware implementation from card vendors' driver (i.e., it avoids requiring that the card driver communicate directly with any particular chip). Similarly, software referred to as "card services" manages system resources such as interrupt assignment and memory windows for PC cards.
PCMCIA compatible peripherals can require large development costs and long development schedules. For example, complex circuits are typically required to squeeze a large number of functions into a small space, and specialized hardware and software is often required to interact with a peripheral accessed through the PC card interface.
When designing a PCMCIA tape or disk controller, for example, a design engineer must develop circuitry to perform logic functions which implement the complex interaction and error checking for a particular disk or tape unit, and also interfacing protocols to the host computer. Once developed and implemented, making changes to the design of such a device can be expensive and time consuming because the hardware must be redesigned and remanufactured. For example, making a minor change to the protocol between the PCMCIA device and the host computer can require weeks or months and thousands of dollars. Accordingly, there is a need for a faster and cheaper method of testing new PCMCIA compatible devices.

PCMCIA card dynamically configured in first mode to program FPGA controlling application specific circuit and in second mode to operate as an I/O device

Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc.


A method of manufacturing a semiconductor apparatus including a process of applying viscous liquid. The method applies viscous liquid onto a principal surface of a substrate, coats the viscous liquid closely with flexible coating material having a higher bonding strength with molecules of the viscous liquid than an intermolecular bonding strength of molecules of the viscous liquid, and then strips away the coating material together with part of the viscous liquid.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a semiconductor apparatus and a method of forming a viscous liquid layer that include a process of disposing viscous liquid on a substrate.
2. Description of Related Art
Semiconductor devices used for basic communication equipment, high-end computers and so on face increasing demands for higher speed and higher performance. To meet these demands, it is necessary for the semiconductor devices to achieve higher pin counts and better electrical property. A solution to achieve these objectives is Ball Grid Array (BGA) semiconductor apparatus.
Wire bonding technology that places a chip with its circuit surface facing up and connects it to a terminal with a thin gold wire has been used as a method to electrically connect a semiconductor chip and a packaging substrate. The BGA semiconductor apparatus, on the other hand, uses flip-chip technology that places a semiconductor chip with its circuit surface facing down and connects it to a packaging substrate with a solder or gold terminal (bump) to make electrical connection.
This technology is superior to the wire bonding technology in having better electrical property due to shorter wire length and thus allowing application to higher-speed and higher-density devices. Further, since this technology enables to place pins two-dimensionally under the semiconductor chip, it can achieve higher pin counts of as many as several thousand easily.
In the flip-chip technology, a technique for applying an adequate amount of flux onto a principal surface of a semiconductor chip is extremely important so as to accurately place a bump such as a solder at a predetermined position of a semiconductor chip. Various flux application methods are therefore proposed as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 06-124954 and 11-186329, for example.
FIGS. 4A to 4F are schematic flow charts to describe a method of applying flux onto a semiconductor chip and a method of placing a bump according to a conventional technique.
Flux is viscous liquid that serves to fix solder balls or the like, which are described later, so as to form bumps at accurate positions. As shown in FIG. 4A, a mask 101 that is used when applying flux has a meshed opening 101a that allows flux 103 to pass through the mask 101 perpendicularly to its principal surface. On the principal surface of a semiconductor chip 102 to be coated with the flux 103, given number of electrodes 102a with a diameter of about 100 μm are formed.
Referring first to FIG. 4A, the mask 101 for screen printing is placed on the principal surface of the semiconductor chip 102 having the electrodes.
Referring next to FIG. 4B, the flux 103 is applied onto the surface of the semiconductor chip 102 where the electrodes 102a are exposed by using the mask 101 for screen printing. Specifically, this process places the flux 103 at one end of the mask 101 which is not on the meshed opening 101a and then brings it over the mask 101 by using a squeegee 104. It moves the squeegee 104 to the other end of the mask 101 horizontally at a predetermined speed with the edge of the squeegee 104 in contact with the mask at predetermined angle and pressure. The flux 103 is thereby applied onto the semiconductor chip 102 through the meshed opening 101a.
Referring then to FIG. 4C, the mask 101 is removed. The semiconductor chip 102 is thereby coated with the flux having a thickness of about several tens of μm.
Referring then to FIG. 4D, a solder ball 106 is tentatively fixed on the flux 103 by using a ball mounter 107. The diameter of the solder ball 106 is substantially the same as the diameter of the electrode 102a.
Referring finally to FIG. 4E, the solder ball 106 is melted by heat treatment to form a solder bump 108. The heat treatment is performed at a higher temperature than a solder melting temperature. The heat treatment diffuses the component of the flux 103 into the air like water vapor. After the heat treatment, the remaining flux 103 is removed by washing or the like. A series of processes are thereby completed.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 06-124954 proposes a technique that applies flux partially on a substrate surface with exposed electrodes by using screen printing. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11-186329 proposes a technique that applies an adequate amount of flux by using a roller and a rubber plate.
An adequate amount of flux application thickness varies by the diameter or pitch of solder balls.
If the flux application thickness is larger than an adequate thickness, connection between the solder ball 106 and the electrode 102a can fail due to the thickness of the flux as shown in FIG. 5A. In such a case, the solder ball 106 can be displaced during reflow to make contact with the adjacent solder ball (see FIG. 5A), which causes a bump bridge (see the solder bump 108a in FIG. 5B) and results in short-circuit. Further, if the flux is too much, it can be left in the gap between electrodes or the like after reflow. This raises the need for a longer washing time. If the flux is still left after washing, it hinders resin sealing.
On the other hand, if the flux application thickness is smaller than an adequate thickness, adhesive force is too weak to hold the solder ball 106 at the position of the electrode 102a as shown in FIG. 5C, which causes displacement to occur (see the solder ball 106a in FIG. 5C). If the adjacent solder balls 106 are in contact with each other, it causes a bump bridge and results in short-circuit.
When applying highly viscous flux onto a substrate, however, the primary problem is technical difficulty in applying it thinly rather than controlling the application thickness.
The technique according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 06-124954 is expected to reduce the amount of flux to be used since it applies flux only partially. However, the present invention has recognized that this technique requires a mask for screen printing to apply flux partially for each diameter or pitch of solder balls or the like, which increases costs. Further, this technique requires accurate positioning of a mask, thus not suitable for reduction in the diameter or pitch of solder balls. Furthermore, this technique forms a mask to surround flux after applying the flux, and since the mask has low heat resistance, a problem can occur in a process of melting solder bumps. It is thereby difficult to apply this technique in practice.
The present invention has also recognized that the technique according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11-186329 has a problem that the application thickness of flux changes with time due to abrasion of a roller or rubber plate over time. Further, this technique requires large scale equipment.
Though the problems in the flux that is used in the manufacturing process of BGA semiconductor apparatus are described above, similar problems can occur in general viscous liquid to be applied onto a substrate.

