An apparatus and process for manufacturing multiple thin walled hollow shells for parts such as automobile door panels, arm rests, and instrument panels from thermoplastic plastisol includes a pair of plastisol charge boxes each forming a separate compartment and members for joining the charge boxes with an open ended mold. The mold has a divider rib thereon that is inaccessible by straight vertical engagement of a seal assembly on the divider. An indexable divider wall is operatively connected between the charge boxes so that the divider wall can be selectively extended and retracted at an angle with respect to the vertical and against the mold at the divider rib thereon for allowing separation of the casting surfaces having different colors fixed thereon and the subsequent fusing of the casting surfaces to one another at the divider.

The automotive industry has used of interior trim components such as composite plastic door panels comprising a polyvinyl chloride outer shell. See for example the trim components disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,123,403. The acceptance of such components has been because interalia this type of construction permits a wide latitude in styling, color, and grain effects which are most desired particularly in the interior design of automobiles.
A pre-formed vinyl shell is made from dry thermoplastic powder particles which are applied to a heated shell mold from a powder box to form a continuous monochromatic one piece shell. Two or more colors of thermoplastic powder from separate compartments of charge boxes may be applied to heated shell molds in separate portions thereof to provide a one piece shell with two or more color tones to enhance the decor of the interior of an automobile. This type of system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,025, issued Dec. 31, 1985 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,151, issued May 15, 1991, both in the name of Gray and assigned to the assignee of the subject invention. A problem with this type of apparatus and method is that the height of the divider wall is fixed and therefore requires a fixed shaped charge box divider wall and also straight and vertical engagement of the two-tone sealing assembly at the mold's two-tone line. Furthermore, such systems do not permit sealing mold divider ribs that are inaccessible to straight line vertical divider wall sealing systems of the type shown in the aforedescribed '025 and '151 patents.
The prior art shows that movable partitions in other types of molds are known, as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,335,068, issued Jun. 15, 1982 in the name of Hemery. The patent relates to a method of molding containers from two different plastic materials of different color wherein the material is injected into a space provided between the walls of a mold and a counter mold. Removable separators define first and second subspaces within the space to allow different color injection. However, such movable separators are not suitable for sealing mold divider ribs of the type shown in the '025 and '151 patents especially when such ribs are inaccessible to straight vertically aligned sealing systems.

Method and apparatus for producing multi-color shells utilizing an indexing divider mold


The invention concerns a method for connecting first contact studs of a structure bearing electrodes for measuring or for stimulating a physiological activity with second studs of at least a downstream circuit, each second stud being traversed by an opening perforating the downstream circuit. The method includes the following steps: a) placing the downstream circuit on the structure, so that the opening of a second stud is located opposite a first stud; and b) depositing in the opening of the second stud a conductive material providing the connection between the first second stud opposite.

In FIG. 1, a structure 1 with electrodes is intended to be connected to a downstream circuit 2. Structure 1 comprises an insulating flexible support film 3. On film 3 are deposited electrodes 4 connected by conductive tracks 5 to connection pads 6. The electrodes, the pads, and the tracks connecting them are formed by deposition and etching of a conductive layer on film 3. A thin insulating layer, not shown, covers the structure, except for the electrodes and the pads. Structure 1 is a flexible structure of small thickness (from a few micrometers to a few tens of micrometers), the electrodes of which are intended to be placed to contact an organ such as a nerve or the skin to measure the electric activity of the organ or to stimulate it.
Structure 1 must be connected to circuit 2. Circuit 2 comprises pads 7, the arrangement of which corresponds to that of pads 6. Each pad 7 is connected to a conductive track 8 for the conduction of the signal provided to or by electrodes 4. To connect a pad 6 to a pad 7, a hole 10 thoroughly crossing the structure is made in each of pads 6.
In FIG. 2, downstream circuit 2 is partially shown and a single contact pad 7 is visible. Structure 1 is here shown with support film 3, a single pad 6, and an upper insulating layer 11. The thickness of circuit 2, on the order of from one to two millimeters, is significant as compared to that of structure 1, which is at most a few tens of micrometers. Structure 1 is placed on circuit 2 so that each of holes 10 is above a pad 7. The surface of each pad 7 is greater than that of a hole 10. A welding drop 12 is then deposited, by a conventional bonding technique well known in microelectronics, which fills hole 10 and overflows on pad 6. Welding drop 12 ensures the electric contact between pads 6 and 7.
This way of doing has several disadvantages.
The electrode-supporting structure must be drilled into in the middle of each pad 6. This operation is delicate, due to the fragility of the structure, and this assumes that pads 6 are large enough, which limits their number. The drilling of pads 6 is generally performed by means of a laser beam, which results in having the metal layer forming the pad partially split, so that the pad no longer exhibits a uniform surface. The drilling of pads 0.6 may also be carried out by etching, which requires an additional mask, which brings about a cost problem, and greatly increases the pad drilling time.
Further, the impedance exhibited by this type of contact is relatively high. Indeed, the surface of pad 6 enabling flowing of an electric signal between pads 6 and 7 is a substantially ring-shaped surface 13 delimited by the base of welding drop 12 and the circumference of hole 10. The surface of pad 7 enabling flowing of the electric signal is a substantially circular surface 14 equal to the surface area of hole 10. Surfaces 13 and 14 have been shown in bold lines in FIG. 2. To avoid too much decreasing the impedance of the contact between pads 6 and 7, surfaces areas 13 and 14 must be substantially equal. As a result, at most, the surface area enabling flowing of an electric current between pads 6 and 7 is equal to half the surface area of pad 6, which makes the impedance of the contact between pads 6 and 7 relatively high.
Further, welding 12 forms a brittle dome of relatively great height, typically on the order of 50 micrometers. This may hinder the circuit encapsulation.
German patent application DE 19530353 A1 generally describes a method for connecting contact areas of a flexible film to a printed circuit. In this document, the printed circuit has pads drilled with metallized holes, the metallization extending somewhat over the rear surface of the integrated circuit which does not support the pads. The portions of the film and of the circuit to be connected are opposite and a filler metal is deposited between them. Heat is provided to the rear circuit surface, while a relatively high pressure is applied on the assembly formed by the film and the circuit. The provided heat melts the filler metal, which forms a relatively thick gluing layer between the film and the circuit. The excess filler metal is absorbed by the metallized hole.
The abstract of Japanese patent JP 09312453 describes a technique similar to that described in application DE 19530353.
The techniques described in the two above documents require application of a high temperature and pressure. When such techniques are desired to be applied to connect a structure support electrodes intended to measure the electric activity of an organ or to stimulate it, several problems arise. Indeed, electrode structures are very thin and very brittle. The application of a pressure, even mild, crushes the structure and may damage it. Further, the application of a high temperature, necessary to melt the filler metal, may destroy the structure. It will be seen hereafter that the overthickness created by the welding layer may also be a disadvantage.

Connecting method for structure with implantable electrodes


A method for transmitting useful information between a transmitting terminal and a receiving terminal connected via a transmission channel. The transmitting terminal defines control information for the useful information, and searches in an association table, which is accessible from the transmitting terminal, for a frame-synchronization word associated with the control information. The transmitting terminal generates a frame of data from the useful information, and transmits, over the transmission channel, a data stream that includes the frame-synchronization word and the frame of data.

A useful information item can generally be transmitted between a transmitting terminal and a receiving terminal in a plurality of transmission formats. For example, a useful information item can be transmitted by using a number of possible modulations (BPSK, DBPSK, OPSK, 16QAM, etc.) and/or a number of possible types of error correcting codes and/or a number of possible redundancy levels, etc. Furthermore, it is also possible to allow the transmission of useful information items of different sizes.
In order to facilitate the reception of a useful information item by the receiving terminal, it is known practice to transmit, between the transmitting terminal and the receiving terminal, control information items relating to the transmission format used by the transmitting terminal (size of the useful information item, modulation, error correcting code, redundancy/punching rate, etc.).
It is understood that, if the control information items are not correctly interpreted by the receiving terminal, the transmission format used by said receiving terminal to interpret the useful information item will be different from the transmission format actually used by the transmitting terminal, such that the useful information item will not be correctly interpreted by said receiving terminal. To remedy this problem, the control information items are generally made reliable, for example by using a modulation with predefined low spectral efficiency and/or by using an error correcting code with a predefined high redundancy level, etc.
Furthermore, in a multiple access network, in which multiple and independent transmitting terminals have the initiative for the moment of transmission, means have to be implemented to make it possible to accurately detect, in a data stream, the start of the useful information item. As is known, the preamble contains a synchronization word, called "frame synchronization" word, identifiable by all the receiving terminals. For example, each receiving terminal which receives the data stream performs a sliding correlation of the frame synchronization word over the data stream. When the maximum result of the correlation exceeds a predefined threshold, it is considered that the frame synchronization word is present in the data stream, at the position that made it possible to obtain said maximum result. The detection of the position of the frame synchronization word enables the receiving terminal to know the start of the useful information item in the data stream.
In the transmission of a useful information item between a transmitting terminal and a receiving terminal, the useful information item can thus be preceded by a preamble containing both a frame synchronization word and control information items. The size of the preamble can be considerable compared to the size of the useful information item, especially for short useful information items and/or when the control information items have a high redundancy level for reliability purposes. Now, the effectiveness of the use of a frequency band decreases as the ratio between the size of the preamble and the size of the useful information item increases. This is all the more detrimental if the frequency band used for the transmissions is narrow, for example of the order from a few hertz to a few hundreds of hertz.

