The invention relates to a method for the production of nitric acid having a concentration of between 50 and 76%, from ammonia and gas containing oxygen, under pressure, according to a single pressure method or dual pressure method. The expansion of the residual gas takes place in at least two stages in a work efficient manner. At least one device for heating the previously expanded gas to a temperature of more than 450° is disposed between every other expansion stage, using waste heat from the production process of nitric acid.

The invention relates to a particularly economic process for the production of nitric acid with an approx. content of 50 to 76%, said process using the combustion of ammonia under pressure with the aid of an oxygen-bearing gas, in particular air, thereby simultaneously exploiting the reaction heat for the recovery of useful energy made available as steam or electric power.
Nitric acid with a concentration of 50 to 76 percent is normally produced in plants using the Ostwald process as described, for instance, in the paper "Inorganic oxygen compounds" published by Mundo/Weber, Carl Hanser Publishing House in Munich and Vienna, 1982, a special print extracted from "Winnacker/Küchler" Chemische Technologie, volume 2, Inorganic Technology I, 4th edition, and in WO 01/68520 A 1.
According to said technology there are a mono-pressure and a dual pressure process. The monopressure processes first provide for a compression of the air to medium pressure of about 5 bar or to a high pressure of about 8 bar, pressurised ammonia being admixed and the mixture then being catalytically burnt. Upon cooling, the nitric oxide thus formed comes into contact with compressed secondary air and is absorbed in an aqueous solution so that nitric acid is obtained. The residual gas hereinafter referred to as tail gas is purified and released into the atmosphere.
Downstream of the catalytic combustion and the subsequent cooling, the dual pressure process provides for a further compression step in order to run the absorption at a pressure higher than that of the combustion.
The single or multi-stage compression of the input gas, normally air, and the expansion of the tail gas usually take place in turbo-compressors and turbo-expanders, all of which are arranged on a common gear shaft an thus interconnected with each other, the different speeds of the machines being compensated by means of drive gears. As the potential energy produced by the gas expansion is normally insufficient for operating the compression unit of the input gas, it is necessary to provide additional drive energy.
The state-of-the-art technique provides for this additional drive energy by way of an energy-optimised steam turbine operated with the aid of a portion of the steam obtained by cooling of the gas rich in nitric oxide in steam generators arranged downstream of the catalytic combustion step. The said steam turbine is also exploited for the process start-up and persons skilled in the art consider this unit to be indispensable.
A disadvantage, however, is the steam consumption of the turbine which accounts for one fifth to one third of the overall steam production. This particularly applies to the said configuration if the steam thus produced could be used for other purposes in the plant, e.g. for nitric acid concentration, electric power production or heating etc. provided the plant for nitric acid production is part of a larger complex. But if a steam turbine is not provided as auxiliary drive it is necessary to boost the residual gas expander capacity in such a manner that its output equals the power input of the compressors. Using this technology in accordance with the conventional technique will produce problems that can hardly be overcome.
An aim of the invention is to redesign the nitric acid plant in such a manner that more useful energy becomes available in the form of process steam or electric power for export to external power consumers. The aim also includes that the standard operation of a steam turbine should be omitted and that the steam quantity thus saved be exploited for other purposes or that the said standard operation of a steam turbine should essentially be devoted to power generation instead of compressor drive. Moreover, the aim also encompasses a configuration that has no steam turbine at all yet providing an economy.

Method for the production of nitric acid


A system and method are disclosed for processing received data associated with a grammar. The method comprises receiving input data having a characteristic that the input data cannot be assigned an interpretation by a grammar, translating the input data into translated input data and submitting the translated input data into the grammar. The transducer coerces the set of strings encoded in a lattice resulting from recognition (such as speech recognition) to the closest strings in the grammar that can be assigned an interpretation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method of providing input to a computing device and more specifically to translating data such as a speech utterance that are not within a grammar into translated data that has a meaning representation within the grammar.
2. Introduction
The present invention relates to interpreting data input to a computing device. The data may be in the form of speech, graffiti, motion and/or any combination of such input. The plurality of available input modes of input places this in the context of "multimodal" interaction with computing devices. Multimodal interfaces allow input and/or output to be conveyed over multiple channels such as speech, graphics and gesture. Multimodal grammars provide an expressive mechanism for quickly creating language processing capabilities for multimodal interfaces supporting input modes such as speech and pen. They support composite multimodal inputs by aligning speech input (words) and gesture input (represented as sequence of gesture symbols) while expressing the relation between the speech and gesture input and their combined semantic representation. In Johnston and Bangalore, "Finite-state multimodal parsing and understanding," Proceedings of COLING, Saarbrucken, Germany, 2000, pp. 369-375 and Johnston and Bangalore, "Finite state multimodal integration and understanding," Journal of Natural Language Engineering, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 159-187, 2005 (both articles incorporated herein by reference) it has been shown that such grammars can be compiled into finite-state transducers enabling effective processing of lattice input from speech and gesture recognition and mutual compensation for errors and ambiguities. See also, Srinivas Bangalore and Michael Johnston, "Balancing data-driven and rule-based approaches in the context of a multimodal conversational system," Proceedings of ICSLP, Beijing, China, 2000, pp. 126-129, incorporated herein by reference.
However, like other approaches based on hand-crafted grammars, multimodal grammars can be brittle with respect to extra-grammatical or erroneous input. For example, one limitation is that a language model directly projected from the speech portion of a hand-crafted multimodal grammar will not be able to recognize any strings that are not accepted by the grammar. Therefore, what is needed in the art is an improved method of interpreting and processing received input to a computing device where the input is not in the form accepted by a grammar.

Learning edit machines for robust multimodal understanding


A mobile pneumatic apparatus for combined pneumatic and manual lifting and lowering of heavy objects. A vertically reciprocable carriage is mounted on a trolley and is linked by a hauling device to a vertically reciprocable pneumatic piston associated with gas flow controls and a weight sensor. The piston may optionally be coupled with hydraulic braking means.

In situations in which it is required to lift heavy objects and to position or lock them accurately one is often caught at an impasse resulting from the incompatibility of the desire for accurate manual handling with the need for mechanical hoisting and lowering, and this very often leads to unreliable improvisation. A case in point is the loading of airborne missiles into launchers located underneath the wings and fuselage of an aircraft. Such missiles are quite heavy, yet mechanically hoisting a missile all the way up to the launcher would defeat the purpose of accurate positioning while manually lifting a missile all the way up and then positioning it is difficult to perform.
It is accordingly the object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for use as an auxiliary in the manual manipulation of a heavy object designed to provide a lifting force so determined that a heavy object can be lifted and lowered in a reliable and secure manner with the exertion of a relatively small manual force, thereby to combine the advantages of mechanical lifting and accurate manual positioning.

