A method for removing moisture and contaminants, at the monolayer level, from the surface of planar and non-planar objects such as semiconductor wafers or corrugated epitaxial layers. The apparatus comprises of two process chambers. Each chamber contains a selected solvent. The interior of each chamber is saturated with the vapors from their respective solvents. The first solvent of the first process chamber has a boiling point much lower than the boiling points of the second solvent in the second process chamber and a rinsing solvent. Vapors from the first solvent displace the rinsing solvent. Vapors from the second solvent displace the first solvent and any other contaminants; the second solvent is then removed resulting in a dry, contaminant free surface.

Sample substrate surfaces such as wafer surfaces are important in determining the quality of the microelectronic fabrication product. Semiconductor substrate crystals, also called boules, are mechanically trimmed to a proper diameter forming a wafer. The wafer is dipped in a chemical etchant to even out any mechanical damage. The wafer also undergoes a series of cleaning steps. These steps remove residual contaminants on the wafer surface. They are of particular interest because the overall device quality may be negatively affected by the presence of trace contaminants.
Epitaxial growth applications demand contaminant-free sample substrate surfaces. A polished bulk grown sample substrate such as a wafer is used as a foundation. A much higher-grade epitaxial layer is grown onto the wafer surface. The new crystal layer has a similar crystal structure to the base wafer. The improved grade is compatible for direct device fabrication. Achieving a chemically pure substrate surface for epitaxial growth is critical to obtaining a high yield from the subsequent fabrication of devices from the epitaxial material.
To ensure a high quality yield, contaminants must be removed from the substrate surface without damaging or undesirably altering the surface. Total metallic impurities on the cleaned surface should be less than 10.sup.10 atoms/cm.sup.2 ; particles greater than 0.1 micrometer in size should be present at less than 0.03 particles /cm.sup.2. The desired cleaning protocol should also utilize contamination-free and non-corrosive cleaning agents that are safe and economical for use in batch manufacturing processes.
One major cleaning approach known in the art is wet cleaning. Several types of chemical contaminants, including molecular, ionic, atomic, and gaseous contaminants, can be found on the substrate surface. Wet cleaning techniques use organic solvents for pre-cleaning, the acids within ultrasonic baths to etch away defects, followed by a deionized water rinse, and finally drying. Several effective cleaning agents are described in the literature. Some of these include Hydrofloric acid solutions (e.g. 49 wt % HF), Sulfuric acid--Hydrogen peroxide mixtures (e.g. 98% H.sub.2 SO.sub.4, 30% H.sub.2 O.sub.2), and NH.sub.4 OH, HCl solutions. The acidic and oxidizing solutions selectively form soluble alkali and metal salts by dissolution and or complexing the contaminants. After this reaction, contaminants can then be rinsed away. The surface is dried to remove any residual matter.
Wafer drying is an important step for ensuring that a cleaning process is successful in eliminating contamination. Within the semiconductor industry, a variety of drying techniques have been developed with varying degrees of success. Three such basic methods include: spin drying, Marangoni surface tension drying, and single solvent vapor drying.
Spin drying technique is believed to have some disadvantages. Recontamination can occur from residual impurities on the back side of the sample. In addition, the vacuum apparatus used to secure the wafer while spinning can cause stress-related damage to softer semiconductor materials such as Indium phosphide (InP), Indium arsenide (InAs), or Indium antimonide (InSb).
Another technique, known as Marangoni drying, relies on the change in water/air surface tension as a sample substrate is slowly removed from an alcohol/water solution. The removal speed that results in a dry surface is strongly related to the surface roughness. Hence, for uniform surfaces, such as planar semiconductor substrates, Marangoni drying is a suitable technique. However, for materials with patterned surfaces, Maragoni drying is less effective since it does not provide a means for properly drying all the nonplanar and transition regions.
A third technique, single solvent vapor drying primarily using isopropyl alcohol (IPA), is more effective than spin drying and has recently experienced a great amount of development. Several patents in this area, including U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,390 by Lawson et. al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,950 and 5,054,210 by Schumacher, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,970 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,736,758 by Kusuhara basically use a two zone process to dry wafers. The first zone consists of an ambient saturated with vapors from a solvent such as isopropyl alcohol (IPA). A sample substrate just removed from a deionized (DI) water rinse cycle is left in the first zone long enough to allow the IPA to displace the DI water from the surface. After a sufficient amount of time, the sample substrate is moved into the second cooler zone. The inventors claim that in the cooler second zone, rapid condensation and gravitational removal of IPA from the surface occurs.
However, during an investigation into the use of single vapor drying technique, the present inventor found that the technique does not sufficiently remove the contaminants. Contaminants present on the substrate surface are revealed during subsequent epitaxial growth. During attempts at epitaxial regrowth on gratings for first order distribute feedback (DFB) lasers, with features as small as 400 angstroms, morphology problems emerged. These morphology problems had a very negative impact on the number of devices fabricated from the material. This low yield is undesirable. The contamination is most likely caused by the presence of droplets of solvent and residue that remain on the surface even after the IPA vapor dry, flash cooling, and high purity N.sub.2 blow drying.
In light of the deficiencies encountered in these wafer drying techniques, the final drying step still represents a performance bottleneck in manufacturing lines developed to fabricate deep-sub micron devices. Trace amounts of water vapor and other contamination that remain on the surface of patterned substrates after a thorough chemical cleaning should be removed. Thus, it is desirable to provide a vapor drying system that removes both moisture and cleaning agents from the surface of planar and non-planar sample substrates.


A world time multi-function watch for providing the local time at any location on earth by entry of the cartesian coordinates of that location through the bezel of the watch or by means of a GPS unit. The bezel is a high resolution input device which enables the cartesian coordinates to be input in increments of one degree. The coordinates are used to access a database of world time zones to determine the time zone in which the entered coordinates lie. Appropriate adjustments are made to reflect time zone adjustments with respect to a predetermined reference time line and to reflect the local observance of daylight savings time. One set of analog hands will automatically move to display the time at the selected location. The watch can be linked to a GPS unit through an optical, spread-spectrum rf or cable interface, by manually entering the information through the bezel, or through a wrist mounted unit linked directly or through an appropriate interface.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic wristwatch which has the ability to compute the local time based on cartesian coordinates which are entered through the bezel or GPS unit which acts as a high resolution data entry mechanism. This device is of particular interest to aviators and other professionals.
2. Prior Art
This invention is directed to a method for retrieving the local time adjusted for local observance of daylight savings time at any location on earth by entry of the cartesian coordinates corresponding to that location. In the preferred embodiment, this invention is described in the context of a wristwatch. In order to achieve a system which operates with an extremely high degree of resolution it is necessary to use a high resolution input device. In this respect, previous methods of inputting data into a wristwatch have fallen far short of achieving the necessary resolution to accommodate the entry of cartesian coordinates without resorting to a keyboard. In addition, there are no other known systems which provide the local time at a specified location based on cartesian coordinates.
The crown of the watch has long been used as a means of providing power to the watch through winding, setting the hands of the watch both mechanically and electronically by using small electric pulse generators, entering information into the watch, and changing the mode of operation of the watch. However, the crown is not adaptable to being a high resolution input device as it is extremely small and difficult to maneuver.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,477,508 discloses a cylinder or thumb wheel which is disposed perpendicular to the normal position of a crown. This thumb wheel is used to scroll through a variety of menus. The speed of thumb wheel rotation controls the speed of scrolling. The desired menu selection is chosen by pressing a button. This provides an inconvenient and hard to access user interface. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,687 an analog timepiece with data entry dials is proposed. This illustrates the primary obstacle in creating a complex watch interface which has been the need to use miniature physical controls for the great multiplicity of commands required to be input. The proposed watch overcomes some of these problems by employing a large ring control device connected to an absolute encoder thereby providing a great multiplicity of positions.
Several methods of utilizing capacitive encoding to provide absolute encoding to detect the position of a shaft are known. The primary limitation of these methods, however, is the width of the track for the capacitive pads. When applied to a watch sized encoder, none of the prior art methods use a track less than one-half inch wide. In order to be useful under the bezel of a watch, the track needs to be approximately one-eighth inch wide. The instant invention complies with the spatial requirements of a wristwatch.
Various other methods of implementing absolute encoding, using brushes with multiple tracks or multiple brushes with two tracks currently exist. But the multiple track encoders are too wide to fit under a bezel, and the multiple brush encoders suffer from a low life span. In the proposed invention, a system for absolute encoding is disclosed which uses one track, multiple brushes, and has a very long life span and complies with the spatial requirements of a wristwatch.
Many methods have been proposed to establish and display local time at multiple points on the earth with a watch. Some systems assume the 24 theoretical time zones spaced every 15 degrees around the earth is correct. These methods are inaccurate because over all of the major land masses the time zone borders do not closely trace the longitude lines.
Other watch systems can provide the local time at a number of cities around the world. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,316,272 a system is disclosed whereby a marker can be manipulated to provide the time at a variety of cities displayed around the circumference of the watch face. In another method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,681,460 an indicator is displayed on the LCD next to the name of a city printed on the bezel and the watch provides the local time at the indicated city. Other list-based approaches have been proposed. However, these list-based systems are limited by the completeness of the lists which often do not accurately account for more remote cities and regions. It is clear that these list-based methods fall far short of providing the accurate local time at any point on earth.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,444 a wristwatch incorporating a GPS system ascertains local time by determining whether the city located nearest the watch at its receiving point is coincident with the city located nearest the preceding receiving point. If they are coincident, the time can be displayed from memory. If not, the city nearest the present receiving point is accessed in memory, and the time of that city is displayed. The disadvantage of this method is that there are a vast number of locations on earth where the nearest major city is not in the same time zone as locations (cities) nearby. The list of known cities in the world is over 254,000 at present. Although select cities can be accounted for in the database, there will be many locations "near" a certain city which are in a different time zone than the city itself. Thus, this system will often provide an inaccurate time. The proposed invention overcomes this problem by accessing time geographically regardless of proximity to a city.