Method for transmitting useful information between two terminals and method for generating an association table used in the context of the transmission


Disclosed is a process of recovering 3,4-epoxy-1-butene (epoxybutene) from an epoxybutene-laden reaction product gas by absorption into a high-boiling solvent. Also disclosed is a process for the purification of the epoxybutene by separating epoxybutene from the solvent and other reaction by-products by a novel combination of distillation and decantation steps.

The present invention pertains to a process of recovering and purifying 3,4-epoxy-1-butene (epoxybutene) from a reaction product gas, obtained by the vapor phase catalytic partial oxidation of 1,3-butadiene with oxygen over a silver catalyst. More specifically, the present invention pertains to a process of recovering epoxybutene from an epoxybutene-laden reaction product gas by absorption into a high-boiling solvent. This invention also pertains to a method of separating epoxybutene from the solvent and other reaction by-products by a novel combination of distillation and decantation steps.
Ethylene oxide (EO) and epoxybutene both may be produced in large scale plants by similar catalytic partial oxidations of the corresponding olefin with oxygen over a silver catalyst. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,773,844 and 3,962,136, and 4,356,312 for EO and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,897,498, 4,950,773, and 5,081,096 for epoxybutene. Considerable effort has been devoted to the development of efficient methods of recovering these epoxides, particularly EO, from the reaction product gas and subsequent purification of the epoxide.
According to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,745,092 and 3,964,980 and Dever et al. Ethylene Oxide, in Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 4th Ed., 1994, pp. 929-930, EO is recovered and purified according to the following procedure. A reaction product gas containing typically 0.5 to 5% EO, obtained by the vapor phase catalytic oxidation of ethylene with oxygen over a silver catalyst, is introduced to an EO absorption tower where it is contacted counter-currently with an absorbent comprised mostly of water, within which the EO is absorbed. The absorber is typically maintained at a temperature of 5 to 40xc2x0 C. and 10 to 30 bars absolute (bara).
The EO-laden absorbent is then sent to a stripping column where vaporous EO is recovered from the top of the tower at a temperature of 85 to 140xc2x0 C. by steam stripping at reduced pressure. The water remaining after the distillation of EO is recycled to the absorption tower for reuse. EO reacts readily with water under absorption and distillation conditions to form ethylene glycol, which can react further to form diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, and higher oligomers. Although ethylene glycol is a valuable and marketable chemical, diethylene glycol and higher oligomers have much less commercial demand and are thus generally undesirable by-products. Formation of ethylene glycol oligomers can be controlled to some extent by limiting ethylene glycol concentration in the recycled water to the absorber. Typical levels are less than 10 weight per cent ethylene glycol in the recycled absorber water.
The crude EO vapor recovered in the stripper overhead comprises EO as the main component, as well as impurities such as water, argon, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, ethane and ethylene, formaldehyde, and acetaldehyde. The light or low-boiling components, e.g., nitrogen, carbon dioxide, argon, methane, ethane, and ethylene are removed overhead in a second stripping column. The partially purified EO is removed from the lower section of base of the second stripping column and is transferred to the mid-section of a refining column for final purification. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,529,667 and 3,418,338 disclose the use of extractive distillation with water as a solvent in either the second stripping column or the refining column to reduce the level of aldehyde impurities in the final purified EO product.
By employing the above-described procedure, EO purities of greater than 99.5 mole per cent are possible. Although these water-based processing steps function effectively for EO recovery and purification, they cannot be employed equally efficaciously for the recovery and purification of epoxybutene. Firstly, whereas EO is completely and infinitely miscible with water, epoxybutene is only sparingly miscible with water. At 25xc2x0 C., the solubility of epoxybutene in water is only about 5 to 6 weight percent. As a result, water is a very poor absorbent for epoxybutene. High water to epoxybutene ratios, e.g., upward of 50/1 to 150/1, are required to ensure complete absorption of epoxybutene from the reaction off gas. Such ratios are prohibitive from equipment cost and energy usage standpoints.
Secondly, EO is a relatively low-boiling component compared to water, i.e., normal boiling point of 10.4xc2x0 C. versus 100xc2x0 C., respectively, and does not form an azeotrope with water. Thus, EO can be distilled readily from water by simple fractional distillation techniques as described above for the conventional EO recovery scheme. However, epoxybutene is much more hydrophobic than EO and forms a minimum-boiling azeotrope with water. High purity epoxybutene cannot be obtained by the simple fractional distillation techniques employed for EO recovery.
Other methods proposed for recovery of EO from ethylene oxidation effluents likewise are not effective or are uneconomical for epoxybutene recovery and purification. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,948,621 discloses a method of separating EO and carbon dioxide simultaneously from a mixed gas obtained from catalytic oxidation of ethylene by oxygen using methanol as an absorbent. As with water, epoxybutene forms a minimum-boiling azeotrope with methanol and, thus, epoxybutene and methanol cannot be separated readily by simple fractional distillation.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,437,938 and 4,437,939 disclose methods using supercritical or near supercritical carbon dioxide and water at the same time as absorbents. EO is first absorbed into water as in conventional recovery methods. The EO-rich aqueous absorbent contacted with (near) supercritical carbon dioxide, and EO is extracted to the carbon dioxide solvent. The carbon dioxide is separated from EO by distillation under reduced pressure. The carbon dioxide is recompressed before recycling as the extraction solvent. This method, however, has many drawbacks. First, the required amount of (near) supercritical carbon dioxide is approximately 35 times the amount of EO to be absorbed therein, resulting in large equipment. The extraction is carried out at high pressures, e.g., 86 bara, while the distillation step is carried out at lower pressure, i.e., about 0.1 to 2 bara. The wide pressure swings results in high compression costs and thus does not provide an economical solution.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,221,727 and 4,233,221 discloses an EO recovery method that uses ethylene carbonate as an absorbent for EO. Ethylene carbonate has many advantages as an absorbent. The absorption affinity of ethylene carbonate for EO is higher than that of water. The vapor pressure of ethylene carbonate is quite low, i.e., normal boiling point of 239xc2x0 C., so losses into the recycle gas are minimal. Moreover, ethylene carbonate is stable and does not directly react with EO. The process disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,233,221, however, has the following drawbacks for EO and epoxybutene recovery. The most preferred temperature range for operation of conventional water absorption of EO is 5 to 40xc2x0 C. The melting point of ethylene carbonate is 39xc2x0 C., so ethylene carbonate would be a solid over almost all of the preferred temperature range. In order to avoid solidification it is necessary to operate the absorber and other processing equipment substantially above, i.e., at least 10 to 20xc2x0 C., above the melting point of ethylene carbonate. This is much higher temperature than an operation using water. The absorbing power of the ethylene carbonate correspondingly decreases so that the amount of circulating absorbent must be increased, reducing the economic utility of the process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,255 describes the use of propylene carbonate as an absorbent for EO. The EO-laden propylene carbonate is stripped with an inert gas to recover EO and the water by-product from the epoxidation reactor as a vapor. Purified EO is produced from the mixed water-EO vapors as in conventional methods described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,745,092 and 3,964,980. Unlike ethylene carbonate, propylene carbonate is a liquid at room temperature and thus offers a more robust process than ethylene carbonate absorption. However, the process described In U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,255 also has drawbacks for epoxybutene recovery and purification. Epoxybutene is a much less volatile component than EO and cannot be removed effectively from propylene carbonate by inert gas stripping as described in the ""255 patent. Moreover, this EO process does not presage or address the problems associated with epoxybutene recovery and separation from the epoxybutene-water azeotrope, butadiene, or other impurities absorbed with epoxybutene from the epoxidation reactor product gas.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,644,432 discloses the use of liquid ethane as an absorbent for EO. The reactor product gas is cooled, compressed, and then passed through a molecular sieve drier bed to remove the by-product water of reaction. The dried reactor product gas is contacted in a countercurrent absorption tower with liquid ethane at a preferred temperature range of xe2x88x9231.5 to xe2x88x9217.6xc2x0 C. at a pressure of about 1.8 MPa. EO is much more soluble in liquid ethane than in water, so the solvent to feed gas ratio of the absorber can be reduced considerably from the water absorbent case, with concomitant cost reductions. However, maintenance of such cryogenic temperatures expensive refrigeration equipment and much more than offsets any savings due to lower solvent to feed gas ratios. Thus, there are no acceptable EO absorption/separation methods that can be adapted readily and economically to epoxybutene absorption/separation.
The patent literature is not as extensive for epoxybutene production, but several patents describe the recovery and separation of epoxybutene. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,117,012 and 5,312,931 disclose the use of liquid butadiene and butadiene/butane mixtures as an absorbent for epoxybutene. The reactor product gas is cooled, compressed, and contacted in a countercurrent absorption tower with liquid butadiene/n-butane at a preferred temperature range of 0.0 to 30xc2x0 C. at a pressure of about 5 to 15 bara. Water and water-soluble impurties are removed by decantation of the epoxybutene-rich absorbent stream. Any remaining water, butadiene/n-butane absorbent, and low-boiling impurities are removed by distillation to give a purified EpB product. However, n-butane and 1,3-butadiene have relatively high volatilities, with normal boiling points of xe2x88x920.5xc2x0 C. and 4.5xc2x0 C., respectively. In order to ensure that the solvent n-butane/butadiene largely remains a liquid within the absorption zone at operating temperatures that can be achieved with an inexpensive cooling medium such as water, i.e., above at least about 30xc2x0 C., the absorption zone must be operated at a pressure of at least about 4.2 bara. Operation at lower pressures, and concomitantly lower temperatures is quite costly if the required low temperature cooling is supplied by ordinary means to those skilled in the art such as chilled brine or glycol refrigeration units. Thus, to meet the aforementioned temperature and pressure requirements for absorption with n-butane, the reactor effluent must first be compressed to a suitable pressure, i.e., greater than about 4.2 bara, prior to its introduction into the absorption zone. The higher pressures and resulting polytropic temperature rise within the compression zone in the presence of high concentrations of epoxybutene can cause formation of polymeric materials that deposit on the walls of the compressor and associated piping. The build-up of such polymeric material reduces the operating efficiency of the compressor and can lead to permanent equipment damage and frequent process shutdowns for maintenance, with subsequent loss of production and revenues. Moreover, the large inventory in the absorption/distillation of highly volatile and explosive butadiene and butane is dangerous and leads to higher than average safety-related costs.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,061 addresses the problems inherent with the compression of high concentrations of EpB, as exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,117,012 and 5,312,931, by providing a compression or absorption refrigeration cycle for cooling the epoxybutene absorption zone prior to compression with the reaction diluent, e.g., a C3 to C5 hydrocarbon, preferably butane/butadiene, as the refrigerant. In this fashion, the epoxybutene absorption zone can be operated at pressures less than about 4 bara and a temperature of less than about 40xc2x0 C. without the need for pre-compression or external refrigeration. However, this process also has disadvantages. With pressures in the absorption zone higher than the 4 bara specified in the ""061 patent, the auto-cooling effect provided by the refrigeration cycle is greatly diminished. The temperature of the absorber becomes hotter and the absorptive power of the solvent, i.e., butane/butaidiene is greatly reduced. Thus, for example, at a pressure of 5.5 bara (80 pounds per square inchxe2x80x94psia), the auto-refrigeration effect provides only a temperature of about 60xc2x0 C. Moreover, at pressures above 4 bara, the potential for unwanted condensation of n-butane/butadiene in equipment in the recycle loop increases dramatically. Excessive condensation can cause the recycle gas composition to become flammable, an unsafe and unacceptable operating condition. Finally, as with the ""012 and ""931 patents the inventory of highly volatile and explosive butadiene and butane is large.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,618,954 discloses the recovery of epoxybutene from a butacliene epoxidation reactor effluent gas by countercurrent contact in an absorption zone using a solvent comprising water as a primary component. Epoxybutene is recovered from the water by stripping with an inert gas, similar to the conventional EO recovery process described above. As explained above, water by itself is a poor absorbent for epoxybutene and its use results in uneconomical process due to the required high water to epoxybutene ratio. Moreover, the process as described in the ""954 patent is incomplete and cannot provide purified epoxybutene. No mention is made of the binary epoxybutene-water minimum-boiling azeotrope nor of methods tc obtain purified epoxybutene from this azeotrope with water.
In view of the recovery processes described above, it is apparent that there is a need for an improved process for the efficient and economical recovery and purification of epoxybutene from the product gas of a vapor phase epoxidation reactor.
It has been discovered that epoxybutene can be recovered from a substantially vaporous epoxidation effluent comprising epoxybutene, oxygen, butadiene, and inert reaction diluent, e.g., methane, ethane, nitrogen, and the like, by intimately contacting the vaporous effluent with an effective amount of a high-boiling liquid absorbent or solvent in an absorption zone, such as an absorber, to absorb essentially all of the epoxybutene present in the vaporous reactor effluent. The present invention therefore provides a process for the recovery of epoxybutene from a substantially-gaseous effluent from an epoxidation zone wherein butadiene is contacted with an oxygen-containing gas in the presence of a catalyst and an inert diluent, to produce an epoxidation effluent comprising epoxybutene, butadiene, oxygen, an inert diluent and water which comprises feeding the effluent to an absorption vessel wherein the effluent is intimately contacted with a high-boiling, liquid absorbent to obtain:
(1) a gaseous effluent comprising butadiene, oxygen and an inert diluent from the upper section of the absorption vessel; and
(2) a liquid effluent comprising epoxybutene, the absorbent and water from the lower section of the absorption vessel; wherein the absorbent has a boiling point at ambient pressure of at least 100xc2x0 C.; epoxybutene is 3,4-epoxy-1-butene; and butadiene is 1,3-butadiene.
A second embodiment of the present invention provides for the recovery and purification of epoxybutene from the above-described substantially-gaseous effluent from an epoxidation zone by the steps of:
I. feeding the effluent to an absorption vessel wherein the effluent is intimately contacted with a high-boiling, liquid absorbent to obtain (1) a gaseous effluent comprising butadiene, oxygen and an inert diluent from the upper section of the absorption vessel and (2) a liquid effluent comprising epoxybutene, the absorbent and water from the lower section of the absorption vessel;
II. feeding the liquid effluent (2) of step I, to the middle section of a first distillation column to obtain (1) a distillate effluent comprising epoxybutene and water from the upper section of the distillation vessel and (2) a liquid effluent comprising the absorbent from the lower section of the distillation vessel;
III. allowing distillate (1) from step II to form 2 phases comprising an epoxybutene-rich phase and a water-rich phase; and
IV. feeding the epoxybutene-rich phase from step III to the upper section of an epoxybutene purification distillation column to obtain (1) a distillate effluent comprising epoxybutene and water from the upper section of the distillation vessel; and (2) an effluent comprising (a) liquid epoxybutene from the lower section of the distillation column or (b) liquid or gaseous epoxybutene from the side of the distillation column;
wherein the absorbent has a boiling point at ambient pressure of at least 100xc2x0 C.; epoxybutene is 3,4-epoxy-1-butene; and butadiene is 1,3-butadiene. Additional embodiments of the invention include the refining of the water-rich phase obtained from step II and the removal of absorbent present in effluent comprising butadiene, oxygen and an inert diluent from the upper section of the absorption vessel.