Pneumatic apparatus for lifting and lowering

The State of Israel, Ministry of Defence, Rafael Armament Development Authority


In a computer system in which computers each having a plurality of processors are connected with each other, said each computer comprises a system controller for, at the time of a failure within the computer system body, disconnecting own computer from other computer in which said failure has occurred, without informing own processor of such failure.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer system, and more particularly to a computer system capable of preventing a failure occurring in one of the computers constituting the computer system from propagating to the rest of the computers.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical conventional computer system featuring capabilities to prevent a failure occurring in one of the computers constituting the computer system from propagating to the rest of the computers, achieves these capabilities as follows.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a typical configuration of a conventional computer system. In the computer system shown in the diagram, a plurality of computers 100, 200 are connected with each other through a network 500, and operate in coordination with each other as a cluster system.
As shown in FIG. 5, computers 100, 200 constituting this type of computer system are referred to as "nodes."
Nodes 100, 200 each includes a plurality of CPUs 101 to 10n; a system controller 111 that is connected to each of the CPUs 101 to 10n; a main memory 112 for containing information concerning the operation of the system controller 111 and so forth; an IO controller 114 for controlling the input and output of the information processed by the system controller 111; a network adapter 115 for connecting the node bodies 100, 200 and the network 500 electrically; an IO bus 113 for connecting the system controller 111, the IO controller 114, and the network adapter 115 with one another; and an inter-node connection bus 116 for connecting the node bodies 100, 200 and the network 500 physically.
For this type of computer system, operational continuity is ensured by improving fault tolerance through increased system redundancy or by improving system performance through parallel job execution by two or more nodes 100, 200, so that the entire system will not be down even when one of its nodes fails.
In such a cluster system, jobs executed by the individual nodes 100, 200 are started as different processes independent of each other. By this, when a failure occurs in one of the nodes, the failing node can be isolated from other nodes; the job being executed by the failing node can then be re-executed or resumed by a good node, thereby improving the availability of the system.
In a typical conventional cluster system, the communications channel between nodes 100, 200 consists of a communication network 500, notably Ethernet (R) or a fiber channel.
In recent years, a new type of cluster system has appeared. As shown in FIG. 6, this type of cluster system has a plurality of processors. It can achieve an ultra-high speed inter-node communications by logically dividing a medium- or large-scale distributed shared memory system into units of distributed memories and by using remote memory access for inter-node communications. The internal configuration of each node of this cluster system is similar to that of the individual nodes 100, 200 shown in FIG. 5, except that the former node uses a cross-bar switch 500′ instead of a network 500.
When used as a single computer, the distributed shared memory system shown in FIG. 6 uses all the memory spaces formed by local and remote memories as a single own memory space. In cluster operation mode, on the other hand, only local memories of processor groups are used as an own memory; in this case, access to a remote memory is used as an inter-node access from one node to another.
When using this mode of operation, a cluster system with extremely highly efficient inter-node access paths can be provided, because inter-node access can attain a performance level similar to that of a remote memory in a single distributed shared system, in terms of both access time and throughput.
However, a cluster system based on the conventional art, in which a distributed shared system is divided logically, may from time to time fail to realize fully the potential high availability of the cluster system as described above. This is because the nodes in such a cluster system are connected very densely with each other; in such a dense node connection, an uncorrectable failure that has occurred between nodes during data transfer may propagate in its entirety to other nodes, possibly leading to a failure in many or all of the nodes in the system.
In Japanese Patent Laying-Open (Kokai) No. 2001-7893, an art to resolve the problem of a failure propagating between nodes in a cluster system using a logically divided distributed shared system is described. This art features an enhanced ECC (Error-Correcting-Code) circuit used in the system controlling part, which is provided with a capability to replace a send data to another node with "0" fixed value+ECC during 2-bit error detection in addition to a function for 1-bit error detection, 1-bit error correction, and 2-bit error detection. This art also ensures that the sum adding function of the cluster driver will always calculate a sum for data check, write the resulting sum into the shared memory of the own node, and add the sum to the send data to another node. Finally, the sum check function of this art is designed to always check the sum for data check contained in the receive data that has been read from the shared memory of the other node.
In the art described above, a remote memory read used for data transfer between the nodes in the cluster is executed by a cluster driver program running on the target node, which issues on the processor located in the own node a LOAD instruction from the memory space of the source node.
In a commonly used processor, following the execution of a load instruction by the program, timer-based monitoring is conducted from when the resulting data read is output to outside the processor as a read request until the target data is returned to the processor. If for some reasons no replay data has been returned in response to the executed load instruction and the timer detects a timeout condition, this may develop into an OS panic or other serious situation, preventing further operation of the entire system.
Otherwise, if the processor does not perform timeout detection, the non-returning of reply data may possibly cause the operation of the processor to stall.
Therefore, even with the art described in the disclosure above, high availability may sometimes not be achieved because if during an inter-node access a remote memory read from the memory of the target node is not responded by a reply data for the read due to a failure encountered on the target node or somewhere along the channel connecting between the two nodes, the source node issuing the read can also be affected by the failure.
In the worst-case scenario, in which all but one node are executing remote memory reads from the memory of the one node and if the one node cannot return the read reply data because of a failure, then this may develop into a complete system down.
For this reason, a cluster system according to this art often cannot achieve the high availability that it was originally designed to achieve.
In Japanese Patent Laying-Open (Kokai) No. Heisei 8-137815, a computer system is described that is designed to prevent the occurrence of a failure while processing a message. In this computer system, the requesting module is provided with a sending part for sending a Synchronize message to the target module if a response to the message it has sent out should time out; a part for discarding a response message to a previous message that has been received before a Synchronization Completed message is received; a synchronization completing processing part for performing the process to complete synchronization upon receiving a Synchronization Completed message. The target module in this computer system is provided with a replying part for replying the requesting module with a Synchronization Completed message upon receiving a Synchronize message.
However, all the parts described above are provided within the processor, as shown in FIG. 2, and several problems attributable to this configuration have been reported. For example, when a Synchronization Completed message arrived during an operation system's startup procedure on the processor, a trouble occurred in the operation system, hampering the processing by the operating system.

Computer system for preventing inter-node fault propagation


The invention relates to a method for defining the patterns of behaviour of users of a telecommunication system on the basis of information collected from the telecommunication system, in which method at least one variable or a combination of variables of the telecommunication system is defined, user-specific information corresponding to the defined at least one variable or a combination of variables is filtered from the information collected from the telecommunication system, and the users of the telecommunication system are divided into classes of behaviour patterns on the basis of said filtered user-specific information. In addition, the invention relates to a system for defining the behaviour patterns of users of a telecommunication system, which system comprises means (51) for defining at least one variable or a combination of variables of the telecommunication system, filtering means (53) for filtering said user-specific information corresponding to at least one variable or a combination of variables from the information received from the telecommunication system, and classifying means (55) for classifying the users of telecommunication system on the basis of said filtered user-specific information.

From the point of view of a beginning telecommunication system operator, such as a mobile phone operator, the focus is on increasing the coverage and capacity of the system. When a sufficient level has been reached in these areas, the operators begin to pay more attention to improving the quality of service. An important factor in quality improvement is to optimize the properties of the system for the needs of the users. In order to achieve this, the operator must get information both about the performance of its system and the behaviour of its users.
In FIG. 1, the operation of the mobile communication system 10 is shown as a simplified diagram. The system 10 in FIG. 1 comprises a base station 12, a mobile services switching centre (MSC) 13, a network management system (NMS) 14, a customer register 15 and a statistics unit 16. When the mobile station 11 is used, a connection is established between the mobile station 11 and the base station 12. Via the base station 12, the connection is transmitted to the MSC 13, which establishes a connection between the mobile station 11 and the intended destination. Information about the connection, the type of service offered and its duration is transmitted from the MSC to the customer register 15, in which the information is saved for invoicing.
By means of the network management system 14, the operation of both the MSC 13 and the whole mobile communication system 10 is monitored and also managed, when required. Information collected by the network management system 14 can be saved in the statistics unit 16 for statistical reference.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a prior art method 20, in which statistical material is collected for the needs of the system operator. The method 20 is based on examination of the statistical material about the use of a mobile communication system 10 received from the statistics unit 16. In a method like this it can be examined, for example, how large a proportion of the attempts to establish a connection succeeded in the area of each base station, or what the average duration of the connections in the system is.
In the first step 21 of the method 20, the parameter to be examined is defined. The information is collected in the second step 22. In the third step 23 of the method, the value of the parameter is added to the statistics, whereafter the process returns to step 22 for collecting more information, when needed. When the statistical data collected are regarded as sufficient, statistical analysis is carried out in step 24.
By carrying out statistical analyses, the method 20 described above can be used to calculate parameters essential for the mobile communication system from the statistical material obtained from the system, which parameters can then be used for optimizing the system, for example. However, the statistical quantities received from the use of the mobile communication system do not identify the users, but the statistics are compiled on the basis of measurable system parameters, and these parameters are not individualized by users.
FIG. 3 shows another prior art method, by which statistical material is collected for the use of the system operator. The method is built on the method 20 depicted above in FIG. 2, complemented with the method 30 based on a customer survey. The purpose of the customer survey is to find individual differences between users and to group the users according to their patterns of behaviour.
The parameter to be examined in the survey is defined in the first step 31, after which the actual customer survey 32 and compilation of statistics 33 is carried out. The statistical material received from the customer survey can be combined with the statistical material received from the mobile communication system by the first method 20, after which statistical analysis 24 is carried out on the combined material.
The prior art methods entail the problem that there is not a clear connection between the users and the parameters of the mobile communication system. Statistically it is possible to make comparisons between the statistical materials received with different methods and to try to connect the values of certain parameters measured from the system to certain classes of behaviour patterns of users defined on the basis of the customer survey. However, there is no certain connection between the classes of behaviour patterns and the parameters calculated from the operation of the system, because a certain user or class of behaviour pattern cannot be unambiguously combined with the quantities measured from the system.
Furthermore, the solution based on a prior art customer survey with questionnaires entails the problem of the reliability of questionnaire surveys in general. In practice, the person who carries out the survey does not have full certainty of to what extent the material collected with a customer survey really reflects the real situation and how much the personal opinions or assumptions of the users have influenced the results of the survey. For this reason, the best application of questionnaire surveys is in charting the opinions and expectations of users.

Method and system for determining operating modes of users of a telecommunication system


An exhaust-gas purification device disposition structure of a vehicle, comprises a fuel tank with a fuel supply port which is disposed so as to be open to an outside of a vehicle compartment, and a urea tank to accommodate urea water solution as deoxidizer to purify exhaust gas. The urea tank is disposed outside the vehicle compartment, and a pouring port of the urea tank is provided inside the vehicle compartment. Accordingly, the urea water solution can be surely prevented from entering into the vehicle compartment even in case of the breakage of the urea tank, and the mistake of supplying the wrong liquid into the wrong supply (pouring) port tank which may be made by confusing the ports can be avoided.