Method of manufacturing semiconductor apparatus and method of forming viscous liquid layer


Interaction between an application, a user interface framework, and a graphics module to render a portion of an application surface. The application requests a surface corresponding to a particular range of the application surface from the user interface framework. In response, the user interface framework provides the requested ranged surface to the application. The application instructs the graphics module to populate the ranged surface by drawing into the ranged surface. The application then instructs the user interface framework to compose the ranged surface using the drawn ranged surface and other information available to the user interface framework. The user interface framework composing a composed surface using the drawn surface provided by the application, and additional information available to the user interface framework. The user interface framework may cache information from previously composed surface to allow for faster re-rendering should those portions later come into view on the display.

The functionality of many computer applications involve the display of information to allow such information to be conveyed to a user. Such applications often include an application surface that extends beyond the visible bounds of the display. Such is common, for instance, in word processing applications, in which the entire document may not be viewable simultaneously within a display, or a web browser application in which the entire web page may be larger than the viewable area of the display. In such cases, the display is typically provided with some type of navigation control (such as scroll bars) that allows the user to navigate throughout the application surface.
Typical systems for drawing graphical user interfaces persists each element on the display and allows each element to be independently addressable. This does require, however, some processing and memory for each element. This content may also extend beyond the visible bounds of the screen, in which case, for efficiency purposes, only the visible content is rendered.

Application and user interface framework interaction


A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device with adjusted threshold is provided. In a semiconductor device including a semiconductor, a source or drain electrode electrically connected to the semiconductor, a first gate electrode and a second gate electrode between which the semiconductor is provided, a charge trap layer provided between the first gate electrode and the semiconductor, and a gate insulating layer provided between the second gate electrode and the semiconductor, a threshold is increased by trapping electrons in the charge trap layer by keeping a potential of the first gate electrode at a potential higher than a potential of the source or drain electrode for 1 second or more while heating. After the threshold adjustment process, the first gate electrode is removed or insulated from other circuits. Alternatively, a resistor may be provided between the first gate electrode and other circuits.

1. Field of the Invention
One embodiment of the present invention relates to a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A transistor is used in a wide range of electronic devices such as an integrated circuit (IC) or an image display device (display device). As semiconductor materials that can be used in the transistor, silicon-based semiconductor materials have been widely known, but oxide semiconductors have been attracting attention as alternative materials.
For example, a transistor including an amorphous oxide semiconductor layer containing indium (In), gallium (Ga), and zinc (Zn) is disclosed in Patent Document 1.
Techniques for improving carrier mobility by employing a stacked structure of an oxide semiconductor layer are disclosed in Patent Documents 2 and 3.
It is known that a transistor including an oxide semiconductor layer has an extremely small leakage current when the transistor is off. For example, a low-power-consumption CPU utilizing such a small leakage current characteristic of a transistor including an oxide semiconductor layer is disclosed (see Patent Documents 4 and 5).