Method and apparatus for providing time using cartesian coordinates


In the case of a method for transformation encoding of moving-image sequences, motion vectors are estimated block-by-block, with which said motion vectors a motion compensation is carried out. The prediction error is transformation-encoded. According to the invention, the block size of the transformation encoding is coupled to the block size used in each case for the motion compensation. This measure makes it possible to enhance the efficiency of the encoding of the prediction error in hybrid encoding procedures that use various block sizes.

The invention is based on a method for transformation encoding of moving-image sequences, in the case of which motion vectors are estimated block-by-block between a reference image signal and an actual image signal from the image sequence, with which said motion vectors the motion compensation is carried out.
In the case of hybrid encoding concepts for encoding moving-image sequences, a motion vector field is estimated block-by-block between a previously-generated image signal (reference frame) and an actual frame from an image sequence. This vector field is then used to perform a motion compensation. The motion vector field and the residual prediction error are encoded and transmitted to the receiver. The prediction error is usually encoded using block transformations, typically a discrete cosine transformation (DCT) with 8×8 coefficients.
An 8×8 DCT is used for transformation encoding in the previously standardized methods for moving-image encoding [1, 2]. For the motion compensation, blocks that are 16×16 and 8×8 pixels in size are used and, with MPEG-4, 16×8 pixels [1] are also used in the case of interlaced coding. The size of the block transformation is constant with 8×8 coefficients.
In the test model for the new H.26L video coding standard [3], a 4×4 integer transformation based on the DCT is proposed. Compared to the DCT, this has the advantage that the pixel values—present in the form of integers—are mapped on integer transformation coefficients. This makes perfect reconstruction possible on the one hand and, on the other, it eliminates the transformation errors that are possible with the heretofore-common float-DCT, which said errors occur when the inverse DCTs are implemented differently in the transmitter and the receiver, e.g., when the float data type is used on one side and the double data type is used on the other side. An integer transformation is presented in [4] that approximates the transformation properties of the DCT and can be used in place of the float DCT.
In the H.26L test model, block sizes of 16×16 to 4×4 pixels are used for motion compensation. They are divided into 4×4 blocks in the test model for transformation encoding.

Method for transformation-coding full motion image sequences


Method for setting a leather skin (12) having an outer surface designed to be visible, includes a step of applying a rigidity increasing treatment, a step of setting the skin using a mould cooperating with the outer surface of the skin (12), one at least of the two steps being executed only locally at an elongated part (B) spaced apart from the edge of the skin (12) and substantially parallel to the edge, and a step for facilitating the maintenance of the shape by locally applying a shape maintaining material to the inner surface of the skin (12), in particular a thermoplastic resin (24). The invention is useful for making automotive interior trim.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to shaping a leather skin which is intended to be incorporated in a trim component, in particular of the type which comprises a rigid support which delimits a cavity, a leather skin, one edge of which is applied against a rigid support in the cavity, and a foam which is arranged between the rigid support and the leather skin.
2. Description of Related Art
Components of the above-mentioned type having skins of plastics material are commonly used for various automotive trims, in particular for dashboards and door trims. Substantially for reasons of aesthetics, it is desirable to use leather as the skin. However, this presents a given number of problems because it is constituted by a natural material which has variations in properties and it is therefore necessary to carry out specific treatments.
In the case of the above-mentioned components, examples of which are illustrated in the drawings of FIGS. 1 and 2, a rigid support 10 which is generally formed by a thermoplastic material retains a skin 12 at the edge 14 thereof, and a foam 16 is arranged between the support 10 and the leather skin 12. In a developed method, the pressure of the foam 16 injected between the rigid support and the skin is what presses the edge 14 of the leather against the support 10 and ensures sealing.
In the case of skins of plastics material, it is known to determine conditions such that the foam does not tend to become introduced between the skin and the support. However, in the case of leather whose properties may vary from one piece to the next, it is necessary to provide for operations which always ensure good sealing between the edge of the skin, more specifically the outer surface 18 thereof which is generally the grain, and the rigid support.
It has been suggested, in order to improve the flexibility of the edge of the skin and therefore to obtain better sealing, to apply to the edge of the leather skin a paring operation, that is to say, an inclined incision of the edge whose thickness thereby decreases progressively towards the edge, as indicated by the reference 20 in FIG. 2. However, this solution is not always sufficient, in particular when the leather is not very pliable.
When such a trim component is observed, it is possible to distinguish three regions in the leather skin, a sealing region A in which the outer face of the skin must be pressed against the rigid support, ensuring the sealing with respect to the injected foam whilst allowing air to be discharged from the cavity, a region B in which the skin has a change in direction, and a region C in which the skin is practically in continuation of an outer surface of the rigid component which surrounds it.
Owing to variations in the properties of leather from one piece to the next, the region B may have variable properties so that good sealing is not always provided and the foam can appear between the skin and the rigid support.
Document EP-145 560 describes a method for shaping leather in the region of a sole of a shoe. Document WO2004/097053 relates to a method for finishing leather objects by localised processing of the edges only. Document GB-1 027 801 describes an operation for processing leather by means of water or water vapour applied only to regions of leather components. Document DE-19 926 470 describes the application of protective layers to the inner face of a decorative coating, in which the portions which must not be shaped are made rigid.
None of these documents allows the problem addressed to be solved by managing the shape of a leather skin beside a fluid-tight cooperation region between a leather skin and a rigid support by means of simple pressure, and more specifically managing the portion of skin in the region B so that the fluid-tight cooperation conditions in the region A are optimised.
The invention relates to a solution to this problem addressed, by varying the sealing between a leather skin and the rigid support.


A die casting machine capable of reducing the pressure in a die cavity to a lower level such as a substantially perfect vacuum, having a movable die and a fixed die, a vacuum pump for reducing pressure in a cavity formed between the dies, and an injection apparatus for injecting and filling molten metal into the cavity with reduced pressure, at least one of the dies having an evacuation path connected with the vacuum pump and communicated with the cavity, a valve element for opening and shutting the evacuation path, and an electromagnetic driving means for making the valve element move linearly in the opening and shutting direction by electromagnetic force.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a die casting machine using vacuum die casting, that is, die casting in a state with pressure in the cavity reduced.
2. Description of the Related Art
A die casting machine is provided with a pair of dies, a fixed die plate and a movable die plate for holding these dies, a clamping apparatus for clamping the dies, an injection apparatus for injecting molten metal into a cavity formed between the dies, a molten metal supplying apparatus for supplying the molten metal to the injection apparatus, and so on. In such a die casting machine, a die casting is obtained by clamping the dies, supplying molten metal into a sleeve of the injection apparatus, injecting the molten metal into the cavity, and filling the cavity with the molten metal.
One of the causes of uneven quality of die castings is the inclusion of gas in the die castings. That is, molten metal injected into the cavity and filled in the cavity at a high speed and under a high pressure forms a turbulent flow in the sleeve and the cavity. Due to this, gas such as air or vaporized parting agent is mixed into the molten metal.
In order to overcome the above problem, there is known the vacuum casting method for decreasing the inclusion of gas and reducing unevenness of die castings caused by the inclusion.
In a die casting machine using the vacuum casting method, as disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 2,785,448, the inclusion of gas into the molten metal is suppressed by injecting the molten metal into the cavity and filling the cavity with the molten metal in a state with the pressure reduced by a vacuum pump.
In the above die casting machine using vacuum casting, in order to cast a product with a high strength and high quality, it is required to be able to create a higher vacuum in the cavity and maintain the vacuum state.
If the cavity is not made a high vacuum, it is difficult to obtain enough of an effect by the vacuum die casting, because gas becomes included in the casting and distortion or a deformation of the product easily occurs when annealing or otherwise heat treating the product after casting.
In order to cast a product with a higher strength and a higher quality, specifically, it is desired to reduce the pressure in the cavity to several tens of Torr.
Further, from the viewpoint of improving the productivity of a die casting machine, it is required to shorten the time required for evacuation by the vacuum pump as far as possible.


Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to reducing latency for consensus in geographically distributed disaster-safe persistent data-store systems. These distributed systems may include registry system having redundant storage for maintaining the system status. Each registry system may include a server and a storage component. Consensus may be achieved by querying all of other servers of the registry system. In one example, the consensus data may be sharded into independent small groups. This may allow for multiple consensus transactions to be generated and run in parallel, which, in turn may reduce the latency. In addition, or alternatively, requests to a server to write or otherwise change the data-store may be batched at the server side. Thus, for the consensus, the server need only communicate with the other servers only once per batch. This may also reduce the latency of the distributed system.

Building fault-tolerant distributed systems may require saving system state consistently across geographically diverse locations. For example, by providing database replicas of the system state in different geographic locations, such as the East Coast and West Coast of the United States, a failure of one system in a particular geographic region may not affect the entire system.
These distributed systems may require a consistency mechanism to maintain the integrity of the data generated by the system. In one example, these systems may operate using the Paxos algorithm. Paxos is a consensus algorithm which may be executed by a set of servers to enable them to agree on a single value in the presence of failures (consensus). It may guarantee synchronous replication of submitted values among the majority of servers. Paxos may require consensus at every update or write operation. During such consensus, a master server needs to talk to all other peer servers and obtain a majority count from them. Accordingly, the master server initiates roundtrip communications with all peers at every requested operation and will wait for the responses before proceeding. However, by doing so, consensus may have to come from more than one geographical region before a transaction can be committed. This can significantly increase the cost to the network, increase the latency of the system, and reduce throughput (return of success or failure on each requested operation) of the system.
For example, based on typical network statistics, the RTT (round trip time) between different geographical regions, such as East Coast and West Coast of the United States, may frequently go as high as 100 milliseconds. In such an event, this may limit the throughput of such systems to approximately 10 transactions per second, and may be ineffective for any systems which may need to process (both read and write) tens of thousands of events or even millions per second.
One solution in a distributed system is to generate batched transactions. However, in most client-server models, decisions for batching and the responsibility of maintaining consistency within a batch lies with client rather than the server. In this example, the server may simply support a batch of transactions, but the client has to specify all the details of a batch.

Latency reduction in distributed computing systems


A hydraulic tank for a bicycle that has a compensation chamber within the tank. The tank also has a ventilation hole and a ventilation channel, which is in fluid communication with the ventilation hole, and has an inlet opening arranged on a side wall of the tank.

In modern bicycles, in particular in high performance bicycles, there is an increasingly use of onboard equipment that uses hydraulic controls. This is the case for example of hydraulic disc brake systems, in which the force necessary to obtain a suitable braking by means of the closing of the brake calipers on the discs is too high to be able to be easily exerted with the usual cable systems, controlled by the hands of the cyclist. With these braking systems, therefore, the force exerted by the hand of the cyclist is transferred to a hydraulic group.
In addition to the disc braking systems, other equipment can also use a hydraulic control. In particular, with reference again to the braking system, hydraulic rim braking systems are also known, in which the brake calipers act on the rim of the bicycle wheel, and not on discs like in the previous case.
Hydraulic brakes, and in particular hydraulic disc brakes, are often preferred to conventional pad brakes because they can ensure a high braking power and are less subject to problems caused by mud or water.
Typically, a disc brake comprises a brake caliper fixed to the frame of the bicycle or to the fork and a brake disc mounted on the hub of the wheel. Inside the brake caliper there is a hydraulic chamber in liquid communication with two opposite jaws, provided with respective friction gaskets (also called simply pads). The brake disc rotates inside the space defined between the two jaws. By bringing the jaws towards the brake disc, friction is generated between the brake disc and the pads and, consequently, the wheel is braked.
In order to move the jaws towards the brake disc it is known to use a control device that comprises a brake lever, a hydraulic cylinder in which a piston kinematically connected to the brake lever is able to slide and a tank in liquid communication with the hydraulic cylinder. The hydraulic cylinder is in liquid communication with a hydraulic chamber associated with the jaws.
By actuating the brake lever the liquid contained in the hydraulic cylinder of the control device is acted upon, the hydraulic cylinder sends pressurized liquid to the hydraulic chamber and the jaws are actuated.
Usually, a deformable membrane is arranged in the tank. The deformable membrane, in combination with a lower surface of the tank, defines a compensation chamber. The membrane has the task of transferring part of the liquid provided inside the tank to the hydraulic cylinder in order to ensure a suitable amount of braking liquid inside the hydraulic chamber also in the case of wearing of the pads. The wearing of the pads indeed causes an increase in volume of the hydraulic chamber that causes an increase in the stroke of the brake lever unless compensated through the aforementioned transfer of liquid from the tank to the hydraulic cylinder.
The compensation chamber therefore changes its volume, through an elastic deformation of the membrane, as a function of the amount of braking liquid provided therein.
In order to allow the membrane to exert an effective pressure on the brake liquid provided in the compensation chamber, the tank is arranged in fluid communication with the outside environment, so that a pressure equal to the atmospheric pressure always acts on the membrane irrespective of the position assumed by the membrane inside the tank (and thus irrespective of the volume of the compensation chamber).
For this purpose, it is known to provide a top wall of the tank with a ventilation hole.
Usually, the control device of a hydraulic brake comprises a support body which the tank, the cylinder and the piston are associated or integrated with. The support body is mounted canti-levered on bicycle handlebars, generally forwards in the direction of travel.
The support body is configured to be gripped by the cyclist to control and manage the bicycle. For this reason, a coating made of a material comfortable to the touch (also called lever cover) is often provided on the support body to offer comfort and safety of grip to the cyclist.
The Applicant has noted that in some circumstances the lever cover could interrupt the fluid communication between ventilation hole of the tank and outside environment.
The Applicant has indeed found that, although the lever covers are arranged so as not to obstruct the ventilation hole, the ventilation hole could in any case become obstructed for example by an anomalous gripping of the lever cover by the cyclist or by a relative displacement between lever cover and support body (for example as a result of an impact or of the pressure exerted by the cyclist's hand on the lever cover) or by an imperfect and imprecise mounting of the lever cover on the support body, or even by dirt, mud and similar.