Recovery and purification of 3,4-epoxy-1-butene using high-boiling solvents


A tool for performing a logic built-in self-test of an electronic circuit operating on a clock cycle basis. The tool stores a configurable test signature in a random-access memory together with a pattern counter for a test pattern, wherein a number of the at least one additional signature register corresponds to a number of entries in the random access memory. The tool determines an error based, at least in part, on a compare operation for a given test pattern, wherein the compare operation determines whether the test signature in the first signature register before a capture cycle of a next test pattern differs from the corresponding configurable test signature. The tool stores the error in a corresponding additional signature register.

The present invention relates generally to data processing systems, and more particularly to performing a logic built-in self-test of an electronic circuit operating on a clock cycle basis.
Logic Built-in Self-Test (LBIST) is a mature cost-effective solution for semiconductor testing. LBIST is also applied during system tests, which are operated in the field to ensure system safety and reliability. Procedures to debug or diagnose the application of LBIST support a wide range of test goals like, for example, post-silicon validation, wafer and chip test, as well as system test.
Many diagnostic procedures for LBIST can be used in fabrication or even in-system. LBIST may be used in first silicon analysis or system bring up and debug, where the objective is not only logic diagnosis but also to troubleshoot any potential issue with the test (configuration problems, fencing, clocking, etc.). LBIST is a multi-cyclic self-test. A failing cycle is typically identified by using binary search algorithms.

Logic built-in self-test of an electronic circuit

International Business Machines Corporation


A semiconductor device according to a exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes a reverse spacer exposing a part of an epitaxial silicon layer on a silicon substrate, a gate oxide layer on at least the epitaxial silicon layer and a gate polysilicon layer on the gate oxide layer and at least part of the reverse spacer, and source/drain terminals including a first doped (shallow junction) region in the silicon substrate at a position exterior to the exposed epitaxial silicon layer and a second doped (deep junction) region neighboring the first doped region. The semiconductor device can thus have an epitaxial silicon channel of nanometer size, an ultra-shallow junction, and a deep junction.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method thereof. More particularly, the present invention relates to a transistor having a reverse spacer and a manufacturing method thereof.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Generally, the size of transistors used in integrated circuits of semiconductor devices has been reduced, and transistors of a nanometer scale (e.g., 130 nm, 110 nm, 90 nm, 65 nm or 45 nm) are now desired. For manufacturing nanometer scale transistors, an advanced apparatus and advanced technology are generally used. In particular, advanced technology for forming a very shallow junction and an advanced photolithography apparatus are generally used for manufacturing a nanometer scale transistor.
Furthermore, a higher channel doping concentration is generally beneficial when scaling down typical transistors. However, if the channel doping concentration is increased, mobility of a charge carrier decreases so the performance of the transistor may deteriorate.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention, and therefore, it may contain information that does not form prior art or other information that may be already known in this or any other country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Semiconductor device and manufacturing method thereof


The arrangement includes a pressure relief hatch for closing an opening in a wall in an electric cabinet, which. includes a body having an outer surface, an opposite inner surface, an outer perimeter, and a thickness. The body includes a centre portion with a first thickness, an intermediate portion with a second thickness, and an outer portion with a third thickness. The first thickness is greater than the third thickness and the second thickness decreases in a radially outward direction from the first thickness to the third thickness. A spring keeps the pressure relief hatch in a closed position in the opening during normal operation of the electric cabinet.