The present invention relates to a disposition structure of an exhaust-gas purification device to purify exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine of a vehicle by using deoxidizer.
It is generally known that the nitrogen oxide (NOx) contained in the exhaust gas from the internal combustion engine (diesel engine, gasoline engine, etc.) of vehicles, such as an automotive vehicle, is purified by a NOx deoxidizing catalyst which is disposed in an engine exhaust pipe.
It has been recently proposed that the ammonia is used as the deoxidizer for improving the purification efficiency by the NOx deoxidizing catalyst. For example, if the urea water solution, as the deoxidizer, is added into the exhaust pipe upstream of the deoxidizing catalyst, the added urea water solution is heated and resolved by the exhaust gas of the engine, resulting in producing ammonia. This ammonia acts as the deoxidizer so that the purification of NOx in the exhaust gas can be promoted. Herein, instead of resolving the urea, the ammonia may be directly added into the exhaust gas upstream of the deoxidizing catalyst.
In a case where the above-described exhaust-gas purification system is applied, it may be necessary to provide a tank (deoxidizer tank) to accommodate the urea water solution or the ammonia, which is supported at a vehicle body. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-242092, for example, has proposed such a disposition structure (layout) of the deoxidizer tank.
According to the layout disclosed in the above-described patent publication, a space inside an engine room or a side cowl, below a font seat in a vehicle compartment, inside a bumper at a vehicle end, or a vehicle-body frame can be properly utilized. Thus, the volume of the deoxidizer tank can be increased, including providing plural tanks, and thereby the frequency in supply of the deoxidizer can be properly reduced.
Meanwhile, as well known, the ammonia has some toxicity and strong irritant odor. Accordingly, in case of a breakage of the deoxidizer tank, the leaking deoxidizer has to be prevented surely from entering into the vehicle compartment. It is also known that while the temperature at which the urea is resolved into the ammonia easily (the urea resolution temperature) is about 150 degrees C., the small amount of resolved ammonia gas may be produced even at the normal temperature. Therefore, it is preferable that not only the ammonia but the urea water solution be prevented surely from entering into the vehicle compartment.
In the conventional layout, however, the deoxidizer tank is disposed above the vehicle-body floor, so that there is a concern that the deoxidizer leaking from the broken tank would enter into the vehicle compartment. Particularly, in the engine room are provided several components and members with the surface temperature which is higher than the urea resolution temperature. Accordingly, in a case where the deoxidizer tank is disposed in the engine room, the leaking urea water solution tends to be resolved easily so as to produce the ammonia, resulting in a bad situation.
Further, there is another concern that in case of supplying the deoxidizer into the deoxidizer tank, the fuel into a fuel supply port which opens to the outside of the vehicle compartment, a wiper washer liquid into a pouring port which opens to the inside of the engine room, or the like, the wrong liquid would be supplied into the wrong port by mistake, for example, the fuel or the washer liquid are poured into the supply port of the deoxidization tank with confusion of the ports. Thus, it may be required that this mistake be surely prevented when laying out the deoxidizer tank.

Exhaust-gas purification device disposition structure of vehicle


A thermal gas sensing apparatus for a gas detector is provided with a gas compartment containing a gas, a gas sensor exposed to the gas in the gas compartment, and a temperature sensor exposed to the gas in the gas compartment. The gas sensing apparatus includes a circuit for generating a gas signal having a magnitude which relates to the heat capacity of the gas and a circuit for generating a temperature signal having a magnitude which relates to the temperature of the gas. The apparatus includes a circuit for supplying a variable magnitude of electrical current through the gas sensor to cause the resistance of the gas sensor to remain substantially constant. The apparatus also includes a difference amplifier for generating a gas concentration signal based upon the temperature signal and the gas signal.

The present invention relates to a thermal gas sensing apparatus for use in a gas detector.
Gas detectors for sensing the concentration of gases are well known. Such gas detectors may be of various types, including catalytic gas detectors and thermal gas detectors. A catalytic gas detector utilizes a gas sensing circuit having a gas sensing element which detects gas based on combustion of the gas, which heats the gas sensing element. One example of a catalytic gas detector is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,988 to Tozier, et al. In that patent, the gas sensing element is coated with a material that acts as a catalyst to promote combustion of the gas being sensed.
Thermal gas detectors operate based on a different principle. A thermal gas detector utilizes a sensing element, such as a thermistor, through which an electrical current is provided and which generates heat within the sensing element. That heat is dissipated at a rate which depends on the particular gas to which the sensing element is exposed. Since different gases have different heat capacities (i.e. the rate at which the gas can absorb heat from the sensing element), a particular gas can be identified by the rate at which the sensing element is cooled.
Conventional thermal gas detectors are typically provided with a gas sensing circuit composed of a current source that supplies a constant electrical current through a pair of sensing elements, which include a reference element which is isolated from the gas being sensed and a sensing element which is exposed to the gas being sensed. The need to isolate the reference element from the gas increases the complexity of the gas sensing circuit and its cost.


A tissue ablation probe, system, and method are provided. The ablation probe comprises an elongated member, an ablative element mounted on the distal end of the elongated member, and at least one thermoelectric device mounted to the member in thermal communication with the ablative element. The system may include the ablation probe, thermal control circuitry for controlling the thermal effect of the thermoelectric device, and an ablation source for suppying ablation energy to the ablative element. A plurality of circumferentially distributed thermoelectric devices can be provided, so that radial tissue sectors can be selectively affected by independently controlling the thermal effect of the thermoelectric devices. In one embodiment, the thermoelectric device(s) can be used to cool a heat ablative element. In another embodiment, the thermoelectric device(s) can be used to heat an ablative element, thereby forming a heat ablative element. In still another embodiment, the thermoelectric device(s) can be used to cryogenically cool an ablative element, thereby forming a cryogenic ablative element.

Tissue may be destroyed, ablated, or otherwise treated using thermal energy during various therapeutic procedures. Many forms of thermal energy may be imparted to tissue, such as radio frequency (RF) electrical energy, microwave electromagnetic energy, laser energy, acoustic energy, or thermal conduction. In one particular application, RF energy may be delivered to diseased regions (e.g., tumors) for the purpose of ablating predictable volumes of tissue with minimal patient trauma. RF ablation of tumors is currently performed using one of two core technologies.
The first technology uses a single needle electrode, which when attached to a RF generator, emits RF energy from the exposed, uninsulated portion of the electrode. This energy translates into ion agitation, which is converted into heat and induces cellular death via coagulation necrosis. In theory, RF ablation can be used to uniformly sculpt the volume of necrosis to match the extent of the tumor. By varying the power output and the type of electrical waveform, it is theoretically possible to control the extent of heating, and thus, the resulting ablation. The diameter of tissue coagulation from a single electrode, however, is limited by heat dispersion. As a result, multiple probe insertions have been required to treat all but the smallest lesions. This considerably increases treatment duration and requires significant skill for meticulous precision of probe placement.
The second technology utilizes multiple needle electrodes, which have been designed for the treatment and necrosis of tumors in the liver and other solid tissues. U.S. Pat. No. 6,379,353 discloses such a probe, which is commercially available as the LeVeen Needle Electrode. This probe comprises a cannula having a needle electrode array, which is reciprocatably mounted within the cannula to alternately deploy the electrode array from the cannula and retract electrode array within the cannula. The individual electrodes within the array have spring memory, so that they assume a radially outward, arcuate configuration as they are deployed from the cannula. In general, a multiple electrode array creates a larger lesion than that created by a single needle electrode.
Whichever technology is utilized, increasing generator output has been unsuccessful for increasing lesion diameter, because an increased wattage is associated with a local increase of temperature to more than 100° C., which induces tissue vaporization and charring. This then increases local tissue impedance, limiting RF deposition, and therefore heat diffusion and associated coagulation necrosis.
To reduce the local temperature, thereby minimizing tissue vaporization and charring, the needle electrode or electrodes can be cooled. With regard to the single needle technology, two coaxial lumens may currently be provided in the needle electrode, one of which is used to deliver a cooled saline (e.g., room temperature or cooler) to the tip of the electrode, and the other of which is used to return the saline to a collection unit outside of the body. See, e.g., Goldberg et al., Radiofrequency Tissue Ablation: Increased Lesion Diameter with a Perfusion Electrode, Acad Radiol, August 1996, pp. 636-644.
Although the circulation of a cooled fluid through the needle electrode provides for a more efficient means for creating a lesion, it requires additional equipment in the form of a pump and collection reservoir. In addition, uniform lesions are not always created even when the needle electrodes are cooled, because the vascular heating sinking effect often pulls heat away from adjacent tissue that is being ablated.
There thus remains a need to provide an improved method, apparatus, and system for cooling tissue during an ablation procedure.