A method for fabricating a liquid crystal display (LCD) device to improve picture quality by preventing defective rubbing, is disclosed. The method which includes preparing first and second substrates, forming a thin film transistor on the first substrate, forming a first orientation layer on the first substrate including the thin film transistor, performing rubbing and orientation direction alignment processes on the first orientation layer to provide a uniform alignment direction, and forming a liquid crystal layer between the first and second substrates.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display (LCD) device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for fabricating a liquid crystal display (LCD) device to improve picture quality by preventing defective rubbing.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Liquid crystal display (LCD) devices have attracted great attention as a substitute for a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), because of the advantageous characteristics of the LCD such as thin profile, light weight, and low power consumption. The LCD device is driven by changing optical anisotropy in a method of applying an electric field to liquid crystal having fluidity and optical characteristics.
The LCD device has various modes based upon the properties and type of liquid crystal used within the device. Specifically, the LCD device may be may categorized as a Twisted Nematic (TN) mode that controls the liquid crystal director by applying a voltage after arrangement of the liquid crystal director twisted at 90°, a multi-domain mode that obtains a wide viewing angle by dividing one pixel into several domains, an Optically Compensated Birefringence (OCB) mode that compensates a phase change of light according to a progressing direction of light by forming a compensation film on an outer surface of a substrate, an In-Plane Switching (IPS) mode that forms an electric field parallel to two substrates by forming two electrodes on one substrate, and a Vertical Alignment (VA) mode that arranges a longitudinal (major) axis of liquid crystal molecule vertical to a plane of an orientation layer by using negative type liquid crystal and vertical orientation layer.
Generally, a LCD device includes an upper substrate of a color filter array, a lower substrate of a thin film transistor array, and a liquid crystal layer. The upper and lower substrates face each other, and a liquid crystal layer having dielectric anisotropy is formed between the two substrates. To use the LCD device as an optical device, it is necessary to align liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer at a predetermined direction. Accordingly, the orientation layer, organic polymer layer, is formed on the substrate, wherein the orientation layer has anisotropy by rubbing. The LCD device may be classified as a transmission type LCD device using a backlight as a light source, a reflective type LCD device using ambient light as a light source without forming the backlight, and a transflective type LCD device which overcomes the disadvantageous characteristics of the transmitting and reflective type LCD devices. The transmission type LCD device has the disadvantage of high power consumption due to the backlight, and the reflective type LCD device has the problem that it cannot be used in the dark surroundings.
The transflective type LCD device has both transmission and reflective parts in a unit pixel, whereby the transflective type LCD device serves as the transmitting or reflective type LCD device as needed. Accordingly, a pixel electrode may be formed as a transmitting electrode or a reflective electrode according to the kind of the LCD device. For example, the transmitting electrode may be formed in the transmission type LCD device and the transmitting part of the transflective type LCD device. Also, the reflective electrode may be formed in the reflective type LCD device and the reflective part of the transflective type LCD device. The transmitting electrode of the transmission type LCD device and the transflective type LCD device transmit light emitted from the backlight through a lower substrate to the liquid crystal layer, to obtain high luminance. Also, the reflective electrode of the reflective type LCD device and the transflective type LCD device reflects ambient light incident through an upper substrate, to obtain high luminance.
A related art IPS mode LCD device will now be described as follows. FIG. 1 is a plane view illustrating an IPS (In-Plane Switching) mode LCD device according to the related art. FIG. 2 illustrates voltage distributions of an EPS mode LCD device according to the related art. FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B are plane views illustrating an IPS mode LCD device when a voltage is turned on/off.
In the related art IPS mode LCD device, as shown in FIG. 1, gate and data lines 12 and 15 crossing each other are formed on a substrate to define a pixel region, and a common line 24a is formed within the pixel region substantially in parallel to the gate line 12. Also, a thin film transistor TFT is formed at a crossing portion of the gate and data lines 12 and 15, and a common electrode 24 diverged from the common line 24a is formed substantially in parallel to the data line 15 within the pixel region. A pixel electrode 17 is connected with a drain electrode of the thin film transistor TFT, and formed substantially in parallel between the common electrodes 24. Also, a storage electrode 25 extending from the pixel electrode 17 is formed on the gate line 12.
In the aforementioned IPS mode LCD device, if 5V is applied to the common electrode 24, and 0V is applied to the pixel electrode 17, as shown in FIG. 2, an equipotential surface is formed substantially parallel to the electrode at a portion corresponding to the electrode, and the equipotential surface is formed vertical to the electrode at a portion between the two electrodes. In this state, because a direction of an electric field is perpendicular to the equipotential surface, a substantially parallel electric field is generated between the common electrode 24 and the pixel electrode 17, a vertical electric field generates on the electrode, and the substantially parallel and vertical electric fields generate together at corners of the electrode.
In the IPS mode LCD device, it is possible to control the alignment of liquid crystal molecules by using the electric field. For example, as shown in FIG. 3A, if a voltage is applied to liquid crystal molecules 31 initially aligned in the same direction as a transmission axis of one polarizing sheet, longitudinal axes of the liquid crystal molecules 31 are aligned substantially parallel to the electric field, as shown in FIG. 3B. Specifically, first and second polarizing sheets are formed on outer surfaces of the lower and upper substrates, wherein transmission axes of the first and second polarizing sheets are arranged perpendicular to each other. As an orientation layer of the lower substrate is rubbed substantially parallel to the transmission axis of any one polarizing sheet, it is displayed as a normally black mode. That is, if the voltage is not applied to the device, the liquid crystal molecules 31 are aligned as shown in FIG. 3A, thereby displaying the black state. If the voltage is applied to the device, as shown in FIG. 3B, the liquid crystal molecules 31 are aligned substantially parallel to the electric field, thereby displaying the white state. In FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B, non-explained reference numbers '24' and '17' respectively represent the common electrode and the pixel electrode. Accordingly, the IPS mode LCD device has a wide viewing angle as compared with that of the TN mode LCD device.
A method for fabricating the aforementioned LCD device will be described in detail. The TN mode LCD device, the transflective mode LCD device and the IPS mode LCD device have similar fabrication processes. A method for fabricating the IPS mode LCD device will be described as follows. FIG. 4A to FIG. 4D are cross-sectional views illustrating the fabrication process of the IPS mode LCD device according to the related art.
As shown in FIG. 4A, a low-resistance metal layer is deposited on a lower substrate 11 by sputtering, and then patterned, thereby forming a gate line (not shown) and a gate electrode 12a. A common line (not shown) parallel to the gate line, and a plurality of common electrodes 24 diverged from the common line are formed at the same time. After that, a gate insulating layer 13 is formed in a method of depositing a silicon nitride layer SiNx on an entire surface of the lower substrate 11 including the gate line. Then, an amorphous silicon layer is deposited on the entire surface of the lower substrate 11, and then selectively removed, thereby forming a semiconductor layer 14 on the gate insulating layer 13 above the gate electrode 12a.
Referring to FIG. 4B, a low-resistance metal layer is deposited on the gate insulating layer 13 by sputtering, and then patterned to form a data line (not shown) and source/drain electrodes 15a and 15b. Subsequently, a plurality of pixel electrodes 17 are connected with the drain electrode 15b, and formed in parallel to the data line. The pixel electrodes 17 are arranged between each common electrode 24, whereby the pixel electrode 17 alternates with the common electrode 24. At this time, the pixel electrode 17 may be formed at the same time as the data line of metal, or may be formed additionally by using a transparent conductive layer such as ITO. Also, the pixel electrode 17 and the common electrode 24 may be formed in a straight pattern or a zigzag pattern. Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 4C, a passivation layer 16 is formed in a method of depositing or coating a silicon nitride layer or an organic insulating layer of BCB on the entire surface of the lower substrate 11 including the data line 15. Also, a first orientation layer 50 is formed on the passivation layer 16, and then rubbed.
As shown in FIG. 4D, a black matrix layer 22 of metal such as Cr or CrOx is formed on an upper substrate 21 to prevent light leakage, and R/G/B color filter layers 23 are formed between each black matrix layer 22 in an electrodeposition method, a pigment spray method or a coating method, to realize various colors. Then, a second orientation layer 60 is deposited thereon. Also, a sealant (not shown) is formed on the lower substrate 11 or the upper substrate 21, and spacers (not shown) are formed on any one of the two substrates 11 and 21. In this state, the two substrates 11 and 21 facing each other are bonded to each other. Then, liquid crystal 30 is injected between the lower and upper substrates 11 and 21 bonded to each other, and first and second polarizing sheets 81 and 82 are respectively formed on outer surfaces of the lower and upper substrates 11 and 21, thereby completing the IPS mode LCD device according to the related art. At this time, the transmission axes of the first and second polarizing sheets 81 and 82 are substantially perpendicular to each other, and one transmission axis is at the same direction as the electric field.
The rubbing process will be described in detail. FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view explaining the rubbing process according to the related art. The rubbing process includes the sequential process of forming the organic high polymer layer referred to as the orientation layer on the substrate, and obtaining anisotropy therein. That is, polyamic acid or soluble polyimide is coated on the substrate, and sequentially cured at a temperature between 60° C. and 80° C. and between 80° C. and 200° C., whereby the coated polyamic acid or soluble polyimide is formed to a polyimide layer. As shown in FIG. 5, the polyimide layer is rubbed with a cylindrical rubbing roll 70. At this time, the rubbing process is progressed by rotating the cylindrical rubbing roll 70 coated with a rubbing cloth 71 such as nylon or rayon, so that the surface of the polyimide layer is rubbed mechanically. However, a perpendicular band or a horizontal band is generated by seams of the rubbing cloth 71 of the rubbing roll 70. Also, end portions of the rubbing cloth may come off the rubbing roll 70.
The aforementioned IPS mode LCD device according to the related art has the following disadvantages.
FIG. 6 is a photograph illustrating light leakage in a surface of step coverage in an LCD device according to the related art. FIG. 7 is a photograph illustrating light leakage in a surface having no step coverage in an LCD device according to the related art. Referring to FIG. 6, the thin film transistor array substrate in each mode has the step coverage on the surface thereof. That is, in case of the TN mode LCD device, the thin film transistor portion and the crossing portion of the gate and data lines are relatively higher than the other portions of the thin film transistor array substrate. In a case of the transflective type LCD device, the step coverage is generated between the transmitting part and the reflective part in the pixel region. Also, in the IPS mode LCD device, the step coverage of approx. 2500 Å is generated by the pattern of common electrode 24 and pixel electrode 17. During the rubbing process of the orientation layer 50, the rubbing cloth 71 is not in contact with the relatively low portion of the step coverage, thereby generating the defective rubbing. Also, in the IPS mode LCD device using three masks, step coverage of approx. 8000 Å is generated at the contact portion of the pixel electrode and the drain electrode of the thin film transistor. During the rubbing process of the orientation layer, the rubbing cloth is not in contact with the relatively low portion of the step coverage, thereby generating the defective rubbing. Referring to FIG. 6, the light leakage is generated in the initial black state because it is impossible to control the alignment of liquid crystal at the portion having no alignment pattern. The picture quality is deteriorated due to low contrast ratio. Meanwhile, the light leakage is generated in the surface having no step coverage due to the defective rubbing because the alignment pattern is not uniform due to non-uniformity of the rubbing cloth.

Method for fabricating liquid crystal display device


The invention relates to a method for manufacturing pile carpet or pile carpet tiles, wherein a pile yarn (8) is connected via a pile thread holder (1) to at least a primary backing (7), wherein the pile thread holder (1) comprises a plurality of pile thread guide channels (2) which perforate the pile thread holder (1) through two opposite sides, wherein the pile thread holder (1) is provided between a pile thread gripping station (14) on a first perforated side (5) and a primary backing (7) on a second perforated side (6) such that the pile yarn (8) is arranged via the first perforated side (5) through a pile thread guide channel (2) to the second perforated side (6) onto, into or through the backing (7).