Semiconductor device and method for manufacturing semiconductor device

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


A wire harness projection guidance system comprises a support stand for supporting a wire harness board used to construct a wire harness. A projector is mounted to the support stand for projecting an image onto a wire harness board supported on the support stand. A memory stores data representing wire route for each of a plurality of individual wires in a wire harness. A programmed processing system is operatively coupled to the memory and the projector for generating a series of images to be projected by the projector. Each image in the series represents one of the stored wire routes for an associated individual wire.

Electrical control systems, such as motor control center (MCC) units include individual control components, such as starters, circuit breakers, etc. Such MCC units, or the like, are typically provided with the control components pre-wired. Pre-wiring is facilitated by creating a wire harness with a plurality of individual wires pre-cut, terminated, bent, positioned, and held together with wire ties. The wire harness can then be positioned in the MCC unit and the wires terminated as necessary. This saves time in assembling the MCC unit, increasing productivity.
Challenges in conventional wire harness systems and methods include expensive labor costs and low productivity. Different MCC units have different wire harnesses. It may take an operator a long time to determine the appropriate way to route the wire. Typically, the operator is not provided any guidance to transfer the schematic drawing to harness routing. A skilled worker is required in order to digest the schematic and build the wire harness, which increases labor costs.
Conventional wire harnesses may not be precise. Although a standard harness board may be used to help the operator, one harness board cannot cover all the different wire harnesses of all the MCC units. Additional labor is required at wiring stage to re-cut and re-strip an imprecise harness. The above can result in increasing the likelihood of mistakes and wiring the wrong connection.
The present invention is directed to solving one or more of the problems discussed above.

Wire harness projection guidance system and method


Preforms are thermally treated in a continuous-run oven equipped with infrared lamps. The portions of the oven exposed to infrared radiation are cooled by an air flow, whose temperature is kept constant by mixing air at ambient temperature with hot air. The latter is obtained by recycling at least part of the cooling air flow, which becomes heated as it carries away excess heat. A recycling mechanism in the form of a plenum box 13 equipped with a pivotable shutter 16 for adjusting the proportions of recycled hot air and ambient temperature air makes it possible to keep the temperature of the cooling air constant.

This invention concerns, in general, ovens which heat by infrared radiation, and, more specifically, ovens designed to heat preforms made of thermoplastic materials for the manufacture of hollow bodies such as bottles, flasks, or similar objects by blow molding or stretch blow molding.
Conventional machines used to manufacture these hollow bodies by blow molding or stretch blow molding; incorporate at least a preform thermal treatment station, in which the preforms are heated to a temperature such that they can then be molded in a blow molding or stretch blow molding; operation and a station for blowing the preforms in molds whose impressions have the shape of the hollow bodies to be produced. Respective conveyors provide for the feed of the preforms to the thermal treatment station and the transfer of the heated preforms between the treatment station and the blowing station.
Heating by infrared radiation is conventionally known and widely used in the industry for the thermal treatment of plastic preforms, in particular those made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the preforms being designed for the manufacture of hollow bodies such as bottles. In comparison with other heating or thermal treatment methods such as convection and conduction, and considering the low level of thermal conductivity of the material, heating using infrared radiation gives advantageous output and allows increased production rates.
Given the high energy density given off in these ovens, it is necessary to cool the parts of the oven most exposed to infrared radiation, in particular the stationary parts, in order not to damage them. To this end, a flow of cooling air which carries away excess calories has become necessary. In conventional installations, air is collected in the premises on which the oven is installed, using one or more fans. Once thermal exchange has been achieved, this air is evacuated within the premises at the top part of the oven.
The search for ever-increasing rates of production, the blowing of bottles or containers having increasingly complex shapes, and reducing the weight of the preforms while preserving, and indeed enhancing, the technical performance of the finished articles, require a distribution of material in the final product which is both precise and accurately repeated during the entire production run. These requirements make it necessary to control completely the thermal treatment of the preforms, thereby requiring precise adjustments regulating the heating profile. A very high degree of precision is thus made mandatory, not only in the installation of the infrared emitting sources and the associated intensity controls, but also in the temperature stability of the air flow circulating through the oven.
Tests have demonstrated the harmful effect of any temperature variation of this air flow, in particular on thickness distribution and, more generally, on the quality of the final article. This air, which is drawn from the shop where the machine is installed, such shop not normally being equipped with an expensive airconditioning unit, undergoes temperature changes from summer to winter, from day to day, and as a function of parameters such as the opening of a door, for example. In fact, it appears that, during the course of one day, temperature variations may be significant. Since the regulation circuit adjusting the thermal preform processing is controlled by an infrared pyrometer which measures the temperature of the outer walls of the preforms, any temperature variation of the flow of cooling air will affect the temperature of outer preform walls. The relationship obtaining between the quantity of heat stored in the preforms and the reading of the infrared pyrometer will then be distorted. As a result, the regulation of the thermal treatment is disrupted and the exact adjustments of the preform heating profiles are no longer correct, thereby leading to the manufacture of hollow bodies of disparate quality.