A pressure relief arrangement may be formed of a pressure relief hatch mounted on an enclosure comprising electrical equipment. A short circuit inside the enclosure may ignite an arc within the enclosure. The arch may heat up the air surrounding the arc causing the air to expand in an explosive manner. The pressure within the enclosure will thus increase causing deformations to the enclosure. The deformations may break the enclosure causing a danger to people outside the enclosure. Pressure relief hatches or other similar means are thus added into closed enclosures in order to discharge the pressure caused by the arc. The pressure will thus be released in a controlled way and in a controlled direction through the pressure relief hatch in the enclosure.
One problem in prior art pressure relief arrangements may be that the area of the pressure release route for the hot gases may not be sufficiently large. A pressure relief hatch providing a small area in the pressure relief route does not release the pressure in a fast and efficient way, whereby a risk for an explosive break of the enclosure increases.


A system for reconstructing missing packets in a packetized audio TTY stream that includes:                (a) an input 328 operable to receive a plurality of first packets, each comprising one or more TTY tones in a sequence of TTY tones; and        (b) a processor 332 operable to:                    (i) order the packets;            (ii) depacketize the TTY tones in the plurality of first packets;            (iii) determine when a TTY tone is missing from the sequence of TTY tones;            (iv) when a TTY tone is missing, perform at least one of the following steps:                            (1) determine the a TTY tone based on a portion of the tone contained in an adjacent packet; and                (2) determine the a TTY tone based on one of(i) a random or pseudo-random tone selection, (ii) a comparison of a first probability associated with a first TTY character generated from a first tone substituted for the missing a TTY tone with a second probability associated with a second TTY character generated from a second tone substituted for the missing TTY tone, and/or (iii) a comparison of a first ordering of TTY characters comprising the first TTY character and a second ordering of TTY characters comprising the second TTY character with a library of TTY character orderings.

To allow for people having speech and/or hearing disabilities that prevent them from using conventional telephones to communicate over the public switched telephony network, text telephones or teletypewriters (TTY devices), also known as telecommunication devices for the deaf (TTD devices) have been developed. In general, such devices encode characters of text using sequences of audible tones. In particular, in response to receiving a command to transmit a character, a TTY device will generate a sequence of audible tones that is transmitted through the telephone network to a similar TTY device at the receiving end. The TTY device at the receiving end decodes the sequence of audible tones, and displays or otherwise outputs the encoded character.
In the United States, TTY devices communicate with one another using a 45.45 baud frequency shift key protocol defined in ANSI/TIA/EIA 825″ A 45.45 Baud FSK Modem, commonly referred to as Baudot signaling. Baudot signaling transmits characters using a sequence of seven audible tones at either 1400 Hz or 1800 Hz. As shown in FIG. 1, a Baudot or TTY character 100 comprises a start tone 104 of 1800 Hz, five tones 108-124 of either 1400 or 1800 Hz to signal the series of five bits specifying the character, and a stop tone 128 of 1400 Hz. The stop tone 128 is a border separating this TTY character 100 from the next. Between each adjacent pair of tones, a tone border exists, such as the tone borders 132a-h. To provide both numbers, letters, and punctuation marks, each TTY endpoint operates in two modes, namely a number/figure mode and a letter mode. There is no error correction. At 45.45 baud, the duration of each individual tone is 22 ms, though the stop tone 128 is permitted to be as long as 44 milliseconds. The duration of each TTY character 100 is at least 154 milliseconds, which works out to approximately six and a half characters per second. By coincidence, the duration of individual tones used in Baudot signaling is very close to the time segment of a voice communication that is included in a packet of data transmitted in connection with a typical voice over IP (VoIP) communication system.
Voice over IP or IP telephony is rapidly gaining in popularity due to the widespread availability of the Internet. In IP telephony, voice communications are "packetized" or divided into a number of packets at the source communication device and sent over a packet-switched network, such as the Internet, to the destination communication device. This mechanism permits efficient bandwidth utilization, allowing voice and nonvoice data to be mixed on the same infrastructure. The voice communication is converted into a digital representation for inclusion in packets using either waveform codecs or vocoders. The resulting numerical representation is divided up into frames, a number of which are included within a given packet payload. The payload for each packet is typically 20 milliseconds. Each host packet further includes a header (containing the audio encoding scheme, a packet sequence number, the source and destination addresses and other information), trailer, and other "overhead" bytes.
The ability for each packet to take what is, at that instant, the "best" route to the destination is reason why TTY-on-VoIP is unreliable: because packets are free to take different pathways, they cannot be relied upon to arrive at the receiving device before it is their "turn" to be played. Although these packets often arrive eventually, they are regarded as lost because they did not arrive in time, and must therefore be discarded.
Under most circumstances, the loss of occasional packets is not detectable in voice communication. The reason is that VoIP telephones employ packet loss concealment algorithms that trick the human ear by mimicking the acoustic properties of adjacent packets. Although these techniques work well with voice, they do not work with TTY characters. If a packet containing a TTY tone is lost, the VoIP packet loss concealment techniques of the present art are unable to recover it or rebuild it.
Systems for improving the reliability of TTY transmissions have been developed in other domains, for example in connection with digital wireless telephony applications. In wireless telephony, the problem being addressed was not due to packet loss, but was instead caused by the use of voice-optimized audio encoding techniques that cannot encode TTY tones without distortion. All of these approaches rely on a modem-type mechanism, in which the TTY's Baudot tones are not transmitted as an audio stream, but are instead translated into a non-audio data stream. Despite their inherent reliability, these approaches are not entirely satisfactory because they tend to preclude mixed-mode voice and TTY dialog. This is a significant problem because nearly half of all TTY users are hard of hearing, but still speak clearly. These individuals prefer to receive with their TTYs and then speak in response, something they are unable to do on systems that do not permit TTY and voice transmissions to be intermixed.
The impact of packet loss on the quality on TTY communications can be illustrated by a simple example. Assume a VoIP packet size is 20 milliseconds (a typical value) and the packet loss rate is 0.5% (a rate generally regarded as excellent for VoIP communication). An individual TTY text character 100 is at least 154 milliseconds in length and therefore spans eight packets. When there is a 0.5% likelihood that any one of these packets is missing, approximately 4% of all TTY characters will lose one of their packets. Worse yet, the 4% error rate is deceptively low in that if the lost packet is the one that contains the stop tone 128 for that character, subsequent characters, even if transmitted without packet loss, might nonetheless be decoded improperly. A TTY character error rate of more than 1% is generally regarded as unacceptable, primarily because the transmission of information such as bank balances and credit card numbers becomes unreliable. Using a simple statistical model that is based on a 20 millisecond packet size and ignoring the additional deleterious effects that result from dropping a stop tone 128, the 1% character error rate threshold is exceeded when VoIP packet loss rates exceed approximately 0.12%—a packet loss rate generally regarded as unachievable in standard VoIP systems.

Methods for reconstructing missing packets in TTY over voice over IP transmission


Systems and methods of verifying the design of the ASIC during design and implementation phases are provided. The ASIC design is verified utilizing information from a system simulation in the customer's system environment. During system simulation, the invention captures "golden" vectors that may be used to test the ASIC during stand-alone simulation. The outputs generated by the ASIC during stand-alone simulation are compared to the outputs generated during the system simulation. Thus, the customer's system simulation is reproduced without having to reproduce the customer's system environment which allows the operation of the ASIC to be verified during various states of synthesis. Additionally, the test bench for testing the ASIC in stand-alone simulation is automatically generated eliminating the need for the user to manually generate a test bench.

The present invention is related to improved computer-aided methods for creating integrated circuits and, more particularly, to computer-aided methods for design, verification, implementation, and signoff of Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs).
A customer typically approaches a foundry to make an ASIC according to the customer's specifications. The customer's specifications may include input/output (I/O), timing diagrams, state machines, power and thermal requirements, clocking, floorplan area, and Hardware Description Language (HDL) source code. HDL is a programming language that is used to model digital systems at many levels of abstraction ranging from the algorithmic level to the gate level. The complexity of the digital system may vary from that of a simple gate to a complete digital electronic system, or anything in between.
The production of an ASIC is generally performed in two phases: a design phase and an implementation phase. In the design phase, design engineers at the foundry work with the customer to develop the behavioral specifications for the ASIC. Depending on the information provided by the customer, the design engineers may have a very active role in the development of the behavioral specifications. Once the design phase is completed, the design engineers pass the behavioral specifications and other information to implementation engineers at the foundry. The process of passing control from the design phase to the implementation phase is called the design signoff ("signoff"). During the implementation phase, the implementation engineers produce a gate level specification of the ASIC and perform other functions (e.g., layout) required to produce the ASIC.
Throughout the design and implementation phases, HDL has many uses including behavioral specification, gate level specification, and implementation of test benches. There are many different flavors of HDL for modeling digital systems. VHSIC HDL ("VHDL") was developed for the Department of Defense and has subsequently been standardized by the IEEE and ANSI. Verilog HDL is another flavor of HDL that is used in one embodiment of the invention. Although there are different variations of HDL, each has the capability of modeling digital systems at both the behavioral and structural (e.g., gate) level. HDL may also be used to implement a test bench which is a model that is used to simulate and verify the correctness of an HDL hardware model. HDL provides the capability of writing test benches in the same language that describes the hardware.
The present scale of integration (VLSI and ULSI) allows for entire systems to reside on a single chip. However, the design tools and methods that allow for newer levels of integration on a mass scale have traditionally lagged behind the ASIC technology. Currently, there is a need for new tools and methods that improve design, implementation and signoff for larger-scale levels of integration. The present invention fulfills this and other needs.