The invention is particularly suitable for cut-pile carpet. Cut-pile carpet is characterized by a surface formed by standing pile threads in the form of (cut) thread ends which are connected to a carrier (or backing) mechanically or by means of adhesives.
Carpet tiles are typically manufactured by cutting wide carpet on a roll.
Classical production techniques include tufting and weaving.
In tufting the pile loops are formed by way of a "needle-hook" system. A hook holds the yarn fast once the needle has punched the yarn through a woven or non-woven carrier (primary backing). The thus formed loops can optionally be cut with a knife. A loop-pile carpet or a cut-pile carpet is thus created. In order to prevent the pile threads from being easily pulled out, an additional treatment process after the tufting will adhere the pile threads to the rear side of the carrier using an adhesive. An additional carrier (secondary backing) is then arranged in order to increase the comfort of a tufted carpet.
Drawbacks of tufting are: (1) different operations are necessary after the tufting for the purpose of anchoring the pile yarns and improving the comfort; (2) the limitation of the carrier material used; (3) very limited patterning options because the yarn has to remain in the needle during the tufting. Special techniques (cross-over technique) for improving the patterning then have a very adverse effect on the consumption of pile yarn; (4) there is a "pile direction" corresponding to the production direction; (5) tufting is very susceptible to stripe forming; (6) different layers are necessary in the backing in order to obtain stability (different materials are moreover particularly necessary for manufacturing tiles, which makes recycling of carpet tiles very difficult); and (7) very large "latexing ovens" which eat up energy are necessary for drying and curing the backings.
Characteristic for weaving is the use of warp yarns, weft yarns as well as pile yarns. During the weaving process both the "pile" and the "bottom cloth" of the woven carpet are formed. The pile yarns are anchored by warp yarns and weft yarns being woven into the bottom cloth. Before (axminster technique) or immediately after (face-to-face and wilton techniques) the pile yarns are woven in, the pile material is cut to length, whereby a cut-pile carpet is formed. Following weaving the reverse side of the woven carpet is treated with an additional finish.
In "face-to-face weaving" two carpets which are connected together with the pile threads are woven at the same time. The "non-active" invisible pile threads are woven into the reverse side. The "active" pile threads which connect the two carpets together are then cut with a knife.
In "wilton carpet" the carpet pile is formed by means of metal wires which also determine the pile height. The thus formed loops are woven into the bottom cloth. The woven-in pile loops can optionally be cut, thereby resulting in a cut-pile or loop-pile carpet.
In "axminster carpet" the pile yarns to be woven in are first cut to length and then woven in, whereby they have fewer pile yarns on the rear side of the carpet.
Drawbacks of weaving are: (1) slow production process which causes heavy vibrations (machines have to be built on vibration-free concrete bases); (2) very large and expensive machines; (3) high loss of pile yarns due to the fact that non-active threads (colours) continue to run and are woven into the "back" (underside) of the carpet; (4) there is a pile direction corresponding to the production direction; (5) extra operation to finish the back (pile anchoring) in large latexing ovens which eat up energy; (6) carpets still have to be cut and hemmed to prevent fraying of the edges; (7) a plurality of raw materials in one carpet and particularly the latex for anchoring the pile results in difficult and incomplete recycling; and (8) complicated and not very flexible planning, with loss of bottom cloth, in planning of loose-laid carpet on the four meter-wide machines. The dimensions of loose-laid carpet are also standardized, resulting in a limited supply.
The closest prior art, of which the present invention is also a further development, is EP 0943715 (of Inventor). EP 0943715 describes a yarn-drum applicator used as cylindrical pile thread holder. A primary backing comes to lie against the outer side of the drum applicator. The pile thread holder comprises a plurality of pile thread guide channels perforated on the outer side of the pile thread holder in a matrix pattern. Pile threads are inserted via the outer side of the drum applicator and right through the backing so as to thus form the pile yarn of the pile carpet, wherein the pile ends are protected by the pile guide channels. The part of the pile yarn which has to be fixed in J-Shape to the backing protrudes on the outer side.
Since the backing lies around the drum on the outer side of the cylindrical wall and the pile threads are also introduced from outside, all pile yarns must pass wholly through the backing in order to be carried into the guide channels of the pile thread holder. This can often cause damage to the pile yarn.
A problem is that for the purpose of obtaining a cut-pile carpet only a single thread can be inserted so as to be finally fixed in J-shape between two backings. Arranging V-pile is all the more difficult, if not impossible with this method. The two V-ends have to be arranged here through the backing and into the pile guide channels. This is only possible if the V-pile were to be inserted in reverse direction, wherein the tip of the V-pile is partially sheared afterwards. Furthermore, the chance of damage to the pile yarn is then even greater.


A set-oriented locking based on in-memory bitmap for a column store database is described. An example method includes establishing a column-based in-memory database including a main store and a delta store, where the delta store has a plurality of row-visibility lock bitmaps visible to transactions at various points in time. The lock bitmaps represent a bit encoding to indicate whether there are granted row locks tables in the database. A delete or an update statement is executed with a transaction on a table. A set of row locks on rows of the table manipulated by the delete or the update statement are requested to preclude other transactions from currently deleting or updating the same rows. Accordingly, set operations are performed on the lock bitmap to manage the set of row locks associated with the transaction.

In modern computer architectures, fast communication among multi-core processors makes parallel processing possible. Because large main memory configurations are commercially available and affordable, server setups with hundreds of cores and several terabytes of main memory may also be a reality.
High performance database systems, such as in-memory databases, are adapted to make use of the main memory provided by modern hardware. In such systems, relevant data may be kept in main memory, so that read operations can be executed without disk I/O. The systems are designed to reduce the number of CPU cache misses and avoid CPU stalls because of memory access. One approach for achieving this goal is using column-based storage in memory, which leads to high spatial locality of data and instructions, so the operations can be executed completely in the CPU cache without costly random memory accesses.
In a column-based storage, the entries of a column are stored in contiguous memory locations. Columnar data storage allows efficient compression, such that the relevant data can be stored in main memory with less cost because of data compression. The data structure that contains the main part of the data is called the main storage. The changes are taken over from the delta storage asynchronously at some later point in time. The separation into main and delta storage allows high compression and high write performance at the same time. The column store may implement MVCC (Multi Version Concurrency Control), which is based on having multiple versions of the same data in the database. When reading data it ensures that the operation reads the right set of versions required to get a correct and consistent view of the database. A Consistent View Manager may determine which version each operation is allowed to see depending on the current transaction isolation level.
The column store may use a delta storage—an in-memory data store that implements row-level versioning that is optimized to support real time data ingestion—to provide a high level of transaction concurrency through MVCC. In order to support these design objectives, a high performance locking mechanism is required to provide row level locking capabilities. However, existing approaches for managing locks via a lockless data structure requires excessive resources in acquiring and releasing locks. Therefore, existing approaches suffer from performance and scalability issues.

Set-oriented locking based on in-memory bitmaps for a column-oriented database


Video is often used to count and identify people entering and exiting an area, such as a store. This information may be used to determine the number and amount of time people are in the area, and other statistics and characteristics. These variables may be skewed by the associates employed or working in the area, instead of patrons or others. The present disclosure is directed to method for eliminating associates from video by facial analysis and the application of analytics.

Video systems are often used in security, surveillance, and monitoring applications. In these applications, video is often used to count and identify people entering and exiting an area, such as a store. This information may be used to determine the number and amount of time people are in the area, among other statistics and information. These variables may be skewed by the associates employed or working in the area, instead of patrons or others.

