A communication line such as an optical fiber or cable is attached along a wall, ceiling, trim piece, or other selected surface on or inside of a building, by paying out the fiber from an applicator tool while the tool guides the fiber along the selected surface. The outer surface of the fiber is prepared so that the fiber will be in a temporarily tacky condition when the fiber is pressed onto the selected surface by the applicator tool. The fiber is pre-coated with an adhesive that is activated by a fluid supplied by the applicator tool. As the applicator tool presses the fiber onto the selected surface, the activated adhesive coating on the fiber quickly becomes non-tacky to attach the fiber firmly to the surface.

The present invention concerns a method of preparing and attaching a communication line such as an optical fiber or cable to a supporting surface on or inside of a building, for example, a wall or a ceiling.
When a communication line such as an optical fiber or cable is installed along hallway walls and inside rooms of a building to connect with individual subscriber modems and/or other components that have a fiber optical interface, the line is typically stapled onto the walls, along baseboards, and around door frames and corners so that the visual impact of the installed line is acceptable and the cost of the installation is reasonable. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,817,892 (Oct. 19, 2010). It is also known to pre-coat a length of an optical fiber with an adhesive material that is not tacky at room temperature, wind the fiber on a bobbin, and then heat the wound fiber until the adhesive becomes tacky so that the fiber windings adhere to one another and maintain a precision package from which the fiber can unwind without breakage. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,049 (Aug. 21, 1990). See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,525 (Mar. 27, 1990) which discloses an optical communication cable in the form of a flexible strip or tape, wherein one or more parallel optical fibers are fixed along a side of the strip on which an adhesive is deposited.

Preparing and attaching a communication line to a supporting surface on or inside of a building


A method for operating a data processing system to generate a layout for a netlist circuit based on a physical layout of that circuit is disclosed. A schematic of the circuit and an input defining a physical layout of the circuit are received by the data processing system. The schematic includes a plurality of schematic devices, characterized by unique schematic device names. The data processing system generates a graphical representation of the circuit from the physical layout, having one layout device corresponding to each of the plurality of schematic devices, each layout device being characterized by a graphical representation name that is the same as the schematic device name of the corresponding schematic device. First and second netlists are generated from the graphical representation and schematic, respectively. The data processing system generates a report specifying any differences in the first and second netlists.

The fabrication of a modem integrated circuit having millions of devices therein is a complex and expensive process. Hence, the design of the integrated circuit and corresponding fabrication details are subjected to numerous tests prior to actually fabricating a device to prevent errors that waste valuable time and money. The fabrication process typically starts with a schematic that represents the circuit from an electrical point of view. That schematic representation is typically input to computer-based simulators that verify that the circuit should work as intended.
For the purpose of fabrication, the various devices and connecting wires in the schematic are laid out on the surface of an integrated circuit substrate. A large scale integrated circuit is represented by geometrical structures (usually polygons) on a series of masks that are used in the fabrication process. The collection of such structures that represents the integrated circuit will be referred to as the geometrical representation of the integrated circuit in the following discussion. The circuit designer typically uses a set of computer aided design (CAD) tools to generate the geometrical representation from the schematic and information about the physical placement of the devices on the integrated circuit substrate. Since there are millions of polygons in the graphical representation, there is a significant probability that the graphical representation has errors. That is, the device and interconnect defined by the graphical representation are electrically different than the device and interconnect defined by the circuit schematic. Accordingly, a design check in which the graphical representation is compared to the schematic representation is utilized.
One such design check is referred to as a layout versus schematic (LVS) check. In this design check, the graphical representation of the circuit is used to generate a netlist for the underlying circuit. A netlist is also generated from the circuit schematic. If the two netlists do not agree, then there is an error in the graphical representation of the circuit. For the purposes of the present discussion, a netlist is a listing of the various "nets" in the integrated circuit. A net consists of all conductive elements that are electrically connected to each other to form a single continuous conductor and the pins of the devices that are connected to that net.
The generation of a netlist from the graphical representation of the circuit requires that the generating program be able to identify the devices and interconnects based on the shapes and relationships of those shapes as the shapes are described in the graphical representation of the circuit. Typically, the netlist generation is divided into two parts. First, a device recognition engine extracts a list of devices, the conducting graphical structures included in those devices that represent the device pins, and conducting graphical structures that represent interconnects from the graphical representation. Next, a netlist comparison engine compares the nets generated from the schematic with the conducting structures and devices from the graphical representation to determine if each net in the schematic is found in the output of the device recognition engine.
The device recognition task is formidable. For example, the device recognition software must be able to determine that two polygons that overlay each other on different metal layers in the integrated circuit are plates of a capacitor as opposed to two metal conductors or a via. The information needed to make such determinations is typically contained in a set of "rules" that are input to the device recognition software. The rules are dependent on the particular fabrication facility. The number of rules in a typical rule set is typically in the thousands. The time and cost needed to create a set of rules for each fabrication process is a substantial barrier to lowering the cost of fabrication of integrated circuits. Hence, it would be advantageous to provide a device recognition engine that does not rely on a large complex rule set that can be used in the LVS verification systems.
The device recognition engine also computes various electrical parameters of the devices that it detects. These values are stored as part of each device instance. The parameter calculations must be specified in the rule set. The task of extracting parameter values is one of the most difficult aspects of writing device recognition rules.
There are analogous verification problems in the design and fabrication of complex systems that are constructed from a number of integrated circuits that are connected together by wire bonds or connected on circuit boards having multiple layers of wiring. Prior to the actual fabrication of the devices, the designer must be able to verify that the layout of the system is consistent with the schematic representation of the system. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent LVS checking system for such devices based on physical connectivity.