System simulation for testing integrated circuit models


A system for data protection includes a first computing device comprising a security module; and a storage device coupled to the first computing device via a network interface. The security module comprises at least one of Software Root of Trust (SRoT) and Hardware Root of Trust (HRoT). The security module is further configured to: establish a trust channel between the first computing device and the storage device or storage service; monitor the first computing device and the storage device; create and enforce multi-dimensional data access control by tightly binding data access and permissions to authorized computing devices, users, applications, system services, networks, locations, and access time windows; and take over control of the storage device or storage service in response to a security risk to the system.

Protecting data and ensuring data integrity and resiliency in enterprise environments provides numerous technical and non-technical challenges. For example, the level of trust placed in users, system administrators, applications, and underlying IT infrastructure varies widely and may change at any point in time. Providing continuous, cross-platform data protection against emerging and advanced, persistent threats requires a holistic approach that leverages advanced user and infrastructure monitoring, as well as multi-level data protection technologies.
There are several data protection and trust platforms on the market from providers, for example Ionic, Bear Systems, and Micro Focus. These approaches may have limitations in that the approaches assume that the underlying IT infrastructure and operating systems will maintain not having a security risk. Furthermore, these approaches do not provide multi-layer protection of data, which limits their ability to respond to certain threats. Some data protection products focus on securing specific data flows, which addresses only certain phases of the data life cycle.

Adaptive, multi-layer enterprise data protection and resiliency platform


A model-based method of inspecting a specimen for presence of one or more interferent, such as Hemolysis, Icterus, and/or Lipemia (HI L) is provided. The method includes generating a pixelated image of the specimen in a first color space, determining color components (e.g., an a-value and a b-value) for pixels in the pixelated image, classifying of the pixels as being either liquid or non-liquid, defining one or more liquid regions based upon the pixels classified as liquid, and determining a presence of one or more interferent within the one or more liquid regions. The liquid classification is based upon a liquid classification model. Pixel classification may be based on a trained multiclass classifier. Interference level for the one or more interferent may be provided. Testing apparatus adapted to carry out the method are described, as are other aspects.

Automated testing systems may conduct assays using reagents to identify an analyte or other constituent in a specimen such as urine, blood serum, plasma, interstitial liquid, cerebrospinal liquids, and the like. For convenience and safety reasons, these specimens are almost universally contained within sample containers (e.g., sample tubes). The assay reactions generate various signals that may be manipulated to determine a concentration of analyte or other constituent in the specimen.
Improvements in automated testing technology have been accompanied by corresponding advances in pre-analytical sample preparation and handling operations such as sorting, batch preparation, centrifugation of sample containers to separate sample constituents, cap removal to facilitate fluid access, and the like by automated pre-analytical sample preparation systems called Laboratory Automation Systems (LASs). LASs may automatically transport specimen in sample containers to a number of pre-analytical sample processing stations.
These LASs may handle a number of different specimens contained in standard, bar code-labeled sample tubes. The bar code label may contain an accession number that may be correlated to demographic information that may be entered into a hospital's Laboratory Information System (LIS) along with test orders and other desired information. An operator may place the labeled sample containers onto the LAS system, which may automatically sort and route the sample containers for pre-analytical operations such as centrifugation, decapping, and aliquot preparation, and all prior to the specimen being subjected to clinical analysis by one or more analyzers that may also be part of the LAS.
For certain tests, a serum portion (obtained from whole blood by centrifugation) may be used. A serum separator may be added to the sample container to aid in the separation of the red blood cell portion from the serum portion in some cases. After centrifuging and a subsequent de-capping process, the sample container may be transported to an appropriate analyzer that may extract specimen from the sample container and combine the specimen with one or more reagents in a reaction vessel (e.g., cuvette). Analytical measurements may then be performed, often using a beam of interrogating radiation, for example, and by using photometric or fluorometric absorption readings, or the like. The measurements allow determination of end-point or rate values, from which an amount of analyte or other constituent related to be determined using well-known techniques.
Unfortunately, the presence of certain components (e.g., an interferent) in the specimen as a result of a patient condition or sample processing may adversely affect the accuracy of the results of the analyte measurement obtained from the analyzer. For example, an interferent in the specimen (e.g., serum), which may be unrelated to the patient disease state, may cause a different interpretation of the disease condition of the patient. Pre-analytical variables may include hemolysis (ruptured red blood cells), icterus (excessive bilirubin), and lipemia (high, visible lipid content).
Previously, the integrity of the serum of the specimen is visually inspected by a skilled laboratory technician. This may involve a review of the color thereof. A normal serum has a light yellow to light amber color. Alternately, a serum containing hemolysis may be quite reddish in color. An interferent may arise, for example, if an excess number of red blood cells are damaged, possibly during venipuncture, centrifugation, or after prolonged storage. When red blood cells are damaged, they release low density, reddish-colored hemoglobin into the specimen causing a reddish-color that is said to exhibit "hemolysis." When a hemoglobin concentration of the specimen exceeds about 20 mg/dl, the hemoglobin may interfere with the colorimetric determination of analyte in the analyzer due to the reddish color.
A sample containing icterus may be dark yellow or brown in color. Such an interferent may arise, for example, from an excess of bilirubin, the result of decaying red blood cells being converted in the spleen into bilirubin. Levels of bilirubin above 2-3 mg/dl are visibly yellowish and may, in particular, adversely affect an enzyme-based immunoassay testing in an analyzer. Such a condition is termed bilirubinaemia or icterus.
A sample containing lipemia may be whitish in color. Such an interferent may arise, for example, as a whitish appearance in serum due to the presence of excess lipids in the blood. Such a condition is called lipemia and lipid levels above about 50 mg/dl may interfere with antibody binding in the immunoassay and may accordingly affect the immunoassay result from the analyzer.
After centrifugation, when the red blood cell portion has been separated from the serum, a skilled technician may visually inspect the serum portion and, if judged to not have a normal light yellow to light amber color, the specimen may be discarded. Otherwise, the specimen will be analyzed as ordered. However, visual inspection is very subjective, labor intensive, and fraught with the possibility of human error. Thus, various methods have been implemented to ascertain whether hemolysis, icterus, and lipemia (frequently called "HIL") are present in the serum of the specimen.
Typically, a laboratory technician will assign a hemolytic index, an icteric index, and a lipemic index to the serum of the specimen based upon the color thereof. Based upon the value of the hemolytic index, the icteric index, and the lipemic index, the interpretation of the results from the analyzer can be evaluated. Alternately, if the value of one or more of the hemolytic index, the icteric index, and the lipemic index are too high, the specimen may be discarded without analysis by the analyzer or otherwise sent for remedial measures.
Because manual inspection is labor intensive, costly, and highly subjective, it is becoming increasingly important to evaluate the integrity of the specimen without the use of visual inspection by a laboratory technician. However, in some instances, bar code labels adhered directly to the sample container may partially occlude the specimen, so that there may not be clear opportunity to visually observe the serum of the specimen. One attempt to solve this problem involves optically viewing the serum of the specimen after the serum has been transferred to one of the cuvettes of the testing apparatus. However, this approach utilizes machine time of the analyzer, and, if the integrity of the specimen is compromised, additional machine time is wasted. Furthermore, this procedure cannot be used with clinical analyzers that add reagents to the cuvette prior to adding the serum.
Other systems, such as those described in US Pat. Pub. 2012/0140230 to Miller describes rotating the sample container to find a view window that is unobstructed by the label. However, such systems may be less prone to ease of automation.
Because of problems encountered when an interferent is contained within specimens to be clinically analyzed, there is an unmet need for a method and apparatus adapted to readily determine a presence of such an interferent. The method and apparatus should not appreciably adversely affect the speed at which analytical test results are obtained. Furthermore, the method and apparatus should be able to be used even on labeled sample containers where the label occludes some of the specimen.