Counting and monitoring method using face detection


Dielectric structures of the type that might be used in DRAMs, other memory devices, and integrated thin film transistors include repeated silicon oxide/silicon nitride layers. For example, the dielectric structure may have a silicon oxide/silicon nitride/silicon oxide/silicon nitride/silicon oxide or "ONONO" layer structure. Such repeated layer structures exhibit higher levels of breakdown voltage than more conventional "ONO" structures. Most of the growth of the five layer ONONO or more complicated dielectric structure can be accomplished in a single furnace through a series of temperature steps performed under different gas ambients. A substrate having a polysilicon lower electrode is introduced to a furnace and a lowest layer of silicon oxide is grown on the polysilicon electrode in an ammonia ambient. A first silicon nitride layer is grown in NH.sub.3 and SiH.sub.2 Cl.sub.2 and then growth of the first silicon nitride layer is interrupted by first altering or stopping the flow of reaction gases and then growing an intermediate silicon oxide layer on the first silicon nitride layer, again in an ammonia ambient. A second silicon nitride layer is then formed by reintroducing the same combination of processing gases. Growth of the second silicon nitride layer is then interrupted, and either additional repetitions of the silicon oxide/silicon nitride layer structure are formed or a surface layer of silicon oxide is grown in a steam or wet oxygen ambient.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to thin dielectric layers used in integrated circuit devices such as the dielectric layers provided between electrodes of charge storage capacitors used in some integrated circuit devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Integrated circuit memory devices often include capacitors which are charged to different levels to represent stored data. For example, dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) typically consist of an array of memory cells with each memory cell including a charge storage capacitor connected to one source/drain region of a transfer field effect transistor (FET). One or another of two different charge levels is provided on the electrodes of the charge storage capacitor to represent either a logical one or zero stored in the memory cell. The transfer FET acts as a switch for selectively coupling a terminal electrode of the charge storage capacitor to data lines and other circuitry during data reading or writing operations.
DRAM charge storage capacitors consist of two electrodes separated by a layer of dielectric material. Most often, at least the surfaces of the electrodes that are in contact with the layer of dielectric material are doped polysilicon. The lower electrode or terminal of the charge storage capacitor is most often a polysilicon structure having a lower surface formed in contact with a source/drain region of the transfer FET. Often, portions of the lower electrode extend onto an insulating layer formed over other portions of the transfer FET and adjacent other portions of the DRAM. The lower capacitor electrode might have a planar surface, but more commonly the lower electrode has a surface with a more complicated shape including, for example, one or more fins extending from a base part of the electrode. Whether or not the lower electrode of the capacitor has such a complicated shape, the upper electrode of the capacitor is made so that its surface is in close, spaced parallel relationship to the surface of the lower electrode. Such a close, spaced parallel relationship is easily provided by first forming a thin dielectric layer over the surface of the lower electrode and then conformally depositing the upper electrode onto the dielectric layer.
It is almost always desirable for charge storage capacitors to be capable of high levels of charge storage, i.e., charge storage capacitors preferably have comparatively high levels of capacitance. Capacitance is determined in part by the distance separating the upper and lower electrodes that make up the charge storage capacitor. Since the upper electrode is separated from the lower electrode by the dielectric layer, the spacing between the upper and lower electrodes is typically determined by the thickness of the dielectric layer. Another factor affecting capacitance is the dielectric constant of the layer of dielectric material which separates the electrodes of the charge storage capacitor. Use of higher dielectric constant materials as the capacitor dielectric increases the amount of charge that can be stored on the charge storage capacitor.
Other characteristics of capacitor performance, less directly related to capacitance, are also affected by the particular material chosen for the dielectric layer within the capacitor. These include both the rate at which charge leaks across the layer of dielectric material in a given implementation and the breakdown voltage, that is, the voltage applied across the capacitor electrodes at which the dielectric material undergoes dielectric breakdown. Both charge leakage and breakdown voltage are factors not only of the particular material chosen, but also of the quality of the films of that material that can be formed and used compatibly with high volume manufacturing processes. For example, if a thin layer of a given capacitor dielectric material cannot be formed without pinholes of the type associated with charge leakage, then that dielectric material may be undesirable for use in capacitors. Similarly, if a given capacitor dielectric material has a low breakdown voltage, then the capacitor dielectric material may only be suited for use in low operating voltage applications.
One commonly used dielectric for DRAM charge storage capacitors consists of a three layer structure of a first layer of silicon oxide, a middle layer of silicon nitride and a second or upper layer of silicon oxide on the other side of the silicon nitride layer. This dielectric structure is commonly referred to as "ONO". Most of the thickness of the ONO structure consists of the middle silicon nitride layer so that the ONO structure has a dielectric constant largely determined by the comparatively high dielectric constant of the silicon nitride. The effective dielectric constant of the structure is reduced by the lower dielectric constant of the oxide layers which are capacitively in series with the silicon nitride layer. Typically, the lower layer of silicon oxide is a native oxide on the surface of the polysilicon of the lower capacitor electrode which is difficult to eliminate. The upper layer of silicon oxide is formed to provide a better surface for the deposition of the polysilicon layer of the upper electrode than is provided by the silicon nitride layer.
ONO dielectric layers are typically grown on N-type polysilicon lower electrodes of DRAM charge storage capacitors through a series of thermal processing steps performed in different gas ambients. Various types of thermal reaction furnaces might be used for growing the ONO dielectric structure. Substrates ready for dielectric formation have undergone a series of processing steps including the formation of an array of transfer FETs and a corresponding array of doped polysilicon lower electrodes. Prior to growing the dielectric layer, the substrates, typically silicon wafers, are held adjacent the reaction chamber and the chamber reaches a temperature of about 400.degree. C. in a nitrogen (N.sub.2) ambient. One or more substrates are then moved into the reaction chamber, and the temperature is ramped up to 700.degree. C. while still maintaining the nitrogen ambient. A layer of thermal oxide of about 12-18 .ANG. grows on the surface of the polysilicon lower electrode during the processing steps up to this point. After the temperature has stabilized at 700.degree. C., a mixture of NH.sub.3 (180 sccm) and SiH.sub.2 Cl.sub.2 (36 sccm) flows into the reaction chamber at a pressure of about 100 mTorr. This process is continued to grow a silicon nitride layer of the desired thickness, typically 40-80 .ANG., and the gas flow is stopped. Next, the temperature is ramped down from 700.degree. C. to a temperature of about 400.degree. C. in a nitrogen ambient and then the substrate is removed from the reaction chamber. The substrate is then placed in another reaction chamber and heated to a temperature of about 850.degree. C. for 15-30 minutes in a steam or wet O.sub.2 environment to grow a surface layer of silicon oxide. The silicon oxide layer formed on the surface of the silicon nitride layer is thin due to the difficulty in oxidizing the surface of silicon nitride.
The lower layer of silicon oxide in ONO dielectric films is undesirable for a number of reasons. Due to the lower dielectric constant of silicon oxide as compared to silicon nitride, the presence of the silicon oxide in series with the silicon nitride layer acts to reduce the capacitance of the capacitor. Furthermore, the thickness of the lower silicon oxide layer is variable and difficult to control. Variations in the thickness of the silicon oxide layer can result in undesirable variations in device performance. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a more reliable and predictable dielectric for capacitors in integrated circuits.
As DRAM cell density increases, it is necessary to form DRAM capacitors having reduced dimensions while still retaining an acceptable level of capacitance. One method of maintaining the desired level of capacitance is to use thinner capacitor dielectric films. There is considerable difficulty, however, in forming ONO dielectric films as thin as is desirable for reduced dimension DRAM charge storage capacitors. In addition, thin ONO films have undesirably low breakdown voltages for such reduced dimension charge storage capacitors. More reliable thin dielectric films are therefore desirable for DRAM capacitors. It would be desirable to utilize materials having higher a dielectric constant for the DRAM capacitor dielectric, but such materials remain unpredictable and unreliable.


Devices and methods of cleaning are described. The methods, and devices formed by the methods have a number of advantages. Embodiments are shown that include cleaning using a supercritical fluid. Advantages include a combination of both chemical and mechanical removal abilities from the supercritical fluid. Mechanical energy for cleaning is transmitted in a homogenous manner throughout a carrier fluid. The mechanical energy provided in methods shown also can also be used with delicate surface features.

The development of high density ULSI circuits with sub-micron dimensions has lead to the requirement to remove unwanted contaminants from the surface of the wafers used in the production of structures such as high density chips along with the high density multichip assemblies constructed from these chips. This becomes especially difficult in examples such as a trench in the trench capacitor; deep contacts necessitated by stacked capacitors in dynamic random access memories (DRAMS); or the use of the damascene process in the production of copper metallurgy. High density assemblies e.g. those using flip chip or cube packaging also present significant cleaning challenges. One example of a type of material to be removed includes the residuals left from a film in which all or a portion of is to be removed. One example of such a film is a photo-resist. Another example of a type of material to be removed includes incidental contaminates.
Depending upon the type of contaminant, it may be attached to the surface by mechanisms such as chemical bonding, mechanical attachment, or a combination of chemical and mechanical mechanisms. The minimum dimensions of particles to be removed has continued to decrease as the minimum feature size has decreased. This has been aggravated by the fact that the vertical dimensions in the chips have not tended to shrink as fast as the horizontal dimensions thus making relatively deeper holes for contaminate particles to be lodged in. Further, in chip assemblies, the use of smaller diameter solder balls in C4 connections have reduced the vertical dimension between the chip and the substrate thus making the removal of contaminates from the space more difficult.
What is needed is an improved method for cleaning surfaces and structures in small dimensions such those produced in semiconductor manufacture.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method of cleaning semiconductor surfaces


Methods and apparatus to determine audience viewing of recorded programs are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein comprises displaying a previously recorded program on a display, determining a possible original broadcast time corresponding to the previously recorded program, determining program identifying information corresponding to the previously recorded program, and processing the possible original broadcast time information and the program identifying information to compare the previously recorded program with a known broadcast program.