A method for manufacturing a polymerized toner comprising a process for forming fine droplets of a polymerizable monomer composition in an aqueous dispersion medium, and a process for polymerizing the polymerizable monomer composition after the process for forming fine droplets; wherein the process for forming fine droplets has the steps of: preparing an agitating apparatus having an agitator equipped with an agitating blade or rotor and a dispersion supply tank; providing a polymerizable monomer composition and an aqueous dispersion medium into the dispersion supply tank; then, mixing the polymerizable monomer composition and the aqueous dispersion medium by the agitator to obtain a dispersion of fine droplets; and the relationship between the peripheral velocity of the agitating blade or rotor of the agitator and the number of circulations of the dispersion is controlled.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a polymerized toner, and more specifically to an efficient method for manufacturing a polymerized toner having a very sharp particle diameter distribution and an extremely small quantity of fine powder. The manufacturing method of the present invention is particularly suitable as a method for manufacturing a small particle diameter polymerized toner having a volume average particle diameter within the range between 4 and 9 μm.
2. Description of the Related Art
In image forming machines such as electrographic or electrostatic copying machines, laser-beam printers, and facsimiles, a developer is used for visualizing electrostatic latent images formed on a photoconductive member. The developer contains colored particles (toner) containing a colorant, a charge control agent, a release agent and the like dispersed in a binder resin as the major component thereof.
Toners are roughly divided into pulverized toners obtained by a pulverizing method, and polymerized toners obtained by a polymerization method. In the pulverizing method, a thermoplastic resin are melted and kneaded together with additive components such as a colorant, a charge control agent, and a release agent, and the mixture is pulverized and classified to obtain a pulverized toner as colored resin particles. The pulverized toner has an indeterminate form and a broad particle diameter distribution. Moreover, since fine powder (denoting excessively fine particles hereinafter) is easily formed by pulverization in the pulverized toner, it is difficult to manufacture a small-particle-diameter toner having a desired average particle diameter at a high yield.
In the polymerization method, a polymerizable monomer composition containing a polymerizable monomer, a colorant, and other additive components is polymerized in an aqueous dispersion medium to form a polymerized toner as colored polymer particles. In the polymerization method, the formed colored polymer particles are washed, filtered, and dried after polymerization to obtain a polymerized toner.
According to the polymerization method, a spherical polymerized toner with a relatively sharp particle diameter distribution can be manufactured. Also according to the polymerization method, core-shell structure colored polymer particles can be formed by polymerizing a polymerizable monomer for the shell after the polymerization of the polymerizable monomer composition, in the presence of the formed colored polymer particles. If the glass transition temperature of the polymer component constituting the core is lowered, and the glass transition temperature of the polymer component constituting the shell is elevated, a polymerized toner that excels both in shelf stability and low-temperature fixing properties can be manufactured. Furthermore, according to the polymerization method, a polymerized toner having a volume average particle diameter of 10 μm or less, preferably 4 to 9 μm, can be easily manufactured. The polymerized toner, can therefore form a high definition and high quality image and is suitable also for increasing a printing speed and forming a full-color image.