Method and apparatus for the thermal treatment of thermoplastic preforms


The embodiments describe a power cell for deepwater application including an power cell housing, a capacitor bank, an electronic module, and input/output connectors, wherein the power cell housing is essentially made of an insulating material. The embodiments further describe a power cell system including a number of power cells, a frame for supporting the power cells, and electric connections, in particular, a busbar arrangement for connecting to the power cell.

Deepwater (also called subsea) processing is becoming more relevant in the field of oil and gas recovery, since deposits located below the ocean floor may often be made accessible by those techniques only. Therefore, it is necessary to adapt equipment for long step-outs (e.g., long distances), marginal and dispersed oil or gas fields, and for the high-pressure conditions of deep water. In the last years, large-scale seabed facilities for use in deep water were developed. Deepwater facilities may be designed to be operated for long step-outs with total reliability withstanding extreme pressures and temperatures. "Deepwater" is to be understood to describe situations of 300 meters and deeper, such as, in some embodiments, about 2,000 meters and deeper, or about 3,000 meters.
Deepwater processing facilities may include several electrically driven pumps and/or gas compressors to transport oil and gas over very long distances. Such pumps and compressors are driven by variable-speed or variable-frequency drives. The variable-speed drive may be connected to or part of a subsea power grid system via which the drive receives electric power for operation, or the drive may be directly supplied with electric power from an onshore power plant or an offshore platform, e.g. via an umbilical or sea cable. The variable-speed drive may be encapsulated in a pressure-resistant outer housing realizing an atmospheric environment, (e.g., an internal pressure of about 1 atmosphere), for the components of the variable-speed drive. The variable speed drives may have a complex design may not be easily scalable, and due to the atmospheric operation, may require an enclosure of considerable size and weight since the enclosure walls need to withstand pressure differences of up to 300 bar. This results in high production, transportation, and installation costs.
Conventional on-land variable-speed or variable-frequency drives may include a number of power cells arranged in a power cell system. Such power cells may be adapted for the application in medium-voltage or high-voltage variable-speed or variable-frequency drives. Medium-voltage may refer to a rated voltage greater than 690 volts (V) and less than 69 kilovolts (kV). Sometimes medium voltage may be a voltage between about 1000 V and about 69 kV. In many such systems, modular power cells are used. High voltage ratings exceed such medium voltage ratings, e.g., voltage ratings greater than about 69 kV.
The power cells used in conventional on-land variable-speed or variable-frequency drives may include one or more three-phase diode-bridged rectifiers, one or more direct current (DC) capacitors, and one or more H-bridge inverters as disclosed, for example in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2007/0048561 A1 for variable-frequency drives. The rectifier converts the input alternating current (AC) voltage to an essentially constant DC voltage that is supported by the capacitors that are connected across the rectifier output. The inverter transforms the DC voltage across the DC capacitors to an output using pulse-width modulation of the semiconductor devices in the H-bridge inverter.


Bandwidth reduction methods and apparatus that offset the effects of dispersion on a signal transmitted through an optical fiber. The apparatus and methods employ a generator of modulated optical signals in cascade with a modulator. One of the generator and the modulator may be an optical intensity or amplitude modulator and the other a phase (or frequency) modulator. With the application of specific signals, the cascaded generator and modulator produce an optical signal with reduced energy in one half of the transmission bandwidth. One important benefit in the method is the fact that by exploiting the less obvious spectral characteristics of single sideband signals, a simple modulator design is achieved. All of the designs exploit a method of generating analytic signals via hybrid modulation.