Ablation probe with peltier effect thermal control


A semiconductor memory device having a redundant circuit for electrically replacing a defective memory cell column with a spare memory cell column. An electric fuse (25) is connected between a precharging voltage line (V.sub.BL) and bit lines (BL, BL). When a defective memory cell exists, the precharging voltage tries to vary through this fuse. However, this fuse is cut off, so that the precharging voltage is prevented from varying. Accordingly, data stored in the remaining memory cells are read out correctly and without delay.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a semiconductor memory device, and particularly, to a semiconductor memory device having a redundant circuit function for electrically replacing a defective memory cell column including a defective memory cell with a spare memory cell column. The present invention has particular applicability to a dynamic random access memory device.
2. Description of the Background Art
As a semiconductor memory device is highly integrated, a defect in a memory cell is occurring increasingly. As a cause of a defect, bad conditions in the manufacturing process are mainly pointed out. For example, it is assumed that a defect occurred only in one memory cell in a semiconductor memory device having 1 megabit of memory capacity. If no measure is taken against that, that memory device has to be considered an inferior product even when there are no defects in the remaining memory cells. This means that the manufacturing efficiency, or the yield is degraded. A method of providing a redundant circuit in a memory device is known for improving the degraded yield. When a redundant circuit is provided in a memory device, for example, a defective memory cell column including a defective memory cell is electrically replaced with another spare memory cell column. For the electrical replacement, a spare memory cell column, a spare word line, a spare decoder or the like are prepared in the memory device in advance.
Some inspections before delivery are performed about a semiconductor memory device to find out the existence of a defective memory cell. When a defective memory cell is detected by the inspection, the defective memory cell column including the defective memory cell is electrically replaced with a spare memory cell column. To implement the replacement, a certain appropriate fuse is cut off among fuses previously prepared in the semiconductor memory device. Known methods for cutting a fuse off include a method utilizing a laser trimmer device cutting a fuse off by employing laser beam, and a method of melting a fuse down by providing large current to the fuse.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional dynamic random access memory (hereinafter, referred to as "DRAM"). Referring to FIG. 1, the DRAM includes a memory cell array 4 having memory cells provided in rows and columns, a row decoder 3 for activating word lines for selecting memory cell rows, and a column decoder and a sense amplifier 5 for selecting memory cell columns and amplifying the read data signal. It is pointed out that this DRAM includes spare memory cell columns provided in an edge portion of the memory cell array 4.
FIG. 2A is a circuit diagram of the memory cell array 4 shown in FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 2A, memory cells MC are connected to respective bit lines BL and BL. A sense amplifier 50 is connected between the bit lines BL and BL. The sense amplifier 50 is activated by turning on a NMOS transistor 11 and a PMOS transistor 12. NMOS transistors 15 and 16 are connected between the bit line pair BL, BL and an I/O line pair 23. The transistors 15 and 16 operate in response to an output signal of a column decoder 40. Switching transistors provided in the respective memory cells MC operate in response to output signals of a row decoder 3.
The column decoder 40 operates in response to column address signals CAi, CAi, CAj, CAk, CAm and CAn. When a predetermined column address signal is provided, all of the transistors 46 turn off, and all of the transistors 45 turn on. Accordingly, a node 43 is brought to ground potential through a fuse 44. As a result, NOR gates 41 or 42 generates high level signal Y1 or Y2 for a selecting memory cell column. The fuse 44 for disabling the column decoder 40 is provided in the column decoder 40. On the other hand, when the above-described predetermined column address signal is not provided, or when the fuse 44 is cut off, the node 43 becomes high level. Accordingly, the NOR gates 41 and 42 generate low level signals Y1 and Y2.
A precharging voltage generating circuit 6 is provided for precharging bit lines. The precharging voltage V.sub.BL is provided to bit line pairs through NMOS transistors 13 and 14 connected to the bit lines BL and BL. The transistors 13 and 14 operate in response to an equalizing signal EQ generated from a signal generator 70.
FIG. 2B is a circuit diagram of the spare memory cell column 4s shown in FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 2B, the spare memory cell column 4s has a circuit configuration same as that of a common memory cell column shown in FIG. 2A. The spare column decoder 40s also has a circuit configuration almost same as that of the common column decoder 40 shown in FIG. 2A. The spare column decoder 40s, however, receives spare column signals CAjs, CAks, CAms and CAns generated by the program circuit 8 shown in FIG. 2C.
Referring to FIG. 2C, program circuit 8 includes fuses F1 through F8 for programming selection of spare memory cell columns. Each Fuse F1 through F8 is connected to receive column address signals CAj, CAj through CAn and CAn through each inverter correspondingly provided. The column address signals CAj and CAj through CAn and CAn have low level potential in a stand by state. For example, if a defective memory cell or cells exist(s) on the column specified with a column address signal (CAj, CAk, CAm, CAn)=(1, 0, 0, 0), fuses F2, F3, F5 and F7 are blown. Accordingly, when a column address signal for selecting a defective memory column is provided, high level signals CAjs, CAks, CAms and CAns are supplied as outputs. As a result, in the spare column decoder 40s shown in FIG. 2B, a spare column enable signal SCE attains a low level, so that the spare money cell column 4s is selected in response to column address signals CAi and CAi. In other words, when a programed defective memory cell column is addressed, spare memory cell column 4s is accessed instead.
FIG. 2D is a circuit diagram of the V.sub.BL generating circuit 6 shown in FIG. 2A. Referring to FIG. 2D, the V.sub.BL generating circuit 6 includes resistors R1 and R2 connected in series between the power source Vcc and ground. With voltage division of resistors R1 and R2, a precharge voltage V.sub.BL having a value of Vcc/2 is generated.
FIG. 2E is a circuit diagram of the row decoder 3 and the signal generator 70 shown in FIG. 2A and address buffer 9. Referring to FIG. 2E, the signal generator 70 generates an equalizing signal EQ and sense amplifier activating signals Sn and Sp in response to an external RAS signal. In addition, the signal generator 70 generates a row address buffer enable signal RABE and a word line driving signal .phi.x obtained by delaying an external RAS signal. Address buffer 9 receives external address signals ext. Add. Address buffer 9 generates internal address signals int.Add and int.Add in response to a signal RABE generated by signal generator 70. Row decoder 3 receives a high level word line driving signal .phi.x, and activates the specified word line WL in response to internal address signals int.Add and int.Add.
FIG. 3 is a timing chart for showing the operation of the DRAM shown in FIG. 2A. Referring to FIGS. 2A and 3, the operation of the DRAM will be described below. As a high level equalizing signal EQ is provided first, the transistors 13 and 14 are on. Thus, the bit line pair BL and BL is brought to the precharging voltage V.sub.BL. Next, after a row address strobe signal RAS falls, the signal EQ also falls. As the transistors 13 and 14 turn off in response to the signal EQ, the bit line pair BL and BL is brought into a floating state. Almost simultaneously with falling of the signal EQ, the voltage of the word line WL is raised by the row decoder 3. Accordingly, a small potential difference is produced between the bit lines BL and BL. As the signal generator 70 raises a sense amplifier activating signal Sn and makes a signal Sp fall, the sense amplifier 50 is activated. The small potential difference produced in the bit pair is amplified by the sense amplifier 50. A high level signal Y1 is provided from the column decoder 40 thereafter and the voltage amplified by the sense amplifier 50 is provided to the I/O line pair 23. The voltage provided to this I/O line pair 23 is provided outside as a data signal read from the memory cell.
Referring to FIG. 2A again, it is noted that the column decoder 40 selects two bit line pairs in response to the column address signal. That is, when the NOR gate 41 provides a high level signal Y1, upper two bit line pairs are selected. When the NOR gate 42 provides a high level signal Y2, lower two bit line pairs are selected. However, when a defect occurs in a memory cell MC connected to any of these four bit line pairs, none of the four bit line pairs is selected by the column decoder 40. That is, as the fuse 44 provided in the column decoder 40 is disconnected, the node 43 is brought to a high level. Accordingly, the respective NOR gates 41 and 42 provide low level signals Y1 and Y2, respectively. As a result, the transistors 15 through 22 turn off, and the amplified voltage of bit line pairs is not provided to the I/O line pairs 23 and 24. Consequently, the memory cell column including a defective memory cell can not be accessed. Instead of accessing these four bit line pairs, four spare bit line pairs prepared separately are accessed.
FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram for illustrating the occurrence of a defect in a memory cell MC1. As an example of a defect, the case where the word line WL1 and a bit line BL are electrically connected by a foreign material. The foreign material may be dust in the manufacturing environment of a semiconductor memory device or a residual in the etching process. Consequently, the word line WL1 and the bit line BL are connected by a resistance component 29.
When the memory cell MC1 is not selected, the row decoder 3 provides a low level signal to the word line WL1. That is to say, a transistor 32 for driving the word line WL1 turns on in response to the signal S1, and the word line WL1 is brought to a low level. The resistance component 29 is connected between the word line WL1 and the bit line BL, so that the potential of the bit line BL is gradually decreased. In other words, the potential of the bit line BL is connected to ground through the word line WL1 and the transistor 32. This causes such problems as described below.
FIG. 5 is a timing chart for illustrating abnormal reading operation caused by a memory cell defect. When a defect as shown in FIG. 4 exists in a memory cell, a read error as described below occurs. That is to say, the bit line BL is connected to ground through the resistance component 29, the word line WL1 and the transistor 32 as shown in FIG. 4, so that the precharging voltage V.sub.BL for the bit lines is gradually decreased as shown by the arrow P in FIG. 5. Especially, when a stand-by period is long, the decrease is considerable. With the decrease of the precharging voltage V.sub.BL, the potential of the equalized bit line pair BL and BL is also decreased. As a result, when a small voltage difference produced in the bit line pair BL and BL is amplified by the sense amplifier, it takes longer to raise the potential of the bit line BL. This means that it takes the sense amplifier a longer time to read data. That is, as shown in FIG. 5, after the sense amplifier is activated by the signals Sn and Sp (time t0), it takes a long time T until the voltage difference of the bit line pair BL and BL reaches a predetermined level (time t2). Therefore, when the column decoder 40 shown in FIG. 2 provides a high level signal Y1 (time t1), a sufficient voltage difference (.DELTA.V in the FIGURE) is not obtained between the bit lines BL and BL. Consequently, a read error caused by the presence of a defective memory cell has been produced in a conventional semiconductor memory device.
If the word line WL1 and the bit line BL shown in FIG. 4 are shorted, the V.sub.BL varies as shown by the chain line in FIG. 5. Accordingly, especially in this case, after activating the sense amplifier, the bit line BL takes a longer time to rise up. As a result, reading errors are caused. It is also pointed out that a state equivalent to that of short is caused when a stand by period of the DRAM is long even if short as described above is not produced.
Referring to FIG. 6, one memory cell MC includes a switching NMOS transistor Qs and a storage capacitor Cs. A cell plate voltage Vcp is supplied to one electrode of the capacitor Cs. The stored data signal is supplied to the other electrode of the capacitor Cs, and the other electrode is provided with a voltage Vce. When the stored data is "1", Vce=Vcc, and on the other hand, if the stored data is "0", Vce=0.
With a load capacitance of the bit line BL as CB, a capacitance value of the storage capacitor as CS, and a voltage of the bit line BL after activation of the word line WL as Vaft, the relationship expressed as follows holds. EQU C.sub.B .multidot.V.sub.BL +Cs (Vce-Vcp)=C.sub.B .multidot.Vaft+Cs (Vaft-Vcp) (1)
Accordingly, EQU Vaft={1/(C.sub.B +Cs)}.multidot.(C.sub.B .multidot.V.sub.BL +Cs.multidot.Vce) (2)
When the data "1" is stored in a memory cell MC, the voltage difference .DELTA.V.sub.H produced on the bit line BL upon turning-on of transistor Qs is expressed as follows. EQU .DELTA.V.sub.H =Vaft-V.sub.BL ={1/(1+C.sub.B /Cs)}.multidot.(Vce-V.sub.BL) (3)
Since the data "1" is stored, Vce.apprxeq.Vcc. Accordingly, when the V.sub.BL is at a higher level due to some trouble, sufficient .DELTA.V.sub.H is not obtained. As a result, reading errors are produced.
On the other hand, when the data "0" is stored in memory cell MC, the voltage difference .DELTA.V.sub.L produced on the bit line BL upon turning-on of the transistor Qs is expressed as follows. EQU .DELTA.V.sub.L =V.sub.BL -Vaft={1/(1+C.sub.B /Cs)}.multidot.(V.sub.BL -Vce) (4)
Since the data "0" is stored, Vce.apprxeq.0. Accordingly, when V.sub.BL is at a lower level due to such a trouble as shown in FIG. 4, sufficient .DELTA.V.sub.L is not obtained. As a result, reading errors are produced.
Referring to FIG. 7, the time length t.sub.RP of the off time period, or a stand by period of the DRAM is defined by rise and fall times of the signal RAS. It is pointed out that, as the time length t.sub.RP is longer, or the stand by period of DRAM is longer, the voltage V.sub.BL of the bit line BL is reduced due to such troubles as shown in FIG. 4. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 8, reading errors are increased as a function of the time length t.sub.RP.