Thus, a polymerized toner of a small particle diameter plays an extremely important role on the formation of high-precision and high-quality images. However, various problems have arisen as the particle diameter of the polymerized toner is reduced. For example, in order to lessen the particle diameter of the polymerized toner, the dispersion containing a polymerizable monomer composition must be dispersed using an agitator, to form fine droplets of the polymerizable monomer composition, in the droplet forming step preceding the polymerizing step. However, if the particle diameter of the droplets becomes less, the viscosity of the dispersion elevates significantly, resulting in the difficulty of forming the droplets (the process for forming fine droplets), and lowering the agitating efficiency of the agitator.
In addition, when the particle diameter of the droplets becomes less, the proportion of formed fine powder increases remarkably, and highly sharp particle diameter distribution becomes difficult to materialize. As a result, fog increases, and the printing density lowers. If the proportion of fine powder is large, the fine powder must be removed from the colored polymer particles by classification, resulting in complicated process and high costs. Therefore, in order to form the images of high definition and high quality, the establishment of the art for efficiently manufacturing a polymerized toner is desired, which toner having an adequately small average particle diameter, a very sharp particle diameter distribution, and an extremely low content of fine powder.
Conventionally, there has been proposed a process, wherein a dispersing machine, having a combination of a rotor and a stator that are concentric comb-teeth rings is used as an agitating apparatus, and is constituted so as to drive the rotor to rotate at a high speed to flow the dispersion from the inside of the rotor to the outside of the stator, and to agitate the dispersion in the gap between the rotor and the stator (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-32363/1990). In other words, in this prior art, a method for manufacturing a polymerized toner is disclosed, wherein the step for dispersing a monomer composition containing a polymerizable monomer and a colorant into an aqueous dispersion medium to form suspension particles (droplets) is a step for flowing the monomer composition from the inside of the rotor toward the outside of the stator.
However, it is difficult to obtain a polymerized toner, having a small particle diameter, an extremely sharp particle diameter distribution, and a small proportion of fine powder, only by adopting a dispersing machine such as Ebara Milder (manufactured by Ebara Corporation).
Then, there has been proposed a method, wherein the tip speed (peripheral velocity) of an agitating blade (rotor) of an agitator and the internal pressure of the agitating section are controlled so that the relationship thereof satisfies a specific formula, in the process for forming fine droplets of a polymerizable monomer composition using an agitating machine such as Ebara Milder (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-221824). According to the method disclosed in this prior art, a polymerized toner having a small particle diameter and a sharp particle diameter distribution can be obtained. However, the proportion of fine powder is not sufficiently reduced only by controlling the relationship between the rotor of the agitating apparatus (dispersing machine) and the internal pressure, and the speed of the formation of droplets having a desired average particle diameter is not sufficiently high. Therefore the process, materializing sufficient reduction of fine powder and high speed formation of droplets having a desired average particle diameter, is desired.