Television ratings and metering information is typically generated by collecting viewing records and/or other viewing information from a group of statistically selected households. Each of the statistically selected households typically has a data logging and processing unit commonly referred to as a "home unit." In households having multiple viewing sites (e.g., multiple television systems), the data logging and processing functionality may be distributed among a single home unit and multiple "site units," one site unit for each viewing site. The home unit (or the combination of the home unit and the site unit) is often in communication with a variety of attachments that provide inputs to the home unit or receive outputs from the home unit. For example, a source identification unit such as a frequency detector attachment may be in communication with a television to sense a local oscillator frequency of the television tuner. In this manner, the frequency detector attachment may be used to determine the channel to which the television is currently tuned based on a detected frequency. Additional source identification devices, such as on-screen readers and light-emitting-diode (LED) display readers, may be provided, for example, to determine if the television is operating (i.e., is turned ON) and/or the channel to which the television is tuned. A people counter may also be located in the viewing space of the television and in communication with the home unit, thereby enabling the home unit to detect the identities and/or number of the persons currently viewing programs displayed on the television.
The home unit usually processes the inputs (e.g., channel tuning information, viewer identities, etc.) from the attachments to produce viewing records. Viewing records may be generated on a periodic basis (i.e., at fixed time intervals) or may be generated in response to a change in an input, such as a change in the identities of the persons viewing the television, a change in the channel tuning information (i.e., a channel change), etc. Each viewing record typically contains channel information, such as a channel number and/or station identification (ID), and a time (e.g., a date and time-of-day) at which the channel was displayed. In cases in which the program content being displayed is associated with a local audio/video content delivery device, such as a digital video disk (DVD) player, a digital video recorder (DVR), a video cassette recorder (VCR), etc., the viewing records may include content identification (i.e., program identification) information as well as information relating to the time and manner in which the associated content was displayed. Viewing records may also contain additional information, such as the number of viewers present at the viewing time.
The home unit typically collects a quantity of viewing records and periodically transmits the collected viewing records (e.g., daily) to a central office or data processing facility for further processing or analysis. The central data processing facility receives viewing records from home units located in some or all of the statistically selected households and analyzes the viewing records to ascertain the viewing behaviors of households in a geographic area or market of interest, a particular household and/or a particular group of households selected from all participating households. Additionally, the central data processing facility may generate metering statistics and other parameters indicative of viewing behavior associated with some or all of the participating households. This data may be extrapolated to reflect the viewing behaviors of markets and/or regions modeled by the statistically selected households.
To generate viewing behavior information from viewing records, the central office or data processing facility may compare reference data, such as a list of programs (e.g., a schedule of television programming or a television guide), to the viewing records. In this manner, the central office can infer which program was displayed by cross-referencing the time and channel information in a viewing record to the program associated with that same time and channel in the program schedule. Such a cross-referencing process can be carried out for each of the viewing records received by the central office, thereby enabling the central office to reconstruct which programs were displayed by the selected households and the times at which the programs were displayed. Of course, the aforementioned cross-referencing process is unnecessary in systems in which the identity of the program is obtained by the home unit and contained in the viewing record.
The rapid development and deployment of a wide variety of audio/video content delivery and distribution platforms has dramatically complicated the home unit task of providing viewing records or information to the central data collection facility. For instance, while the above-mentioned frequency detector device can be used to detect channel information at a site where network television broadcasts are being displayed (because, under normal operation conditions, the local oscillator frequency corresponds to a known network channel), such a device typically cannot be used with digital broadcast systems. In particular, digital broadcast systems (e.g., satellite-based digital television systems, digital cable systems, etc.) typically include a digital receiver or set-top box at each subscriber site. The digital receiver or set-top box demodulates a multi-program data stream, parses the multi-program data stream into individual audio and/or video data packets, and selectively processes those data packets to generate an audio/video signal for a desired program. The audio and/or video output signals generated by the set-top box can be directly coupled to an audio/video input of an output device (e.g., a television, a video monitor, etc.) As a result, the local oscillator frequency of the output device tuner, if any, does not necessarily have any meaningful relationship to the channel or program currently being displayed.
To allow generation of meaningful viewing records in cases wherein, for example, the network channel is not readily identifiable or may not uniquely correspond to a displayed program, metering techniques based on the use of ancillary codes and/or content signatures may be employed. Metering techniques that rely on ancillary codes often encode and embed identifying information (e.g., a broadcast/network channel number, a program identification code, a broadcast time stamp, a source identifier to identify a network and/or station providing and/or broadcasting the content, etc.) in the broadcast signal such that the code is not noticed by the viewer. For example, a well-known technique used in television broadcasting involves embedding the ancillary codes in the non-viewable vertical blanking interval of the video signal. Another example involves embedding the ancillary codes in non-audible portions of the audio signal accompanying the broadcast program. This latter technique is especially advantageous because the ancillary code may be reproduced by, for example, the television speaker and non-intrusively monitored by an external sensor, such as a microphone.
In general, signature-based program identification techniques use one or more characteristics of the currently displayed (but not yet identified) audio/video content to generate a substantially unique proxy or signature (e.g., a series of digital values, a waveform, etc.) for that content. The signature information for the content being displayed may be compared to a set of reference signatures corresponding to a known set of programs. When a substantial match is found, the currently displayed program content can be identified with a relatively high probability.
While the known apparatus and techniques described above are well suited for generating viewing records associated with live viewing of television programming, these techniques are not directly applicable to the generation of viewing records associated with time-shifted viewing of program content (i.e., viewing a previously recorded program at a time later than the original broadcast time or, in other words, viewing a time-shifted broadcast program). In particular, local sources, such as DVD players, personal video recorders (PVRs), DVRs, VCRs and the like, enable the recording and playback of program content at various times other than the original broadcast time and in different manners across the statistically selected households. As a result, viewing records containing only viewing time information (and not original broadcast time information) cannot be compared to reference program guide information at the central office to infer which programs are associated with the viewing records. Further, the tuning information available from, for example, a frequency detector attachment in communication with a television that is being used to display a previously recorded program may not provide useful network channel information. More specifically, the recorded program is typically supplied by a video recorder (e.g., a VCR) or the like that sends unmodulated low-level video and audio signals to the video and audio inputs of the television that bypass the tuner circuitry of the television. The use of DVRs and PVRs, such as the TiVo™ system, further complicates the collection of viewing behavior information because viewers in households with these types of recording devices can rapidly alternate between live viewing of a program, a somewhat delayed viewing of a program, fast-forwarding and rewinding a program, pausing a program, and recording a program for later viewing while watching a live broadcast of another program.


A down-the-hole hammer includes a drill bit and a piston reciprocating therebehind to periodically strike the drill bit. The drill bit includes front and rear portions of difference impedance, and the piston includes front and rear portions of difference impedance. In the drill bit, the front portion has a larger impedance than the rear portion. In the piston, the rear portion has a larger impedance than the front portion.

The present invention relates to a hammer device, preferably a down-the-hole hammer, including a casing, a piston, a drill bit and means for activating the piston to frequently strike the drill bit. The invention also relates to a piston and a drill bit per se.
In down-the-hole hammers the kinetic energy of the piston is transmitted by elastic waves through the drill bit and finally to the rock. However, said transmission is not carried out in an optimal way since the piston is not related to the drill bit in terms of length and mass. Also the drill bit does not cooperate with the rock in the best mode.
In prior art down-the-hole hammers very little attention has been paid to the adaption of the piston to the drill bit when said drill bit has a mass concentration at the end directed towards the rock.
The aim of the present invention is to further improve the energy transmission from the piston to the rock via the drill bit. This is realized by paying attention also to the distribution of the impedance in the piston and in the drill bit of a hammer device.


An agent transport unit for transporting an agent from a first container to a second container includes a transport route and a pump. The transport route connects the first container and second container, and includes at least one of a first route, a second route, and a third route. The first route extends in a substantially horizontal direction, the second route extends in a substantially vertical direction, and the third route extends in a substantially inclined direction with a repose angle equal to or less than that of the agent. The pump supplies a gas flow into the transport route to transport the agent in the transport route.