Semiconductor memory device with precharging voltage level unchanged by defective memory cell


An organic light emitting device including a first substrate, at least an organic light emitting unit, a plurality of first electrode contacts and a plurality of second electrode contacts. The organic light emitting unit is disposed on the first substrate. The first electrode contacts are disposed on the first substrate at a margin of the organic light emitting unit, wherein adjacent two first electrode contacts are spaced by a first interval, and an end of each first electrode contact is electrically connected to the organic light emitting unit. The second electrode contacts are disposed on the first substrate at a margin of the organic light emitting unit, wherein adjacent two second electrodes are spaced by a second interval, an end of each second electrode contact is electrically connected to the organic light emitting unit, and the second interval is different from the first interval.

An organic light emitting device (OLED) is a planar light source, which has several advantages such as wide viewing angle, compatible with the existing manufacturing processes of planar display devices, fast response time, emitting light without ultraviolet rays, small volume and light weight, and can be driven with direct current. Therefore, OLED has great advantages and development potential in the field of display device or lighting device.
In the manufacturing process of an organic light emitting element, an organic light emitting structure is formed between an anode and a cathode. Then, the anode and the cathode are electrically connected to positive and negative electrodes of an external power supply by conducting wires, respectively. In this way, light rays generated by supplying electrical energy to the organic light emitting structure are extracted from the anode side or the cathode side. However, since the organic light emitting element is a planar light source as mentioned above, several factors affects the voltages for driving two ends of the hole carrier and the electron carrier in the light emitting region of the organic light emitting structure when power of the external power supply is supplied to the organic light emitting element. For example, the length of the conducting wire through which the current passed, or the resistance of the anode or cathode leads to a voltage difference between the two ends of the hole carrier and the electron carrier. This leads to an uneven luminosity of the planar light source, which limits upsizing of the OLEDs.
Taking a conventional OLED lighting device as an example, in order to supply power and prevent uneven luminosity, a thin film electrode contact is disposed on the substrate formed with an OLED lighting element for electrically connecting with an external power source so as to supply power to the organic light emitting structure. Since the substrate of the OLED lighting element is normally rectangular, and the anode/cathode thin film electrode contacts are symmetrically disposed on the substrate, it is possible that they are misplaced in relative to positive/negative electrodes of the power supply device in assembling the OLED lighting element to form a lighting device. Once the anode/cathode electrodes are misplaced, the organic light emitting structure will burn out when electrically connected with the external power supply device and a reverse electric field applied. Therefore, an object of the invention is to increase a luminosity evenness of OLED, and at the same time prevent burn-out of OLED due to the misplacement of the anode/cathode electrodes.

Organic light emitting device and power supply device thereof


An electric exhaust gas recirculation valve for an internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle includes a motor rotor. A drive motor is configured to be mechanically commutated. The drive motor comprises a plastic carrier panel lying in a transverse plane arranged at a longitudinal end of the drive motor. The plastic carrier panel comprises, on a side facing the motor rotor, at least two commutator brushes and suppression reactance coils assigned to the at least two commutator brushes. Suppression capacitors are arranged on a side averted from the motor rotor. A valve body. A reduction gearing is connected to the drive motor. The reduction gearing is mechanically connected to the valve body.

Exhaust gas recirculation valves serve to control exhaust gas recirculation in internal combustion engines in the interest of reducing pollutants in the exhaust gas. External exhaust gas recirculation valves are not arranged in the internal combustion engine block, but outside the engine block. They therefore generally do not have an active cooling, so that all components of the exhaust gas recirculation valve are subjected to high thermal stresses. The essential functional parts of an external exhaust gas recirculation valve are constituted by an electric drive motor, a reduction gearing, and a valve body. The gearing may be any gearing that is as compact as possible, for example, a planetary gearing, a worm wheel gearing, etc.
For reasons of costs, a mechanically commutated DC drive motor is used as the drive motor for exhaust gas recirculation valves. A drawback of mechanical commutation is the relatively strong electromagnetic interference generated in the process. Reactance coils and capacitors are generally used to suppress the interference in a mechanically commutated motor, which are mounted as close to the rotor as possible to achieve the best suppression effect possible. However, capacitors can only tolerate temperatures of 150° C., so that they cannot readily be used for suppression in exhaust gas recirculation valves of the common type, since, in addition, also the motor rotor is heated to temperatures far above 200° C. in operation.

Motor vehicle internal combustion motor exhaust gas recirculation valve having a mechanically commutated drive motor


A rotary piston machine with a housing forming a prismatic cavity with a cavity wall. The cross section of the prismatic cavity is a cavity oval. A rotary piston is guided for rotary movement in the cavity. The rotary piston moves in consecutive intervals of motion from one blocking position to an adjacent end position. The rotary piston, during the consecutive intervals of motion rotates, in the same rotational direction, alternatingly about one of two different axes. A transmission arrangement transmits the rotary motion about two axes. When the rotary piston reaches a blocking position, there is an associated larger diameter cavity circular arc, in which the larger diameter piston circular arc was slidingly guided during the preceding interval of motion. To provide unambiguous kinematics of the system in this position, there is a device for temporarily providing, when said rotary piston has reached one of the blocking positions, reduced rotary speed of the rotary motion of said rotary piston about that one of the axes which is located in the center of curvature of the associated larger radius circular arc, as compared to the rotary speed about the other axis. Variable volume working chambers are defined between the wall of the cavity and the rotary piston. For sealing between these working chambers, sealing ledges with sealing surfaces are provided.