Method for manufacturing polymerized toner


A method and computer system for detecting, utilizing at least one sensor associated with the computer system, an attempt to establish short-range communications between a device and a short-range communications module coupled to the computer system. The method and computer system further configured for determining that no short-range communication was received by the computer system via the short-range communications module and providing a signal to the device to enable a short-range communications transceiver at the device.

Many Point of Sale (POS) terminals now include the ability to receive a "tap" transaction, which is enabled through near field communications (NFC) technology. During such a transaction, the customer can bring an active payment mechanism, such as a mobile device, wearable such as a watch or the watch band, jewelry, among other options (referred to herein as a "transaction device"), into proximity with the NFC reader on the POS terminal. This will allow the POS terminal to receive information about the payment mechanism, as well as a response to a challenge.
However, in some cases, the NFC transceiver on the payment mechanism can be turned off during the transaction attempt. In this case, a typical POS terminal will have no information that a tap transaction was attempted, and will therefore present no failure notification to the customer. This can lead to customer frustration and delayed transaction time.

Method and system for active NFC payment device management


In an embodiment, a method is provided for tracking a state of a document that is accessible over a computer network. In this method, requests to modify the document are received by way of the computer network. A size of a set of these requests are identified to exceed a threshold size and an identifier that identifies this set of requests is generated. The identifier is then transmitted in a response to the requests by way of the computer network.

Currently, there are a variety of Web-based applications that allow users to create, modify, and view electronic documents online. Typically, such web-based applications do not store the documents on a user's computer, but rather store the documents on remote servers. The user may modify the document online using such an application, and if the modifications are acceptable, the user may save the document in computer storage. For example, the user makes the modification at his personal computer and in turn, the personal computer transmits a modification request to a remote server that stores the document in its non-volatile memory. Upon receipt of the request, the remote server temporarily modifies a copy of the document stored in random access memory until the user requests the document to be saved, at which point the remote server replaces the actual document stored on its non-volatile memory with the modified temporary document. For the modifications to succeed, the remote server must receive every single modification request made by the user. If just one single modification request is not received or received out of order, then the modifications to the temporary document do not reflect the actual modifications requested by the user.

Tracking a state of a document accessible over a computer network


A lightweight roofing shingle or tile having an elongated body with top and bottom surfaces that taper lengthwise of the body, the body having laterally spaced, elongated edges; the body having a mid-region and a recess sunk upwardly into the mid-region, from the bottom surface; the recess extending widthwise of the body to intersect the body laterally spaced edges whereby the recess is adapted to receive a batten to support the body mid-region when installed on a roof. A secondary taper on the tile bottom surface engages the roof to provide leverage resisting wind up-lift forces exerted on the lightweight tile acting to rotate the tile about a nailing point fulcrum.

This invention relates generally to the provision of lightweight, fireproof roofing tiles, capable of withstanding foot traffic as well as wind up-lift forces, and more particularly concerns cementitious in admixtures from which such roofing pieces are formed.
There is continuous need for improvements in lightweight cementitious tiles, and their installation, for example to prevent breakage during such installation, and thereafter, and to prevent tile up-lift due to wind.
Standard concrete and clay roofing tiles are installed with the butt end supported by the preceding tile and the tail end resting on the roof surface or "hung" on a narrow wooden batten. This means that the tile is unsupported between these points and must, therefore be strong enough to withstand foot traffic. Tests require that the product support 300 lbs. This required the use of excessively heavy tiles. Also, tiles made of lightweight cementitious or other materials do not withstand wind up-lift forces as well as heavy tiles do.
Prior roofing tiles and methods of production are disclosed, for example, in Jakel U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,841,885, Jakel 3,870,777, Kirkhuff 3,852,934 and Murdock 4,288,959, and Wood 4,673,659 describing problems encountered in lightweight extruded tile production.


Devices including conductometric porous silicon gas sensors, methods of fabricating conductometric porous silicon gas sensors, methods of selecting a device, methods of detecting a concentration of a gas, and methods of analyzing data.

Gas sensors are multifarious in modern industry. For each application, a different sensor configuration is usually needed to meet the criteria of a particular application. An arrayed device, capable of being inexpensively calibrated for a prescribed set of analyte gases, would present an ideal device for a diversity of applications. At a recent NSF/NIST "Process Measurement and Control Workshop" several critical challenges for further sensor development were identified. For instance, individual sensor systems should be produced cost effectively in any scale processes. Also, government and industry standards require the operation of a device in a safely monitored and environmentally friendly manner. Key to developing these new capabilities is the need for easier calibration models, methods to transfer calibration sensors with given performance properties and/or process parameters, calibration transfer among multiple 'like' sensors, and transitioning from laboratory development to plant operation.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry for sensors that address one or more of the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.