Conventionally, an image forming apparatus using electrophotography (e.g., copying machine, printer, facsimile, and multi-functional apparatus) includes a developing unit, which uses a two-component developing agent composed of toners and carriers (and additives, as required), for example.
In such image forming apparatus, fresh agent such as toner and carrier is supplied to the developing unit, as required, with a method called trickle developing method.
In general, when toners are consumed by image forming operations, fresh toners are supplied to the developing unit through a toner supply port of the developing unit, as required.
An agitation member such as transport screw agitatingly mixes such fresh toners, supplied into the developing unit, with a developing agent in the developing unit.
Then, such agitatingly mixed developing agent is supplied to a developing roller. The developing agent carried-up on the developing roller may be regulated to a given amount by a doctor blade.
Toners in such two-component developing agent adhere a latent image formed on a photoconductive drum when the developing roller comes to a developing area, at which the developing roller and photoconductive drum face each other.
In such developing process, carriers in the two-component developing agent may not be consumed during the developing process but remains in the developing unit, by which such carriers may degrade its property over the time due to several factors such as stress received by an agitation movement in the developing unit.
Specifically, a coating layer on carrier may be abraded or peeled off due to agitation and mixing of carriers in the developing unit for a longer period of time, which may lead to a degradation of charge-ability of carriers (so called "peel-off" phenomenon), or toners and additives may adhere on surface of carriers, which may lead to a degradation of charge-ability of carriers (so called "spent" phenomenon).
The above-mentioned trickle developing method may be used to prevent an image quality degradation of a printed image caused by aging (or degradation) of carriers.
Specifically, fresh carriers (or fresh two-component developing agent) are supplied into the developing unit, as required, and a part of two-component developing agent used in the developing unit is ejected to an outside of the developing unit, as required, to reduce an amount of degraded carriers in the developing unit. With such method, the amount of carriers and charge-ability of carriers in the developing unit may be maintained at a preferable level.
An image forming apparatus using such trickle developing method may stabilize an image quality of printed image over the time compared to another image forming apparatus, which requires a replacement of developing unit or carriers to a new one whenever an aging (or degradation) of carriers may occur.
One related image forming apparatus, using a trickle developing method, includes a carrier container, a developing unit, and a transport route extended from the carrier container to the developing unit. Fresh carriers in the carrier container are transported to the developing unit through the transport route, which has a coil screw (or transport screw) therein.
Specifically, such coil screw, provided inside the transport route (e.g., tube) connecting the carrier container and the developing unit, can transport carriers with mechanical (or physical) transportability of coil screw.
As for such image forming apparatus, even if the carrier container and the developing unit are distanced apart with each other, carriers may be transported with mechanical (or physical) transportability of coil screw.
However, such coil screw may not be used for a transport route having a complexed bending portion or a transport route that extends from a lower position to a higher position (e.g., vertical or inclined route) because carries have to move in a upward direction in the vertical or inclined route against gravity effect, which acts on carries toward a downward direction.
Therefore, an agent transport unit having coil screw may restrict a freedom of space layout in an image forming apparatus.
Furthermore, fresh carriers may receive mechanical (or physical) stress from the coil screw when the coil screw transports the fresh carriers, and thereby a coating layer on such fresh carriers may be abraded or peeled off, which is not a favorable phenomenon.
Another related image forming apparatus, using a trickle developing method, includes a toner transport unit, which transports toners stored in a toner container to a developing unit with a screw pump (e.g., mohno-pump).
Such toner transport unit connects the toner container and the developing unit with a transport route made of flexible tube, by which a freedom of space layout in the image forming apparatus may be improved.
A pump such as air pump and screw pump may transport carriers by supplying a gas flow (e.g., airflow) in the transport route, which connects the carrier container and the developing unit, without causing mechanical (or physical) stress to carriers.
Even in such configuration, a smooth transportation of carriers through the transport route (e.g., transport tube) may be degraded, and the carriers may clog or stagnate the transport route (e.g., transport tube).
If carriers clog or stagnate the transport route (e.g., transport tube), the transport route may be choked at such clogging or stagnating portion, by which the carriers may not be effectively supplied to the developing unit.
Similarly, such drawback may occur when transporting toner or a two-component developing agent in a transport route.

Stress-reduceable transport unit and image forming apparatus using the same


An environmental control system, or data pack, is provided in accordance with embodiments of the present invention. The system allows for audio and video recording on hard drive media in situations where temperature, vibration and humidity would otherwise have prevented the use of such technology. The system can be used in conjunction with an event recorder for use in motor vehicles, trains and the like. The environmental control system includes a thermoelectric module connected to the hard drive and to a housing. The thermoelectric module is for transferring heat between the hard drive and the housing in response to an applied voltage in order to maintain a hard drive temperature within a hard drive operable temperature range. The vehicle operating temperature range includes temperatures outside the hard drive operable temperature range.

Much of the rail industry is self-regulated with respect to equipment that is required on board. Currently, many trains include event recorders that measure all of the operator inputs to the vehicle. The United States Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) defines an event recorder as a device, designed to resist tampering, that monitors and records data on train speed, direction of motion, time, distance, throttle position, brake applications and operations (including train brake, independent brake, and, if so equipped, dynamic brake applications and operations) and, where the locomotive is so equipped, cab signal aspect(s), over the most recent 48 hours of operation of the electrical system of the locomotive on which it is installed. The event recorders are similar to "black boxes" in airplanes. Most on-board event recorders record all of this information into (solid state) memory. Data from the solid-state memory can be uploaded if it must be analysed or reviewed.
Recording technologies for use in rail applications must be incredibly rugged. Environmental problems that must be dealt with include heat, vibration, humidity, electrical disturbances, etc. Solid-state memory can be used for such applications to mitigate some of these effects. However, there is a need to store more and more information in event recorders, including data types that take up a lot of memory. For example, providing 48 hours of video data recording can generally take about 60 gigabytes of storage. Solid-state memory is presently 70 times the cost of hard disk storage; therefore, there is a commercial advantage if hard drives could be used.
Typical hard drive technology can only operate between 5 degrees and 55 degrees Celsius. Train temperatures can be well outside this temperature range. Typical hard drive technology also does not perform well if subjected to vibration, and will fail when exposed to high levels of humidity.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a recording (storage) system that is suitable for use in the rail industry, or in other environments where a vehicle's operating temperature (and possibly vibration levels, and humidity levels) exceed the specified hard drive operating range.

Contained environmental control system for mobile event data recorder


Embodiments are directed to managing communication over one or more networks. A monitoring engine may be instantiated to perform actions including receiving network traffic from a physical network that may be associated with network addresses of the physical network. The monitoring engine may analyze the network traffic to associate activity with gateway identifiers (GIDs) associated with gateway computers in an overlay network such that the GIDs are separate from the network addresses. The monitoring engine may be arranged to monitor the network traffic based on monitoring rules. The monitoring engine may provide metrics associated with the gateway computers based on the monitoring of the network traffic. The monitoring engine may compare the metrics to event rules. The monitoring engine may generate events based on affirmative results of the comparison. The events may be mapped to actions based on characteristics of the events and executed.

Modern computing systems or computing environments often include a diverse collection of client computers, server computers, relays, gateways, or the like, that may be interconnected using heterogeneous networks comprised of different physical or logical networks. In some cases, reliably passing network traffic through such heterogeneous networks may require advanced network administration operations, complex interoperability integration, or the like.
Furthermore, networks for some enterprises may include industrial equipment, such as manufacturing equipment used to build or assemble products, may be supported by industrial networks. In industrial networks, operations of machines that control industrial processes (e.g., manufacturing, machining, stamping, product packaging, or the like) may be arranged to communicate with other machines or computers over the industrial network. In some cases, such communication may be related to supervising and controlling operations of the various industrial machines. Also, industrial networks may be used to collect data from industrial machines for monitoring manufacturing or assembly processes, monitoring and improving operational efficiency and throughput, quality control, or the like.
Also, in some cases, the communication/networking protocols used in some networks, such as, industrial networks may differ from, or be incompatible with, standard communications protocols that may commonly be used for business networks. In some cases this makes establishing connectivity relationships between the two types of networks challenging. In addition, many industrial networks were not designed to support modern information security that may be required to interoperate compatible with business network security protocols, or to be compliant with regulatory standards. Further, in some cases, efforts to reduce the difficulty of managing network interoperability may interfere with conventional network monitoring tools, in some cases, rendering them ineffective. Thus, it is with respect to these and other considerations that these innovations are made.


A battery connection member 25 configured to connect a plurality of batteries 29 in parallel includes a main conductive path portion 25a and a plurality of connection terminals 25b each configured to connect the main conductive path portion 25a to one of electrodes of each battery 29. The connection terminals 25b include fuse portions 25c configured to be blown when a current equal to or higher than a predetermined value flows. When the plurality of batteries 29 are connected in parallel by the battery connection member 25, the fuse portions 25c are arranged in space between the main conductive path portion 25 and the batteries 29.

In recent years, in view of savings in resources and conservation of energy, there have been increasing demands for nickel-hydrogen secondary batteries, nickel-cadmium secondary batteries, lithium ion secondary batteries, etc. which can be used repeatedly. Among them, lithium ion secondary batteries are characterized by lightness in weight, high electromotive force, and high energy density. Thus, there are growing demands for the lithium ion secondary batteries as power sources for driving various kinds of mobile electronic devices and portable communication devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras, video cameras, and laptop personal computers.
On the other hand, to reduce used amount of fossil fuel, and to reduce the amount of emission of CO2, expectations for battery modules are growing to serve as power sources for driving motors such as vehicles. Such a battery module includes two or more batteries to obtain a preferable voltage and preferable capacity.
In development of the battery module, along with the safety of batteries themselves, the safety of the battery module which is a collection of the batteries becomes more important. That is, a battery may lose its function as a battery due to over-charge, over-discharge, an internal short-circuit, or an external short-circuit. Moreover, the internal pressure of a battery may be increased by gas generated due to over-charge, over-discharge, an internal short-circuit, or an external short-circuit, which may possibly break an outer case of the battery. Thus, in the battery module in which a plurality of batteries is integrated, it is important to prevent the performance of the entirety of the battery module from being degraded due to a problem in one battery.
As a means to address the problems as described above, for example, a battery module in which a portion connecting batteries to each other is provided with a temperature sensor configured to break the connection when a current equal to or higher than a predetermined value flows is disclosed (for example, PATENT DOCUMENT 1). Moreover, a battery module including a fuse formed between batteries connected in series by a metal interconnect printed on an insulating substrate is disclosed (for example, PATENT DOCUMENT 2).

Battery connection member and battery module using the same

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.