The invention relates to a rotary piston machine of the type having a housing, a prismatic cavity in the housing, the cross section of this cavity being an oval, and a rotary piston movable in this cavity, the cross section of this rotary piston being also an oval, the order of the rotary piston oval being different from the order of the oval forming the cross section of the cavity. The rotary piston, in operation, moves, in consecutive intervals of motion, from one blocking position to the next. In each such blocking position, the axis about which the rotary piston rotates, changes from one position to another one. Thus the rotary piston, alternatingly, rotates about different axes of rotation. During this rotary movement, two working chambers are defined between the inner wall of the cavity and the rotary piston, the volume of one working chamber increasing, while the volume of the respective other working chamber decreases. The rotary piston has an axial aperture therethrough with an internal gear, which meshes with gear means for driving the rotary piston machine or for being driven thereby.
In mathematics, an "oval" is a non-analytical, closed, convex figure which is composed of circular arcs. The circular arcs join each other continuously and differentially. In the points in which the circular arcs join, the curve is continuous. Also the tangents of the two joining circular arcs coincide there. The curve is differentiable. In the points, where the circular arcs of different radii of curvature join, the second derivative, which determines the curvature, makes a saltus. The oval consists, alternatingly, of circular arcs having a first, smaller radius of curvature and a second, larger radius of curvature. The order of the oval is determined by the number of pairs of circular arcs having the first and second radii of curvature. An oval of second order or bi-oval is "ellipse-like" with two diametrically opposite circular arcs of smaller diameter and two circular arcs of larger diameter.
Rotary piston machines of this type are known.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,967,594 and 3,996,901 disclose rotary piston machines having an oval rotary piston in an oval cavity. The cross section of the rotary piston is bi-oval. This bi-oval rotary piston is movable in a tri-oval chamber. In this prior art rotary piston machine, complex transmissions are provided to transmit the rotary movement of the rotary piston to an output shaft.
DE 199 20 289 C1 describes a rotary piston machine, wherein the cross section of a prismatic cavity defined in a housing is tri-oval with three pairs of continuously and differentially joining first and second circular arcs of alternatingly a smaller radius of curvature and a larger radius of curvature. A rotary piston having bi-oval cross section is guided in this cavity. The bi-oval cross section of the rotary piston is formed of alternatingly first and second circular arcs with the smaller and larger, respectively, radii of curvature of the tri-oval cross section of the cavity, these circular arcs, again, joining continuously and differentially. The bi-oval rotary piston, in the cavity, carries out the intervals of motion with "jumping" instantaneous axes of rotation described above. The rotary movement of the rotary piston is picked-off in a very simple way: A shaft extends centrally through the tri-oval cavity, i.e. along the line of intersection of the planes of symmetry of the cavity. The shaft carries a pinion. The rotary piston has an oval aperture with an internal gear. The long axis of the cross section of the aperture extends along the short axis of the bi-oval cross section of the rotary piston. The pinion continuously meshes with the internal gear.
In the prior art rotary piston machine, a housing defines a prismatic cavity, the cross section of which is such an oval of odd order, thus, for example, an oval of third order. The cavity has cylindrical inner wall sections with, alternatingly, the first, smaller and the second, larger radii of curvature. In such an oval of third (fifth or seventh or higher) order, rotary piston is rotatable, the cross section of which is an oval, the order of this rotary piston oval being by one smaller than the order of the oval of the cavity. Even though the oval used for the rotary piston has a higher order, it has a twofold symmetry, i.e. it is mirror-symmetrical with respect to two mutually orthogonal axes. This rotary piston has two diametrically opposite cylindrical surface sections, the radius of curvature of which is equal to the smaller (first) radius of curvature of the oval of the cavity. If the cross section of the rotary piston is an oval, the second, larger radius of curvature of this oval is equal to the second, larger radius of curvature of the oval defining the cavity. In a certain interval of motion, a first of these cylindrical surface sections of the rotary piston engages a cylindrical inner wall section complementary thereto of the cavity, which inner wall section has the same radius of curvature. The second, diametrically opposite cylindrical surface section of the rotary piston slides along the opposite, larger radius of curvature cylindrical inner wall section of the cavity. In this way, two working chambers are defined by the rotary piston, of which, during the rotation of the rotary piston, one increases in volume and one becomes smaller. In this interval of motion, the rotary piston rotates about an instantaneous axis of rotation. This instantaneous axis of rotation coincides with the cylinder axis of the first cylindrical surface section. This instantaneous axis of rotation has a well-defined position relative to the rotary piston. In this interval of motion, the instantaneous axis of rotation coincides, of course, also the housing-fixed cylinder axis of the smaller radius of curvature inner wall section, in which the rotary piston rotates. This rotation continues, until the second cylindrical surface section of the rotary piston reaches a blocking position. In the blocking position, the second cylindrical surface section engages the smaller diameter inner wall section joining the opposite inner wall section of larger diameter.
A further rotation of the rotary piston about the hitherto existing instantaneous axis of rotation is not possible. Therefore, the instantaneous axis of rotation, for the next interval of motion, "jumps" into another position, namely the cylinder axis of the second cylindrical surface section. Also this new instantaneous axis of rotation is in a well-defined position relative to the rotary piston. In the next interval of motion, this instantaneous axis of rotation coincides with the cylinder axis of the cylindrical inner wall section, in which now the second cylindrical surface section of the rotary piston is rotatably guided. In this interval of motion, the "first" cylindrical surface section slides along the opposite inner wall section of lager radius of curvature.
In a rotary piston machine of this type, the rotary piston rotates always with the same rotational direction but, alternatingly, about different instantaneous axes of rotation, the axes of rotation "jumping" after each interval of motion. Referenced to the rotary piston, two such instantaneous axes of rotation are defined, namely by the cylinder axes of the diametrically opposite cylindrical surface sections. Referring to the housing and the cavity defined therein, the instantaneous axis of rotation jumps between the "corners" of the oval. Thus, the cylinder axes of the inner wall sections having smaller radii of curvature.
During each interval of motion, the volume of one working chamber increases up to a maximum value, while the volume of the respective other working chamber decreases down to a minimum value. In the ideal case, when the cross section of the rotary piston also is an oval, the volume of the working chamber increases from virtually zero to the maximum value and decreases to virtually zero, respectively. Such a rotary piston machine can be designed as a two stroke or four stroke internal combustion engine or as an engine with external combustion such as a steam engine. It may, however, also be designed to operate as a pneumatic motor, as a hydraulic motor or as a pump.
DE 199 20 289 C1 discloses rotary piston machine, wherein a rotary piston, the cross section of which is an oval of second order, is movable in a cavity, the cross section of which is an oval of third order. For transmitting the movement of the rotary piston, there is a single output shaft extending centrally through the cavity. The output shaft extends through an oval aperture of the rotary piston and carries a pinion. The pinion is in mesh with an internal gear on the inner wall of the aperture.
In the prior art rotary piston machine, the order of the oval defining the cavity is always by one larger than the order of the oval defining the cross section of the rotary piston. A bi-oval rotary piston is guided in a tri-oval cavity. In the blocking positions, the instantaneous axes of rotation of the rotary piston jump relative to the rotary piston between two positions, but jump between at least three positions relative to the housing. The smaller radius section of the rotary piston moves translatorily along the larger radius inner wall section of the cavity. This may cause sealing problems with the sealing between the working chambers. A further problem results from the fact that, in each working cycle, consecutively more than two working chambers is formed, which travel around along the inner wall of the housing.
A similar design is disclosed in applicants' U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/773,093, filed Aug. 8, 2002 (=WO 03/014527). For ensuring that the kinematics of the instantaneous axis of rotation is unambiguously defined in the blocking positions, one rotational axis is temporarily fixed by mechanical means, in such blocking position.
Luxembourg patent 45,663 to Bleser, filed Mar. 16, 1964 and granted Mar. 30, 1965, describes an internal combustion engine in the form of a rotary piston engine, wherein a housing has an oval cavity and the cross section of the rotary piston is also an oval, wherein, however the order of the oval of the cavity is smaller than the order of the oval of the rotary piston. Thus the cross section of the cavity is an oval of second order, while the cross section of the rotary piston is an oval of third order. Two working chambers are defined between the inner wall of the cavity and the rotary piston. When the rotary piston rotates, the volume of one of the chambers increases, while the volume of the respective other one of the chambers is reduced. The rotary piston rotates always in the same rotary direction but in consecutive intervals of motion from one blocking position to the next blocking position. When the rotary piston has reached one blocking position by rotating about a first axis of rotation, it rotates further to the next blocking position about a second axis of rotation. With this structure, there are two housing-fixed axes of rotation, and the rotary piston, in consecutive intervals of motion, alternatingly rotate about these two axes.
To transmit the rotary motion of the rotary piston, the rotary piston has an aperture therethrough, which forms an oval similar to the contour of the rotary piston. This aperture forms an internal gear.
Two spaced, parallel shafts extend through the aperture. The axes of the shafts coincide with the two axes, about which the rotary piston rotates alternatingly. Pinions are provided on the shafts and mesh with the internal gear of the aperture.

Rotary piston machine with an oval rotary piston guided in an oval chamber


Data scrambling techniques implemented externally to a flash memory device are disclosed which can be used in concert with flash memory on-chip copy functionality operating internally to the flash device, thus supporting high performance copying operations. All the data stored in the flash may be scrambled, including headers and control structures. Robust file system operation may be achieved, including the capability to tolerate a power loss at any time, and yet be able to relocate data internally within the flash without having to de-scramble and then re-scramble the data. An exemplary hardware based solution has little or no impact on overall system performance, and may be implemented at very low incremental cost to increase overall system reliability. The data scrambling technique preferably uses a logical address, such as logical block address or logical page address, rather than a physical address, to determine a seed scrambling key.