Fiber optic communication systems have typically been used in broadband configurations to trunk large amounts of information over long distances. The large bandwidth and relatively low loss characteristics of optical fiber have made it useful for the efficient transport of large information bandwidths at relatively low cost. Lately, fiber optic subsystems are also finding more use in systems that were typically designed for electronic radio applications. CATV, Radar and some cellular and Personal Communication Service (PCS) subsystems now employ fiber optic links that allow operators to extend the coverage region or move more TV channels over wider distribution areas. The impending multimedia revolution, will involve the delivery of larger bandwidths to residential sites via radio subcarriers. The use of fiber is likely to increase greatly when these new services place enormous bandwidth demands on existing service delivery systems.
For clarity we define three types of optical modulation that are addressed in this document: 1. Baseband Modulation in which the signal modulated onto an optical carrier via a laser diode or external modulator, is lowpass in nature. 2. Subcarrier Modulation in which the baseband information is first modulated onto an electrical or radio frequency carrier; the modulated electrical or radio frequency carrier is then used to modulate an optical carrier. The information from the perspective of the optical carrier is itself a (bandpass) modulated carrier. 3. Subcarrier Modulation with Harmonic Frequency Translation in which the modulation of a radio frequency carrier is modulated as in subcarrier modulation above but it is then modulated onto an optical carrier in a fashion that produces harmonics of the subcarrier signal about the optical carrier. Upon detection of the optical signal, a desired harmonic of the original radio subcarrier is isolated in a bandpass filter. See Generation and Transmission Of FM and p/4 DQPSK Signals at Microwave Frequencies Using Harmonic Generation and Opto electronic Mixing in Mach-Zehnder Modulators, Tom Young, Jan Conradi, Wayne Tinga and Bob Davies, IOOC 95, June 1995 and Generation and Transmission Of FM and p/4 DQPSK Signals at Microwave Frequencies Using Harmonic Generation and Opto electronic Mixing in Mach-Zehnder Modulators, Tom Young, Jan Conradi and Wayne Tinga, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. MTT 44, pp 446-453, March 1996.
The net result of this exercise is optical transport of a radio subcarrier with an additional frequency translation to some higher frequency at the optical detector output. The benefit of this method is that the information signal may be modulated onto the optical carrier at a lower cost by using lower frequency radio components.Baseband modulation is typically applied in broadband data transmission whereas subcarrier modulation is typically used for distribution of CATV, Cellular and other media that employ radio or radio compatible transmission and signal multiplexing. Baseband and subcarrier optical fiber distribution systems are subject to distortion related to loss, noise, and nonlinearities in both the fiber and the modulation and amplification devices. One of the more deleterious forms of nonlinear distortion is that due to chromatic dispersion. Chromatic dispersion in optical fiber is typically characterized to a first order by a linear group delay parameter. The group refractive index of the fiber at optical frequencies near a given optical carrier frequency varies approximately linearly with wavelength or optical frequency about the carrier. This finite linear group delay imposes a quadratic phase rotation across the signal frequency band. While dispersion has an undesired effect on any signal of finite bandwidth it is of particular concern in optical systems where the modulated signal is also contaminated with an unwanted phase or frequency modulated component which is prevalent when optical sources such as semiconductor lasers are directly modulated, and when various external modulators are used. See Fumio Koyama, Kenichi Iga, "Frequency Chirping In External Modulators" Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 6, No 1, pp 87-93, January 1988.
Approaches currently used to reduce the effects of chromatic dispersion include: (1) reversing the effects of chromatic dispersion in the optical domain, (2) reversing the effects in the electrical domain after optical detection and (3) reducing the transmission bandwidth of the optical signal on the fiber. The first is based on purely optical methods where the effects of group velocity dispersion are reversed while the signal is still in the optical domain. Adding dispersion compensating fiber in the transmission path is one common approach. Other optical methods include compensation by differential time delay of the upper and lower sidebands of the modulated signal, see A. Djupsjobacka, O. Sahlen, "Dispersion compensation by differential time delay," IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 12, no. 10, pp. 1849-1853, October 1994; spectrally inverting the signal at the midpoint of the transmission path, see R. M. Jopson, A. H. Gnauck, R. M. Derosier, "10 Gb/s 360-km transmission over normal-dispersion fiber using mid-system spectral inversion," Proceedings OFC'93, paper PD3, 1993; and pre-chirping the transmitted signal in an external modulator, see F. Koyama, K. Iga, "Frequency chirping in external modulators," IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 87-03, January 1988 and A. H. Gnauck, S. K. Korotky, J. J. Veselka, J. Nagel, C. T. Kemmerer, W. J. Minford, D. T. Moser, "Dispersion penalty reduction using an optical modulator with adjustable chirp," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 3, no. 10, pp. 916-918, October 1991.