Model-based methods and apparatus for classifying an interferent in specimens


A technique for determining an arbitrary delay in a source code word propagated over a channel that introduces the arbitrary delay in the source code word to produce a received code word. The technique is based upon a multiple-shift algorithm to determine the delay by a coarse synchronization process to locate synchronization as contained within a composite code pattern, and a fine synchronization process to pinpoint the delay by examining shifts in the source code word used to form the composite code pattern.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an all-optical Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system and, more particularly, to a methodology and a concomitant system for the optical synchronization of the transmitter and receiver in the CDMA system.
2. Description of the Background Art
Optical synchronization will undoubtedly play a central role in helping to introduce all-optical CDMA networks for future bursty and packet-based communications systems. As the speed of all-optical packet communications increases dramatically, the success of optical synchronization will rest upon introducing a very efficient technique in order to obtain the synchronization with minimal required time.
The majority of published works on all-optical CDMA systems assumes perfect synchronization between each receiver and transmitter pair. However, the article entitled "Performance Analysis in Synchronization and System on CDMA Optical Fiber Networks, by G. C. Yang, as published in IEICE Trans. Comm., vol. E77B, No. 10, pp. 1238–1248, in October, 1994 did consider a simple synchronization method for non-coherent optical CDMA and highlighted the importance of synchronization by showing the degradation in the performance of the system when the synchronization between receiver and transmitter is not ideal. Later, the article entitled "Performance of a Serial-Search Synchronizer for Fiber-base Optical CDMA Systems in the Presence of Multi-user Interference" by Mustapha et al., as published in Proc. SPIE. Vol. 3899, pp. 297–306, introduced, first, a serial-search synchronizer. Then, most recently, Mustapha et al. in an article entitled "Dual-Threshold Sequential Detection Code Synchronization", published in the Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 18, No. 12, pp. 1742–1748, December 2000, demonstrated a second-type of sequential method for synchronization of an optical orthogonal code (OOC)-CDMA system. Guided by the aforementioned work, the present inventors have considered the performance of simple serial-search algorithm for code acquisition in an optical CDMA system using OOCs and have noted that the mean time required for synchronization is in the order of half code length bits duration. Long code lengths may be used in a typical system that therefore requires a long period for synchronization.
It is clear that the art is devoid of a multiple-shift technique which not only is simple in its structure but it also greatly improves the performance of synchronization process.

Method and system for multiple-shift code acquisition of optical orthogonal codes in optical CDMA systems


Techniques for providing secure communications between two or more end units of a call processing system via a call complex or other communication system switch. The end units each generate a set of session key lists including a stack-based session key list for each of the terminals coupled thereto. The multiple sets of session key lists are communicated from the end units to the call complex in a secure manner as part of corresponding authentication protocols carried out between the end units and the call complex. In establishing secure communications between an originating end unit and one or more additional end units, the call complex selects, as an end unit to end unit session key, a session key from a session key list in a given one of the sets of session key lists associated with the originating end unit. The selected end unit to end unit session key is used to provide secure communications between the originating end unit and at least one other end unit via the call complex. The same end unit to end unit session key is preferably used for any additional end units subsequently conferenced into the secure communication channel between the originating end unit and a specified destination end unit. Upon termination of the secure communication channel, one or more new session keys can be generated for the affected terminals so as to maintain a desired minimum stack size for the session key lists.

Many conventional communication system call complexes, such as private branch exchanges (PBXs) and other premises-based telephone switches, are not configured to provide adequate security for Internet protocol (IP) communications. The security of IP communications processed by certain conventional call complexes may therefore be undermined through a variety of different types of attacks, including IP spoofing, denial of service, etc. These security issues are becoming increasingly important with the growth of voice-over-IP (VoIP) communications using conventional call complexes.
The above-noted security issues have been addressed to a limited extent by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Draft ITU-T Recommendation H.235, "Security and Encryption for H Series (H.323 and other H.245 based) Multimedia Terminals," January 1998, which is incorporated by reference herein. Unfortunately, this ITU-T Recommendation has a number of drawbacks. For example, the ITU-T Recommendation fails to provide adequate protocols and other techniques for functions such as key management and distribution, key setup and initialization, and adding participants to or dropping participants from a given call.
Although a wide variety of security solutions are known in the context of data transmission over the Internet, such solutions are often not directly applicable to the telephony-based call processing system context. For example, these existing data transmission solutions are often configured to operate with devices arranged in the form of a peer-to-peer network, and therefore do not provide techniques for conferencing multiple parties into a given secure channel or transferring a secure channel to another end unit device or application.
Without adequate security, conventional call processing systems configured to handle IP communications will continue to be vulnerable to the types of attacks noted above.
A need therefore exists for techniques for improving the security associated with the processing of IP communications as well as other communications in call complexes and end units of a call processing system.

Method and apparatus for secure internet protocol communication in a call processing system


A method is described for forming a dynamic random access memory cell capacitor in which a polysilicon spacer is formed on top of the bottom polysilicon electrode to construct a tub shape and a wet dip is used to remove silicon oxide from cavities under the bottom polysilicon electrode, increasing the overlap with the top polysilicon electrode and thus increasing the surface area of the capacitor without increasing the area on the substrate occupied by the capacitor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of fabricating a dynamic random access memory having an increased capacitance capacitor by incorporating a tub shape and by increasing the bottom electrode and top electrode overlap area.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the packing density of DRAMs. Large DRAM devices are normally silicon based, and each cell typically embodies a single MOS field effect transistor with its source connected to a storage capacitor. This large integration of DRAMs has been accomplished by a reduction in individual cell size. However, the reduction in cell size results in a decrease in storage capacitance leading to reliability drawbacks, such as a lowering source/drain ratio and undesirable signal problems. In order to achieve the desired higher level of integration, the technology must keep almost the same storage capacitance on a greatly reduced cell area.
Efforts to maintain or increase the storage capacitance in memory cells with greater packing densities have included the use of a stacked capacitor design in which the capacitor cell uses the space over the device area for the capacitor plates. In their U.S. Pat. No. 5,053,351 to Fazan et al, the inventors describe a three-dimensional stacked capacitor which they call a stacked E cell. The storage node plate of this capacitor has an E-shaped cross-section. U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,018 to Kimura et al describes two separate embodiments of a stacked capacitor. The first embodiment provides for both top and bottom surfaces of the capacitor plate to be used for storage. The second embodiment provides sidewall structures for additional capacitance. Even higher capacitance can be achieved by incorporating a variety of techniques into one improved process.

Method of making a fully used tub DRAM cell

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company


A radio installation kit for automobiles comprising a frame with rearward facing walls, mounting plates which snap onto the frame and mounting brackets formed on the plates at predetermined positions. Mounting plates with brackets at predetermined positions may be assembled with the frame providing a great variety of bracket positions that allow maximum vehicle application coverage. All of the components are constructed with out the need for expensive slide tooling.