The present invention relates generally to flash memory storage systems, and more specifically to such a system in which data to be written to the flash memory is scrambled to help reduce certain data pattern-dependent sensitivities and disturbance effects.
A "flash file system" provides a system of data storage and manipulation on a flash memory device that allows the device to emulate a magnetic disk. A flash file system enables applications or operating systems to interact with a flash memory device not using physical addresses but rather using logical addresses (sometimes called virtual addresses). An intermediate software layer between the software application and the physical memory system provides a mapping between logical addresses and physical addresses. Some systems that implement logical-to-physical address mapping are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,404,485 to Ban, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,937,425 to Ban, and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,591,330 to Lasser, all three of which patents are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
NAND flash memories are inherently susceptible to specific data patterns. For example, programming many cells on the same bit line to the same data state, or many cells on the same word line to the same data state, may cause program disturb effects which may alter the cell charge distribution and shift one or more cells to a different data state. Such fixed repetitive data patterns are not uncommon in bit patterns frequently written to flash memories, particularly those written to certain blocks, such as control blocks, within a flash file system. Such control blocks are used by the file system, for example, to keep track of logical-to-physical address mapping information, and other information about the various data blocks. At times, programming even a few word lines to specific data states may also cause such disturb effects. These disturb effects, as well as others, are particularly problematic in memory arrays storing multiple bits per cell (i.e., MBC arrays), also known as "multiple level cell" (MLC) arrays, and these effects can cause one or more cells to generate a read error as a function of specific user data patterns. Certain program disturb effects are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,023,739 to Chen, et al., (the '739 patent), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
To address this issue, techniques have been devised using system level data scrambling or randomization to eliminate the particularly problematic data patterns in the user data and control blocks before programming into a flash device. In this context, the act of scrambling or randomizing data refers to breaking up the bit patterns associated with the memory cell states along memory bit-lines and word-lines. However, such data scrambling techniques implemented outside the NAND memory are incompatible with the use of Flash Memory On-Chip-Copy or Copy-Back operations, and cannot achieve the system performance that would otherwise be attainable. Such an on-chip-copy operates on chunks of data to autonomously relocate data from one physical memory location to another physical memory location. This provides higher performance and requires less power consumption than is achievable without using on-chip copy operation, in which data is read from the device and communicated off-chip to a companion device (e.g., a flash controller device), then re-written into a different physical location of the NAND memory. However, an on-chip copy operation performed on data that is scrambled based on a physical memory address will unintentionally associate the scrambled data with a new key/seed, and results in the inability to properly descramble the data using the incorrect new key/seed to retrieve the original intended data.

System, method and memory device providing data scrambling compatible with on-chip copy operation


A speed reducer of the cycloidal type for robots and other industrial manipulators including a rotating ring which receives input at rapid speed is supported within a casing by a single end bearing which forms a pivot. The opposite end of the ring abuts against roller bearings associated with a pair of cams. Actuation fingers are oriented through housings created by openings in the cams and are connected to an output. The actuation fingers are arranged to be self-centered in the housings.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to speed reducers adapted to ensure angular actuation of the movable mobile members of robots, industrial manipulators, rotary machining plates and other like applications.
2. History of the Related Art
It is known that, in this type of apparatus, there is provided for each movable member a kinematic chain comprising an input shaft driven by an autonomous motor and connected, via a speed reducer, to an output shaft secured to the member in question. As the speed of rotation of the input shaft is much higher than that desired for the output shaft, reducers of the cycloidal type are ordinarily employed.
It will be recalled that a conventional cycloidal reducer comprises in principle at least one eccentric (in fact, two opposite eccentrics are most often employed in order to obtain a better balancing of forces), which is connected to the input shaft to ensure, by rotation, the control of a circular cam whose periphery is toothed in order to cooperate with a fixed toothing. The number of teeth of this fixed toothing is very slightly greater (in practice by one unit) than that of the periphery of the cam. With the cam are associated, in addition, actuation fingers which are carried by a plate angularly connected to the output shaft and which are engaged inside housings made in the cam (or, in the ordinary case of two parallel cams, in a housing defined by two conjugate openings of the two cams).
It will be understood that the primary motion applied by the input shaft to the eccentric causes the corresponding toothed cam to roll on the fixed outer toothing and thus to ensure, via the actuation fingers, drive of the output shaft in a ratio which depends on the number of teeth of the cam and on the difference of this number with respect to that of the fixed toothing, the cam backing by this difference for a revolution of the eccentric.
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings schematically shows the structure generally adopted for a cycloidal reducer with two eccentrics.
The fixed frame of the reducer in question is constituted by the assembly of two parts 1 and 2 of annular profile. This frame 1-2 supports an input shaft 3 which is driven in rotation by a motor shown schematically at 4 and on which is fitted a pinion gear 5. The latter meshes with the inner toothing 6a of a ring 6, disposed coaxially about frame 1-2 while being supported by two bearings 7 and 8 respectively mounted, the first, in a fixed cover 9 secured to the frame 1-2, the second, in a rotary plate 10. This plate 10 is carried by the frame 1-2 with the aid of a roller bearing 11 and it is provided, opposite the fixed plate 9, with an annular flange 10a forming an output shaft for the reducer.
The outer wall of ring 6 is machined in order to present two eccentric annular bearing surfaces 6b and 6c, the eccentricities being disposed opposite one another. On each of these bearing surfaces is mounted, with the interposition of a roller bearing 12, a cam 13 or 14, respectively, which is made with an annular profile and whose periphery is provided to be toothed so as to cooperate with the inner toothing of a fixed ring gear 15. The toothing 15a of the fixed ring gear 15 comprises a number of teeth very slightly greater (in fact by one or two units) than that of the toothings 13a and 14a of the cams 13 and 14, the cam being, to that end, made with a primitive diameter slightly smaller than the primitive diameter of the inner wall of the ring gear 15.
In order to ensure suitable guiding of the rotary plate 10 on the fixed parts of the assembly, the outer edge of the plate projects with respect to the ring gear 15 secured to the cover 9 and it receives a roller bearing 16 maintained in place with the aid of an annular cover 17.
Each of the toothed cams 13 and 14 is provided with a series of circular openings 13b, 14b. Once the openings of the two cams are brought into register with respect to one another, there is introduced in each of the housings thus defined an actuation finger constituted, in the conventional construction illustrated in FIG. 1, by a bushing 18 mounted idly, with a clearance as reduced as possible, on a cylindrical support or pin 19, which is carried by the plate 10.
Correct functioning of such a system implies employing parts which require a precise machining, followed by a very thorough grinding. Furthermore, it is virtually impossible for the torque to be simultaneously transmitted by a plurality of fingers 18-19, which leads to increasing the dimensions of the device.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome these drawbacks and to simplify the construction of the cycloidal reducers of the type shown, reduce the dimensions thereof and to improve the functioning thereof.

Speed reducer of the cycloidal type for robots and other industrial manipulators


An integrated circuit (IC) die has a top side surface providing circuitry including active circuitry configured to provide a function, including at least one bond pad formed from a bond pad metal coupled to a node in the circuitry. A dielectric passivation layer is over a top side surface of a substrate providing a contact area which exposes the bond pad. A metal capping layer includes an electrically conductive metal or an electrically conductive metal compound over at least the contact area to provide corrosion protection to the bond pad metal, which is in electrical contact with the bond pad metal. The metal capping layer can extend over structures other than the bond pads, such as to cover at least 80% of the area of the IC die to provide structures on the IC die protection from incident radiation.

The electronics industry is tasked with providing reliable circuitry, such as to satisfy the need for uninterrupted reliability for as long as 10 years or more. Corrosion-induced service failures are one source of reliability failures. For example, corrosion of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and IC die can have the effect of causing electrical opens, as well as electrical shorts when the corrosion products creep among the electrical conductors. This shorting mode, sometimes referred to as creep corrosion, is exacerbated when sensitive electronic products (having exposed corrodible metal) are deployed in regions of the world that have significant levels of air pollutants which may be corrosive to metals (e.g., Cl2, H2S, NH3, SO2, and NO2).
Bond pad and interconnect line corrosion can be mitigated in several ways. The electrically conductive materials used can be selected more wisely, such as based on available corrosion data. The electrically conductive materials can be protected from the pollutants by the use of protective coatings, device enclosures, or in some limited applications by the relocation of equipment to more protected environments. Humidity is a chief contributor to corrosion, as water allows intimate access of concentrated contaminating species (some of which become strong acids in the presence of water) and transportation of corrosion products. A passivation layer comprising silicon nitride or silicon oxynitride may provide better environmental performance as compared to conventional silicon oxide passivation, but the passivation layer needs to be exposed over the bond pad areas to allow electrical contact thereto, typically by a bondwire, which renders the exposed bond pad areas susceptible to corrosion.

Integrated circuit (IC) having electrically conductive corrosion protecting cap over bond pads


Methods of making disposable absorbent articles are herein. The method includes the steps: obtaining a carrier web; obtaining first absorbent core web and a second absorbent core web; cutting the first absorbent core web in a nesting configuration thereby forming a plurality of discrete first absorbent cores; cutting the second absorbent core web in a nesting configuration thereby forming a plurality of discrete second absorbent cores; joining a discrete second absorbent core to a discrete first absorbent core and to the carrier web, thereby forming a laminate structure web, wherein a leading edge of the discrete first absorbent core is spaced from a leading edge of the discrete second absorbent core in the machine direction; joining a backsheet web to the laminate structure web thereby forming an absorbent article web; and cutting the absorbent article web into a plurality of discrete absorbent articles.