The second approach, in which dispersion effects are reversed in the electrical domain, is based on coherent transmission and heterodyne detection followed by equalization in the electrical domain. It is important to note that a double sideband (DSB) signal must be heterodyne detected if the signal is to be compensated electrically. If homodyne detection were attempted with a DSB signal, the upper and lower sidebands would overlap upon detection and the phase information would be lost and the higher modulation frequencies severely attenuated or distorted through cancellation of sideband components. Some techniques used or proposed for post-detection equalization include microstrip lines, see K. Iwashita, N. Takachio, "Chromatic dispersion compensation in coherent optical communications," Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 367-375, March 1990; microwave waveguides, see J. H. Winters, "Equalization in coherent lightwave systems using microwave waveguides," Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 813-815, May 1989. and fractionally spaced equalizers, see J. H. Winters, "Equalization in coherent lightwave systems using a fractionally spaced equalizer," Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 8, no. 10, pp. 1487-1491, October 1990.
The third approach is to modify the transmission format where the baseband signal spectrum is compressed. These types of approaches, which reduce the transmission bandwidth required on the fiber to transmit a given bit rate, are generally implemented by modifying the line code format in order to reduce the effective bandwidth required to transmit or receive the data, see K. Yonenaga, S. Kuwano, S. Norimatsu, N. Shibata, "Optical duobinary transmission system with no receiver sensitivity degradation," Electronic Letters, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 302-304, February 1995, and G. May, A. Solheim, J. Conradi, "Extended 10 Gb/s fiber transmission distance at 1538 nm using a duobinary receiver," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 648-650, May 1994.
The generation, transmission and detection of single sideband (SSB) signals has been used in the RF and microwave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to reduce the bandwidth of the signal by a factor of two, by sending either the upper or the lower sideband. Generation and transmission of SSB optical signals using a Mach-Zehnder modulator is shown in M. Izutsu, S. Shikama, T. Sueta, "Integrated optical SSB modulator/frequency shifter," IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, vol. QE-17, no. 11, pp. 2225-2227, November 1981 and R. Olshansky, "Single sideband optical modulator for lightwave systems," U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,058, 1994. A dispersion benefit accrues from a single sideband signal due to the fact that the transmitted signal spectrum has been reduced by a factor of two.
A more significant advantage of optical SSB transmission is that upon detection, particularly if the signal is coherently detected, a dispersed baseband signal is produced where the information of the relative arrival time of the various signal frequencies remains as part of the electrical output signal and hence the fiber dispersion can be compensated in the electrical domain after detection. This advantage is similar to that for heterodyne detection of DSB signals, but with SSB transmission and detection, the signal can be homodyned directly to baseband using carrier signal added either at the source or at the receiver and thus it can be directly detected with the phase or delay information of the transmitted signal preserved.
An early integrated optical SSB modulator using optical filtering techniques was described in K. Yonenaga, N. Takachio, "A Fiber chromatic dispersion compensation technique with an optical SSB transmission in optical homodyne detection systems," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 5, no. 8, pp. 949-951, August 1993, where integrated optical structures were used to generate single sideband tones for narrowband applications. In K. Yonenaga, N. Takachio, "Dispersion compensation for homodyne detention systems using a 10 Gb/s optical PSK-VSB signal," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 7, no. 8, pp. 929-931, August 1995, a single sideband optical modulator was described for the purpose of transmitting two or more optical signals with different optical carrier frequencies on a single fiber. The purpose of transmitting the signals in a single sideband format is to permit these optical carrier frequencies to be spaced as closely as the maximum modulation frequency. Further work on generation of SSB optical signals with a Mach-Zehnder modulator is found in Olshansky, U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,058.
In another technique, disclosed in co-pending application Ser. No. 08/738,573, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,880,870 assigned to the same assignee, a single Mach-Zehnder modulator is driven by Hilbert Transform pairs in two different ways to yield a vestigial sideband. In one case the Mach Zehnder is driven in "Hartley Fashion" with Hilbert Transform pairs of a baseband digital signal applied to the individual modulator arms. In the other case the modulator is driven in hybrid fashion with linear combinations of the baseband signal Hilbert Transform pairs to simultaneously achieve an optical signal that is amenable to simple envelope detection and vestigial sideband generation and transmission. The use of Hilbert transform pairs to generate single sidebands is disclosed in Gordon B. Lockhart, "A Spectral Theory for Hybrid Modulation", IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. COM 21, No. 7, July 1973.
Baseband and subcarrier optical fiber systems may be improved if either some or all of the upper or lower optical sideband band could be removed from the optical signal before transmission. For Intensity Modulated--Direct Detection (IMDD) systems each sideband carries redundant information in terms of what is required to demodulate the information signal at the destination so there is no requirement for double sideband optical transmission. What remains after sideband removal is a narrow band signal that even with FM contamination is greatly reduced in effective bandwidth and dispersion distortion.
For subcarrier modulation, which typically has a much lower information bandwidth per subcarrier, the separation of upper and lower optical signal sidebands after optical modulation may be quite large. Upon detection the upper and lower optical sidebands are essentially collapsed onto each other and any phase distortion that the signal encountered on the fiber will be imposed on the detected subcarrier signal as cross band phase distortion. See Basil W. Hakki, "Dispersion of Microwave-Modulated Optical Signals", Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 11, No 3, pp 474-480, March 1993.