This invention relates to a device used to facilitate the mounting of equipment such as radios and equalizers into a vehicle dash board in the vehicle's original radio location.
Large numbers of consumers wish to have radios installed into their vehicles for many reasons. Their original radio may have been stolen, their vehicle may have come without a radio, or they wish to upgrade their present radio to one of higher audio standards.
Radios are generally installed into vehicles by either a professional radio installer or by a consumer, usually the vehicle owner, or an amateur acquaintance with experience in the field.
Almost every vehicle manufactured is supplied with a radio from the factory, and in the cases where no radio is supplied the manufacturer places a dummy panel in its location. Each of these vehicles differ with respect to the manner in which their radios are mounted; they may utilize mounting brackets attached to the top, bottom or side walls of the radio, which are in turn attached to the vehicle sub-dash, or they may be attached to a dashboard subassembly directly with screws.
These factory radios are of many differing shapes, styles and configurations. The typical aftermarket radios are generally much smaller than the factory radios, having been designed to fit in a multitude of locations. In addition, aftermarket radios are manufactured with several differing mounting provisions and escutcheon shapes and sizes.
Each differing mounting vehicle radio configuration requires a different mounting bracket and trim escutcheon configuration. The differing bracket and escutcheon configurations are referred to as mounting kits in the trade. These kits are generally configured to mount a particular type and style aftermarket radio into a particular type and style vehicle. Many radio installation businesses stock hundreds of mounting kits to insure the ready installation of a radio into any consumers vehicle.
The ease of use of the mounting kit by anybody installing the radio is of paramount concern. If an excessive amount of time is required to assemble the mounting kit professional installers must raise the cost of the installation, and if excessive adjustments must be made to insure a proper fit, then both professional and amateur installers will be frustrated by the procedure.
The cost of the mounting kit must either be absorbed by the radio installer, or be charged to the consumer. In either case the cost must be very low so as to not destroy the installers profit, nor to make the overall cost of the radio and mounting kit prohibitive to the consumer. This latter reason is especially true where the consumer purchases the radio at a store and installs it themself. Many stores rely on a low cost for this very necessary component in order to keep from overburdening the consumer with add ons that become a major portion of the overall radio purchase.
Typically, radio mounting kits are manufactured from injection molded plastic or bent sheet metal. Injection molded plastic parts are less expensive than bent sheet metal parts but are restricted in shapes to those defined by the injection molding process. This process dictates that all features must be perpendicular with the mold parting line, so that holes in walls perpendicular to the parting line must be made with the use of slide tooling; whereby a feature is tooled into a loose portion of the mold which is moved by the mold when it opens and closes. This type of tooling is very expensive, prone to wear and requires considerable time to make.
Several multiple configuration mounting kits have been created to address the problems associated with the large number of individual mounting kits stocked by stores. U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,564 to Alves et al. shows a mounting kit with a frame comprising a flat face to which the radio is mounted and four perpendicular return walls. These walls are provided with slots which proceed from the rear of the flat face out through the rear of each return wall. "L" shaped brackets are provided which have slots through one face and a single hole through the other face. The face with the single hole is placed against one of the return walls on the frame with the hole aligned with one of the slots. A screw is inserted into the single hole and passes through one of the slots in the frame and into a fastener such as a nut on the inside of the return wall. When installed to the frame with the slotted sides sticking out a large number of possible mounting configurations may be attained. However, since the slots are open at the rear it is structurally impossible to place the slots any closer then 19 mm (0.75"). This severely limits the configurations available.
In order to mount this radio kit to differing vehicles, the brackets must be fastened to the return walls in specific locations for each vehicle. This mounting frame is configured for conventional molding and it is impossible to inscribe specific notes or indicia on the faces of the return walls, consequently it is impossible to describe to the installer the proper positioning of the bracket with respect to front to rear location. The printing of a manual with positioning guides is expensive and impractical to supply due to it having to contain positions for hundreds of vehicles. Installers must loosely attach the brackets to the frame and then temporarily mount the kit into the dashboard of the vehicle, and replace removed dashboard components, including the dash bezel. The frame is then pushed or pulled until it is in the proper position. The dash components must be removed again, without disturbing the location of the mounting brackets. The kit is removed and the screws tightened. This procedure takes an inordinate amount of time and is fraught with possibilities for error, such as a small unnoticed movement of the frame which would cause a tilted or recessed radio installation, forcing the removal and reinstallation of the radio.
The fasteners used must be very shallow, as the space between the inside frame and the aftermarket radio may be as little as 1.5 mm (0.05") per side. In addition, the use of the fasteners adds greatly to the cost of the kit.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,420 to Angle et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,386 to Putman et al. both show a mounting kit with a frame comprising a flat face to which the radio is mounted and four perpendicular return walls. These walls are provided with holes in various locations. "L" shaped brackets are provided which have slots through on one face and a single hole through the other face. The face with the single hole is placed against one of the return walls on the frame with the holes aligned with one of the holes. A screw is inserted into the single hole and passes through the hole in the frame and into a fastener such as a nut on the inside of the return wall. When installed to the frame with the slotted sides sticking out a fixed number of possible mounting configurations may be attained. In order to mount this radio kit to differing vehicles the brackets must be fastened to the return walls in specific locations for each vehicle. As the number of holes is limited by the structural strength of the materials on a fixed number of combinations are possible.
The holes are created through the use of slide tooling on all four sides of the mounting frame, which is expensive and adds substantially to the manufacturing cost of the kit. Further, this method requires the use of fasteners which additionally increase the cost.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,699,341 to Ponticelli describes a radio installation kit which utilizes a four sided frame constructed with a multitude of rectangular openings formed upon each side. Numerous accessories, such as brackets, and trim escutcheons are press fit into the openings. The openings are fixed in positions allowing a only a fixed number of combinations with which brackets may be assembled. The frame must be created utilizing slide tooling and the press in accessories require a bonding agent to hold them in place, both of which add substantially to the overall cost of the installation kit.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,978 to Ponticelli shows a radio installation kit with a face area where a radio may be mounted and U shaped return rails in the corners. Between the return rails are thin walls which are constructed with square holes adjacent to the rails. Brackets are shown which slide down the U shape rail in such a way as to be held to the rail. A tab is shown on the brackets which will fit into the square holes on the thin walls. A tool is used to slide the bracket down the rail until the correct square hole is located. The structural properties of the thin wall prevent the holes from being closer than 3 mm (0.125"). When the thickness of the bracket is added, the smallest adjustment, front to back, is no less than 6 mm (0.25"). The rails are provided only in the corner areas, allowing a very limited area to which brackets may reach. The square openings must be created with the use of slide tooling.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,106,039 to Gross shows a radio installation kit which is comprised of a mounting frame having a face to which a radio may be mounted and return walls along the edges of the face. The return walls are provided with openings to which ancillary panels may be mounted. These ancillary panels are constructed with keyed openings through which are pushed keyed brackets. The brackets are first pushed through the openings in the panels and then the panels are secured to the frame using mounting hardware.
Several problems present themselves, first only a limited number of keyed openings are possible on any panel to insure its structural strength, consequently many such panels are required. As the openings are in fixed positions the advent of any new, and different vehicle renders the kit obsolete, unless new panels are supplied for the existing kits. This of course is an expensive procedure.
Secondly, the use of fasteners to secure the panels to the frame creates two additional problems, one being the limited amount of space within the kit for the fasteners, and two being the fact that the fastener on the outside of the frame is not always to the front of the bracket: some vehicles have very tight mounting considerations and it is the industry standard to place the fastener for the bracket forward of the bracket to ensure adequate space for it. Positioning the fastener behind the bracket may cause the installer to modify the vehicle in order to fit the kit into the radio cavity.
It is clear from the foregoing that the current state of the art in the field of radio installation kitting has not produced a radio installation kit which is capable of adapting all aftermarket radios to a great variety of automobiles at a reasonable cost.


According to one embodiment, a guide pattern data correcting method is for correcting guide pattern data of a physical guide for formation of a polymer material to be microphase-separated. The physical guide has a plurality of concave portions in the guide pattern data, and at least two concave portions out of the plurality of concave portions are connected to each other. The guide pattern data is subjected to correction by shifting or rotation of at least either of the two connected concave portions.

As candidates for a next-generation lithography technique in a semiconductor element manufacturing process, a double patterning technique by means of ArF-immersion exposure, EUV lithography, nanoimprinting, and the like are known. These lithography techniques have held a variety of problems such as a cost increase and through-put deterioration in association with increased fineness of a pattern.
Under these circumstances, self-assembly (DSA: Directed Self-Assembly) has been expected to be applied to the lithography technique. Since the self-assembly occurs due to a voluntary behavior of energy stabilization, a pattern with high dimensional accuracy can be formed. In particular, a technique of applying microphase separation of a high-polymer block copolymer enables formation of periodic structures in a variety of shapes of several to several hundred nm (nanometers) by simple coating and anneal processes. By transforming the high-polymer block copolymer into a spherical shape, a cylindrical shape, a lamellar shape or the like in accordance with a composition ratio of its block, and changing the size of the copolymer in accordance with its molecular weight, it is possible to form a dot pattern, a hole or a pillar pattern, a line pattern, or the like, having a variety of dimensions.
In order to form a desired pattern in a broad range by means of DSA, it is of necessity to provide a guide for controlling a generation position of a polymer phase formed by self-assembly. As the guide known are: a physical guide (graphoepitaxy) which has a concavo-convex structure with respect to the substrate surface and forms a microphase-separation pattern in its concave portion; and a chemical guide (chemical epitaxy) which is formed to be an underlayer of the DSA material and controls, based on a difference in its surface energy, a formation position of the microphase separation pattern.
Since the microphase separation pattern is formed with respect to a previously formed guide pattern, its alignment to a foundation pattern (underlying pattern) as an ultimate aligned object is indirect alignment, thereby causing low alignment accuracy.

Guide pattern data correcting method, pattern forming method, and computer readable record medium


Apparatus for detecting a discontinuity within a non-biological element located within a biological structure, the apparatus comprising: a microwave energy source; a first antenna coupled to the microwave energy source and arranged to transmit the microwave energy into the biological structure; a second antenna arranged to receive at least a portion of the transmitted microwave energy; an antenna carrier arranged to have the first and second antenna affixed thereon and including means for moving the first and second antenna with respect to the biological structure; and a signal processing unit coupled to the second antenna arranged to determine the phase and/or magnitude response of the received microwave energy as a function of the position of the antennas with respect to the biological structure and provide an indication of the location of the discontinuity within the non-biological element according to the phase and/or magnitude response.

In some surgical procedures metallic inserts are inserted into a patients body for the purpose of repairing severe bone fractures and breakages caused, for example, in vehicle accidents. One group of such inserts include metal pins, or cylindrical bars. After implantation one or more locking holes are drilled through the biological tissue structure (skin, fat, bone, etc.) at the distal and proximal ends for the purpose of securing the inserts. Normally, the location, drilling, and locking of proximal holes in the insert is not a major technical challenge, but distal hole interlocking of the inserts is a highly specialised and technically demanding procedure, particularly when it comes to the placement of distal locking screws through a locking hole in the metal inserts.
Traditional techniques for distal locking of inserts include the use of mechanical jigs and the free hand technique, and X-ray machines. The mechanical method is prone to providing inaccurate information and a common problem experienced by surgeons is that once a hole has been inaccurately drilled it is virtually impossible to drill a second hole since the correct position of the hole is normally very close to the existing hole, thus causing the drill to slip and follow the path of the first hole. The use of X-ray machines is time consuming, requires specialised personnel to operate, and presents a risk of staff/patient exposure to potentially harmful doses of ionised radiation.
Distal interlocking is acknowledged as being the most difficult part of the insert insertion procedure. When difficulties are encountered in such a procedure X-ray screening times (exposure to the patient and the surgical team) can be greater than ten minutes, and the operating time can be greater than one hour. Difficulties often arise due to the fact that the radiographer is unable to provide the surgeon with the required image. This is often due to the fact that the surgeon is unable to manipulate the X-ray machine to produce the required image because the machine is not sterile and is cumbersome to use, thus it is physically impossible to place the X-ray head close to the fracture site.

Apparatus and method for detecting a discontinuity within a non-biological element located within a biological structure


An apparatus which receives a high definition television (HDTV) signal having a plurality of signal components, delays a reference signal component which is one of the plurality of signal components and synchronizes respective phases of the plurality of signal components with the phase of the reference signal component.