A variety of disposable absorbent articles have been relied on by consumers to handle or manage body exudates. These consumers may include babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, adults, and elderly persons. Thus, it is clear that the types of fluids or body exudates managed by such articles may vary as well to include urine, feces, menses, and other discharges. Typically, in the case of adults, the articles take the form of sanitary napkins, adult incontinence pads, and adult incontinence diapers or undergarments. One of the primary drivers of the desirability of these products to wearers is to give them assurance that when they experience incontinence, the occurrence of such will go unnoticed by others and even more ideally by the wearers.
One way of improving the performance and overall discretion of disposable absorbent articles that has been widely utilized by manufacturers has been the inclusion of superabsorbent polymers which are able to intake increased amounts of liquid and consequently form a swollen hydrogel material. The resulting hydrogel serves to retain fluid such as discharged body liquids within the structure.
While disposable absorbent articles with these superabsorbent materials tend to be highly absorbent and less bulky, there are a number of users of these products that have a high body mass index (BMI) for which these products still leave much to be desired. In particular, these users tend to experience exaggerated bunching of the absorbent article during wear and as a result there can be increased opportunity for leaks to occur.
Consequently, there is a need for a disposable absorbent article which targets to provide increased protection from leakage to consumers which have a high BMI while maintaining a level of discretion to the wearer while in use. And there is a need for a process which facilitates manufacturing of such disposable absorbent articles.

Absorbent articles and methods of making the same


A battery includes a battery element, a housing body, and a valve device. The housing body is constituted by at least one laminate and includes an interior space in which the battery element is housed, a first housing portion that covers the interior space from a first side, and a second housing portion that covers the interior space from a second side. The valve device is attached to the housing body and can make interior space of housing body be in communication with an external space. A joined edge portion is formed in housing body as a result of the first and second housing portion being fused along respective peripheral edge portions. The valve device is sandwiched between the first and second housing portion in the joined edge portion, and an inner end of the valve device protrudes from an inner edge of joined edge portion toward the interior space.

Patent Literature 1 discloses a pouch-type lithium ion secondary battery. In this battery, a valve device for removing gas is attached to a seal portion that is formed along a peripheral edge of a bag that houses a battery element in a state where the valve device is sandwiched by the seal portion. The valve device can keep the bag from being deformed due to gas generated in the bag.

Battery packaging material, having a valve device


This disclosure suggests microelectronic substrates with thermally conductive pathways. In one implementation, such a substrate includes a body and a thermally conductive member. The Body has a first surface that includes a microelectronic component mounting site, a second surface separated from the first surface by a thickness, and an opening extending through at least a portion of the thickness. The opening is outwardly open at one or both of the surfaces and has a first portion having a first transverse dimension and a second portion having a larger second transverse dimension. The thermally conductive member includes a first thickness, which is received in the first portion of the opening, and a second thickness, which is received in the second portion of the opening. A transverse dimension of the second thickness of the thermally conductive member is greater than the first transverse dimension of the opening.

Microelectronic components generate heat in use and can be damaged if they exceed acceptable operating temperatures. As high-energy microelectronic components become more prevalent and powerful, the thermal load produced by these components becomes increasingly difficult to dissipate from the system.
Microelectronic components are commonly attached to a substrate such as a printed circuit board (PCB) to form a larger microelectronic component assembly. A single microelectronic component assembly will often have numerous microelectronic components, each of which generates heat in use, mounted on a single PCB. Dissipation of heat from the side of the PCB bearing the microelectronic components has been and continues to be a significant problem for PCB designers.
A variety of approaches are used in the art to dissipate heat generated by microelectronic components. One solution employs surface-mounted thermal risers with prongs or fins to dissipate heat to the air adjacent the PCB. Other approaches use arrays of copper plated holes (vias) that conduct the thermal load through the PCB and thence to a thermal mass, e.g., a chassis or housing for the microelectronic component assembly or a secondary heat sink on the back side of the finished assembly. One of the most effective thermal management devices is the use of a metal coin or slug to conduct the thermal load through the circuit board to such a thermal mass. After the PCB is formed, e.g., by laminating multiple layers together, a through-opening or cavity may be machined through the thickness of the PCB, forming a passage between the component side and the back side of the PCB. Coins or slugs are then mounted in the opening or cavity using thermal grease or solder, typically as part of the component assembly process during which microelectronic components are mounted on the PCB.
The following patents, the entirety of each of which is incorporated herein by reference, generally relate to PCB thermal management features:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,779,134—Method for surface mounting a heat sink to a printed circuit board
U.S. Pat. No. 6,411,516—Copper slug pedestal for a printed circuit board
U.S. Pat. No. 6,190,941—Method of fabricating a circuit arrangement with thermal vias
U.S. Pat. No. 6,200,407—Method of making a multilayer circuit board having a window exposing an enhanced conductive layer for use as an insulated mounting area.

Microelectronic substrates with thermally conductive pathways and methods of making same


A multiple-core processor having a hierarchical microcode store. A processor may include multiple processor cores, each configured to independently execute instructions defined according to a programmer-visible instruction set architecture (ISA). Each core may include a respective local microcode unit configured to store microcode entries. The processor may also include a remote microcode unit accessible by each of the processor cores. Any given one of the processor cores may be configured to generate a given microcode entrypoint corresponding to a particular microcode entry including one or more operations to be executed by the given processor core, and to determine whether the particular microcode entry is stored within the respective local microcode unit of the given core. In response to determining that the particular microcode entry is not stored within the respective local microcode unit, the given core may convey a request for the particular microcode entry to the remote microcode unit.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to processors, and, more particularly, to microcode implementation within processors including multiple processor cores.
2. Description of the Related Art
As processor implementation evolves, it is becoming increasingly common to attempt to increase processor performance by replicating individual processor cores within a processor. Such cores may be capable of independent instruction execution, increasing the coarse-grained parallelism available for application execution with less cost and design complexity than may be required by alternative strategies for increasing performance, such as increasing fine-grained parallelism or execution frequency.
Multiple-core processor implementations present certain design challenges of their own, however. Certain processor core resources, such as storage resources for microcode routines, may be included in critical timing paths such that proximity of the resource to a given core may directly affect the operating frequency of the given core. Sharing a single instance of such storage resources among multiple cores may thus degrade the performance of the cores by increasing the latency to the shared instance. However, replicating a storage resource such that each core includes its own instance of the resource may be costly in terms of design area, power and/or other design figures of merit.

Multiple-core processor with hierarchical microcode store


A method for communicating with and controlling an intelligent appliance by a user from a remote device. The intelligent appliance includes an integrated controller, such as a single board computer, user-interface and integrated networking capabilities. Typically, the remote device is a personal data assistant, a tablet, a personal computer or a web-enabled cellular phone. The remote device establishes a connection with the intelligent appliance over a computer network, using wired or wireless connection techniques. The intelligent appliance verifies the identity of the user and provides the user with status updates. The remote device transmits a set of cooking instructions to the appliance. The intelligent appliance then cooks or refrigerates in accordance with the set of cooking instructions transmitted from the remote device and communicates this back to the remote device.

The present invention relates generally to appliances, and more particularly to a method and system for communicating with an intelligent appliance.
Appliances, such as ovens and refrigerators, are capable of carrying out limited user defined instructions that are specified locally. Such instructions typically include start time, temperature, and duration. More remote user defined instructions are rarely, if ever, input into the appliance. A standard appliance, such as a refrigerator or oven, contains and uses the most basic of electrical control components, ranging from thermocouples, thermostats to cooling fans. The more complex appliances on occasion include limited microprocessor control systems. However, the control systems are not designed to carry out detailed instructions or allow control from a remote location.
Complex appliances are suitably capable of interaction and communication with other local appliances. However, such interaction is limited to those other appliances connected to the user's personal computer. Even the complex appliances lack the ability for direct communications, but rather use an exterior device of some sort, such as a computer, capable of interfacing with the appliance. The interfacing device is normally the user's personal computer, on which a software application provides the appliance with control and instruction. The personal computer also allows for the user to connect from a remote location via the Internet with his or her computer and instruct the computer to have the oven begin cooking at a set time, or pause cooking or cancel cooking. The intelligence, that is the communication controls, for the appliances are therefore not located on the appliance itself, but rather a personal computer functioning much like a server with each appliance being a networked client.
However, even in these advanced appliances, there is no ability to directly connect with the Internet for command or control purposes. Rather, the appliance makes use of either a local personal computer or some other means of connecting to the Internet. In essence, a server is required, ancillary to the appliance, which functions as a bridge between the Internet and the appliance. Such an appliance does not incorporate an intelligence module, capable of directly interfacing with the Internet. Thus the current appliances lack integrated means for connecting with a user outside a local area.
Thus there exists a need for a system that combines the capability of a classic residential or commercial appliance with the ability to directly interface with a user at a remote location. Furthermore, there exists the need for a method to access an intelligent appliance from a remote location.

Appliance communication system and method