Hybrid single sideband optical modulator


An adaptative source rate control method and apparatus utilizing a neural network are presented for controlling a data transmission of a media object over a communication network. A back propagation method transmitting control parameters related to the operation of a communications network is used for to dynamically adjust the performance of the network, in view of network parameters being sourced to a point of transmission. The bit rate and quantization level of the data stream are dynamically adjusted and shaped by the neural network in response to control parameters.

With the development of communications networks such as the Internet and the wide acceptance of broadband connections, there is a demand by consumers for video and audio services (for example, television programs, movies, video conferencing, radio programming) that can be selected and delivered on demand through a communication network. Video services, referred to as media objects or streaming audio/video, often suffer from quality issues due to the bandwidth constraints and the bursty nature of communications networks generally used for streaming media delivery. The design of a streaming media delivery system therefore must consider codecs (encoder/decoder programs) used for delivering media objects, quality of service (QoS) issues in presenting delivered media objects, and the transport of information over communications networks used to deliver media objects as audio and video data as a signal.
Codecs are typically implemented through a combination of software and hardware as a system used for encoding data representing a media object at a transmission end of a communications network and for decoding data at a receiver end of the communications network. Design considerations for codecs include such issues and as bandwidth scalability over a network, computational complexity of encoding/decoding data, resilience to network losses (loss of data), and encoder/decoder latencies for transmitting data representing media streams. Commonly used codecs utilizing both Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT) (e.g., H.263+) and non-DCT techniques (e.g., wavelets and fractals) are examples of codecs that consider these above detailed issues. Codecs are used to compress and decompress data because of the limited bandwidth available through a communications network.
Quality of service issues relate to the delivery of information and the overall experience for a user watching a media stream. Media objects are delivered through a communications network, such as the Internet, in discrete units known as packets. These units of information, typically transmitted in a sequential order, are sent via the Internet through nodes commonly known as servers and routers. It is therefore possible that two sequentially transmitted packets arrive at a destination device at different times because the packets may take different paths through the Internet. Consequentially, a QoS problem known as dispersion could result where a packet transmitted later in time may be processed and displayed by a destination device before an earlier transmitted packet, leading to discontinuity of displayed events. Similarly, it is possible for packets to be lost when being transmitted. A destination device typically performs an error concealment technique to hide the loss of data. Methods of ensuring QoS over a network as over-allocating the number of transmitted packets or improving quality of a network under a load state may be used, but these methods introduce additional overhead requirements affecting communication network performance.
Communication networks control the transfer of data packets by the use of a schema known as a transport protocol. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) described in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) RFC 793 is a well-known transport protocol that controls the flow of information throughout a communications network by maintaining parameters as flow control, error control, and the time organized delivery of data packets. These types of controls are administered through the use of commands that may either exist in a header of a packet or separate from packets that are transmitted between devices through the communications network, relaying information about the status of network communications. This control information works well for a communications network that operates in a "synchronous" manner where the transmission of data packets for media objects tends to be orderly.
Other types of media objects, in the form of streamed data, tend to be delivered or generated asynchronous by where the flow of packets may not be consistent. These packets are transmitted and received at different times, hence asynchronously, in where received packets are reconstituted in view of data present in the headers of such packets. The transmission of asynchronous packets suffers when network conditions drastically reduce the transmission (or receipt) of packets, resulting in network loss of service, degradation, or requiring a transmission to time out that cancels a transmission.
Flow control methods are already known in the art, using network control messages such as Real Time Control Protocol (RTCP), Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), and the like, which can adjust and control the bit rate transmission of packets over a communications network. A transmitter receives feedback about current network conditions (as network communications parameters) and modifies the transmission bit rate in response. The transmission bit rate of packets is increased if network conditions are not congested, which improves the quality of a transmission. The bit rate of a transmission is similarly decreased, if network congestion is high, degrading the transmission of packets.
Flow control methods are typically limited to the consideration of relatively few variables. The ability of a network to adjust to these reported network conditions is limited to a non-realistic mathematical model, which does not take into account the asynchronous nature of a packet-based network. The transmission of packets comprising a media object, transmitted as streamed data, would benefit from a system adapting to network conditions providing better QoS than fixed subroutines.