The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for synchronizing respective phases of high definition television signal components. The present invention is applicable to an encoder which encodes the high definition television signal.
The high definition television (abbreviated HDTV hereinafter) signal consists of a combination of red (R), green (G) and blue (B) signal components (referred to as a RGB signal hereinafter) or one luminance signal (Y) and two color-difference signal (P.sub.R and P.sub.B) components (referred to as a YP.sub.R P.sub.B signal hereinafter). Each signal component of the RGB signal has a bandwidth of 30 MHz. On the other hand, in the YP.sub.R P.sub.B signal, combinations of the Y signal with 20 MHz and each of the P.sub.R and P.sub.B signals with 7 MHz and the Y signal with 30 MHz and each of the P.sub.R and P.sub.B signals with 15 MHz are known. The RGB signal or the YP.sub.R P.sub.B signal is encoded at a basic rate of 1.2 Gbit/s by means of a pulse code modulation (PCM) encoding method, an interframe encoding method, or the like.
The respective signal components of the RGB signal or the YP.sub.R P.sub.B signal are individually transmitted via different coaxial cables. Therefore, each phase of each of the three signal components must be successfully synchronized with one another, otherwise the image quality will be lowered so that, for instance, a picture includes a blurred edge. Accordingly, many restrictions are imposed on a conventional HDTV system design to synchronize respective phases of the HDTV signal components. For example, interfaces are standardized and coaxial cables each having the same length are used. In the more concrete conventional HDTV system shown in FIG. 1 comprising a video tape recorder (VTR) 41, an encoder 47 and an optical transmission line 48, respective interfaces used for the VTR 41 and the encoder 47 are standardized and each coaxial cable therebetween has the same length. The encoder 47 comprises analog to digital (A/D) converters 42-1 to 42-3, a horizontal synchronizing signal detecting circuit 43, a phase locked loop (PLL) circuit 44, a processor 45 and an electric to optical converter (referred to as OS hereinafter) 46. Each HDTV signal component is transmitted from the VTR 41 to the encoder 47 via a corresponding coaxial cable connected to a corresponding one of the A/D converters 42-1 to 42-3. The synchronizing signal detecting circuit 43 is coupled to one of the coaxial cable and the PLL circuit 44. The PLL circuit 44 is further connected to respective A/D converters 42-1 to 42-3. The A/D converters 42-1 to 42-3 are respectively connected to the processor 45, and the processor 45 is connected to the OS 46. The horizontal synchronizing signal detecting circuit 43 detects a horizontal synchronizing signal of one of the signal components, for example, the Y signal.
In operation, each signal component of the YP.sub.R P.sub.B signal is first input from the VTR 41 to the corresponding A/D converter via the corresponding coaxial cable. On the other hand, the Y signal is input to the horizontal synchronizing signal detecting circuit 43, so that the horizontal synchronizing signal thereof is detected. Next, the PLL circuit 44 divides and synchronizes its clock with the detected horizontal synchronizing signal. Then the clock is output to respective A/D converters 42-1 to 42-3 so as to be used for the sampling of each signal component. Thus, each analog signal component is converted into a digital signal component and input into the processor 45. Then the processor 45 encodes each digital signal component and outputs it to the OS 46. Lastly, the OS 46 converts the HDTV signal into the optical signal and transmits it via an optical transmission line 48.
However, the above conventional HDTV system has the following disadvantage in that too many restrictions are imposed on the system design thereof.

Method and apparatus for synchronizing respective phases of high definition television signal components


This invention provides for a hand-held clamping tool to position and hold two pipe flanges in place allowing for the alignment the bolt holes and the gasket that in placed between the pipe flanges by using an alignment spike; and then holding the pipe flange and the gaskets in place while bolts are installed to join the two gasket sections together. The invention also has a detachable alignment spike and a also has a calibration mark on the alignment spike. The invention also describes a tool for positioning and holding ISO flanges.

Facilities that use chemicals to produce products often have long pipe sections distributing the chemical products to the various machines that use the chemicals. For example, pharmaceutical companies use precursor chemicals in the final manufacture of drugs, semiconductor companies use chemicals to process wafers, and energy companies use pipe sections to distribute distillates.
Installation of long pipe section often involves joining of those pipe sections using flanged connectors at each end of the pipe section. These flange connectors typically have bolt holes to allow the installation of, and then the tightening of these bolts to connect the pipes. Once the bolts are tightened each pipe section abuts the other and a seal is formed.
The connection from two abutted pipes often does not form a perfect seal. This is because the flanges are not perfectly level and smooth. Also, the bolts connecting the pipes between the pipes may It is also normal to have a gasket installed between the pipe sections and the purpose of the gasket is to provide a seal between the individual pipe sections. The problem of installing long pipe sections is that the pipes are sometimes located in ceiling areas where installation can be difficult as a single pipefitter is usually on a ladder and must hold and simultaneously align the pipe. Further the alignment of the gasket is also difficult.
Typical pipe flanges have been specified by the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) and typically have a flange portion with holes for bolts. Pipe flanges that are made to standards called out by ASME B16.5 or ASME B16.47, and MSS SP-44. They are typically made from forged materials and have machined surfaces. ASME B16.5 refers to nominal pipe sizes (NPS) from ½″ to 24″. B16.47 covers NPSs from 26″ to 60″. Each specification further delineates flanges into pressure classes: 150, 300, 400, 600, 900, 1500 and 2500 for B16.5, and B16.47 delineates its flanges into pressure classes 75, 150, 300, 400, 600, 900. However these classes do not correspond to maximum pressures in psi. Instead, the maximum pressure depends on the material of the flange and the temperature. For example, the maximum pressure for a Class 150 flange is 285 psi, and for a Class 300 Flange it is 740 psi (both are for ASTM A105 Carbon Steel and temperatures below 100 F).
The gasket type and bolt type are generally specified by the standard(s); however, sometimes the standards refer to the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (B&PVC) for details (see ASME Code Section VIII Division 1—Appendix 2). These flanges are recognized by ASME Pipe Codes such as ASME B31.1 Power Piping, and ASME B31.3 Process Piping.
Materials for flanges are usually under ASME designation: SA-105 (Specification for Carbon Steel Forgings for Piping Applications), SA-266 (Specification for Carbon Steel Forgings for Pressure Vessel Components), or SA-182 (Specification for Forged or Rolled Alloy-Steel Pipe Flanges, Forged Fittings, and Valves and Parts for High-Temperature Service). In addition, there are many "industry standard" flanges that in some circumstance may be used on ASME work.
The product range includes SORF, SOFF, BLRF, BLFF, WNRF (XS, XXS, STD & Schedule 20, 40, 80), WNFF (XS, XXS, STD & Schedule 20, 40, 80), SWRF (XS & STD), SWFF (XS & STD), threaded RF, threaded FF & LJ, with sizes from ½″ to 16″. The bolting material used for flange connection is stud bolts mated with two nut (washer when required). In petrochemical industries, ASTM A193 B7 STUD & ASTM A193 B16 stud bolts are used as these have high tensile strength.
Pipe alignment tools have been documented in United States Issued Patent No.'s: U.S. Pat. No. 2,451,702 to Weigand; U.S. Pat. No. 2,800,867 to Smith; U.S. Pat. No. 3,290,971 to Belval; U.S. Pat. No. 3,735,472 to Silverman; U.S. Pat. No. 6,016,592 to Lavender, U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,840 to McCormick, et. al. None of these aforementioned tools solve the problem of the concurrent alignment of pipes with flanges while simultaneously holding those pipes into place.
Therefore, there is a need for a novel and improved clamp for the alignment of pipes during the installation and coupling of the pipes.


An electro-plasmonic array is disclosed. The electro-plasmonic array includes a substrate and a plurality of nanoantennas disposed on a surface of the substrate, each of the electro-plasmonic nanoantennas including a conductive nanodisk and a conforming biocompatible electrochromic polymer layer.

Electro-optical translators, which convert electrogenic activity to photonic signals, may be used for optical detection of electric-field dynamics. However, conventional translators lack high signal-to-noise ratio measurement capability due to low photon counts (e.g., voltage sensitive dyes and quantum dots) and/or low electric-field sensitivities (e.g., plasmonic nanoantenna). Plasmonic nanoantennas, which focus light beyond diffraction limit, present a plethora of exciting opportunities for biomedical applications. Strongly enhanced near fields associated to localized surface plasmons (LSPs) facilitate transduction of tiny fluctuations in the local refractive index into readily detectable resonance wavelength shifts in the far-field spectra without near-field optics or physical connections.
Currently, label-free biosensing nanoantenna technologies based on refractive index change are capable of single molecule accumulation on its surface. However, progress towards real-time optical detection of local electric field dynamics, which is highly desirable for recording the electrophysiological activity of excitable cells, remains elusive. During the past decade, there has been a concerted effort to develop plasmonic probes based on inherent electric-field sensitivity of noble metals. However, inherent electric-field sensitivity of metals are low: electro-optic effects in metals are weak due to the high electron densities. Optical measurements based on conventional plasmonic nanoantennas are dominated by the optical shot noise. Accordingly, there is a need for new class of extremely bright non-fluorescent optical probes that can sensitively detect local electric-field dynamics.

Electro-plasmonic nanoantenna for extracellular optical detection of electrogenic signals

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