Dynamic rate adaptation using neural networks for transmitting video data


A substantially constant resistive force is applied to the drive motor of an automated ladler arm to prevent jerky movement of the arm during a downward or descending portion of its travel from a furnace to a mold. The force may be applied through an air cylinder connected to a pivoting loader arm.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automated apparatus for ladling molten metal from a furnace to a mold and particularly to the stabilization of such apparatus as it moves through a downward path of motion.
2. Description of the Prior Developments
Apparatus for automatically ladling molten metal from a furnace into a mold are well known in the art and are commercially available under the name of Rimlock Ladlers, for example. Although these ladlers generally function well, a problem arises when the ladle is required to move in a downward direction. In this case, the electric motor which drives the ladle arm must act as a break to prevent the ladle from accelerating downwardly.
If the ladle is allowed to fall quickly downward under gravity, the molten metal carried by the ladle will be sloshed about at its abrupt end of travel. This is most undesirable insofar as any turbulent motion induced in the molten metal encourages the formation of oxides which create stress risers in the cast end product.
One approach to avoiding such turbulence is to operate the ladle at a relatively slow speed. Unfortunately, slow speed operation of the automatic ladler causes a drop in production rates as well as a significant drop in temperature of the molten metal carried by the ladle from a furnace to a mold.
Temperature loss in excess of 50.degree. F. in the molten metal is typically accounted for by raising the temperature of the metal in the furnace by 50.degree. to 100.degree. F. This also has a drawback since higher melt temperatures also facilitate the formation of oxides.
Although existing ladlers can be adapted to produce a downward path of motion, the negative load applied to the electric motor driving the ladler during such motion causes the motor to "hunt" or rapidly reverse direction. This hunting results in a jerky movement of the ladle arm and thereby induces turbulent motion in the molten metal carried in the ladle.
Again, such turbulence fosters the formation of oxides in the molten metal. In the case of a piston casting operation, molten aluminum silicon alloys quickly form highly undesirable aluminum oxides in the melt.
Accordingly, a need exists for an automatic ladler which provides smooth motion throughout its travel and which prevents the ladler drive motor from hunting and jerking the ladle arm during downward movement of the ladle arm. A further need exists for such a ladler which may be operated at high production rates and which minimizes the loss of temperature in the molten metal during its travel from a furnace to a mold.


A fluid machine has a compressor device for compressing refrigerant of a refrigerating cycle for an automotive vehicle, an electric rotating device operating as an electric motor for generating a rotational driving force to drive the compressor device or operating as an electric power generator, an expansion device for collecting waste heat from an engine and generating a rotational driving force to drive the electric rotating device and/or the compressor device, and a switching device for connecting or disconnecting the compressor device with or from the expansion device. In the fluid machine, the waste heat from the engine can be always collected by the expansion device, irrespectively whether or not the compressor device is operating for an air conditioning operation.

In a prior art fluid machine, as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent No. 2540738, a compressor device for a vapor compression refrigerating cycle is commonly used as an expansion device, and the compressor device is used as the expansion device when energy is collected by Rankine cycle.
In the above fluid machine, the compressor device is used as a compressor for air conditioning operation, wherein the compressor device compresses the refrigerant in the refrigerating cycle. The compressor device is used as an expansion device, when the air conditioning operation is stopped, wherein superheated gas-phase refrigerant generated in the Rankine cycle by use of the waste heat from the engine is supplied to the fluid machine. The refrigerant is expanded in the fluid machine to operate as the expansion device and energy generated by the expansion device is applied to the engine.
In the above prior art fluid machine, in which the compressor device is also used as the expansion device, the fluid machine can be used as the expansion device only during a time period in which the air conditioning operation is not necessary. As a result, the prior art fluid machine can not most efficiently improve a fuel consumption ratio for the engine.
The inventors of the present invention proposed a fluid machine in a prior Japanese patent application (JP 2003-82760), in which a compressor device 140 and an expansion device 150 are independently provided and connected to each other by a driving shaft 111, so that the expansion device 150 for collecting and utilizing the waste heat can be operated, irrespectively whether or not the compressor device 140 is operated for an air conditioning operation.
According to the above proposed fluid machine, the compressor device 140 is a variable capacitor type (a swash plate type) compressor, and a discharge amount of the compressor device 140 is adjusted to become zero, when the air conditioning operation is not necessary. Accordingly, a resistance of the compressor device 140 is reduced when the expansion device 150 is in its operation.
In the above proposed fluid machine, although the discharge amount of the compressor device 140 is adjusted to become zero to reduce the resistance by the compressor device 140 to the expansion device 150, mechanical loss due to friction in sliding portions of a capacitor varying mechanism (such as, a swash plate 140B in a swash plate chamber 140A, and shoes 140C) can not be avoided. As a result, the expansion device 150 can not sufficiently collect and utilize the waste heat.