Porous gas sensors and method of preparation thereof


An organic luminescent material for EL devices comprising a 2-(O-hydroxyphenyl)-benzoxazole or -benzothiazole zinc complex, and an EL device with a luminescent layer containing the material.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to organic luminescent materials for EL (electroluminescent) devices and to EL devices, and more particularly it relates to organic luminescent materials for EL devices which exhibit electroluminescence upon the application of a voltage, and to EL devices which employ the above-mentioned organic luminescent materials for EL devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
EL devices employing luminescent materials which exhibit electroluminescence upon the application of a voltage are conventionally used in backlights for displays of OA machines such as word processors and for automobile meters and the like.
Although inorganic luminescent materials have conventionally been used as the luminescent materials for such EL devices, high driving voltages have been required when inorganic luminescent materials for EL devices are caused to emit high-intensity light.
Recently, therefore, research has been conducted in regard to organic luminescent materials for EL devices which allow lower driving voltages (see, for example, C. W. Tang and S. A. VanSlyke: Appl. Phys. Lett. 51. 913 (1987)).
Thin-film EL devices employing such organic luminescent materials make it possible to use lower driving voltages than with EL devices which employ the conventional inorganic luminescent materials for EL devices.
There have also been reported organic luminescent materials which exhibit blue luminescence, and which may be suitably used in backlights for OA machine displays and for automobile meters and the like (see, for example, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Vol. 32 (1993) L511).
However, because of the inadequate luminescent intensity of conventional organic luminescent materials exhibiting blue luminescence, organic luminescent materials for EL devices and EL devices have been sought which are capable of blue luminescence of ever higher intensities.

Organic material for el device and el device


A system and method for forwarding a first instruction into a second instruction in a processor is disclosed. The processor comprises an execution unit and providing a plurality of instructions. The first instruction depends upon execution of the second instruction but does not otherwise require execution by the execution unit. The method first searches for the second instruction. The method then forwards the first instruction via the second instruction by appending a tag to the second instruction, the tag identifying the first instruction.. One aspect of the method and system forwards a store instruction into a floating point instruction in a processor. The store instruction has a source address and the floating point instruction has a target address. The processor provides a plurality of instructions. The method searches for the floating point instruction that is provided before the store instruction. The method then determines if the source address is equal to the target address. The method forwards the store instruction through the floating point instruction if the source address is equal to the target address by appending a tag to the floating point instruction, the tag identifying the store instruction.

In the continuing development of faster and more powerful computer systems, a significant microprocessor innovation has been utilized, known as a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor. Increased advances in the field of RISC processors have led to the development of superscalar processors. Superscalar processors, as their name implies, perform functions not commonly found in traditional scalar microprocessors. Included in these functions is the ability to execute instructions out-of-order with respect to the program order. Although the instructions occur out-of-order, the results of the executions appear to have occurred in program order, so that proper data coherency is maintained.
In a superscalar processor, certain instructions may depend on the execution of another instruction by a unit, but not require the same unit for execution. For example, a floating point store instruction often depends on a previous floating point arithmetic instruction to provide the data to be stored.
Once the data from the previous floating point arithmetic instruction is obtained, the store instruction itself does not require the floating point arithmetic unit to be executed. Instead, the source register for the store instruction is the same as the target register for the floating point arithmetic instruction. Because the store instruction depends on the arithmetic instruction, the store instruction is held until the arithmetic instruction has been completed. This creates a delay, or bubble, in the floating point execution pipeline. This delay can be a multi-cycle delay.
In order to address this problem and increase the speed of floating point operation, some conventional systems forward the store instruction using the arithmetic instruction. Typically, this is accomplished by identifying the store instruction with a unique tag. The tag is then appended to the arithmetic instruction on which the store instruction depends. The store instruction is thereby forwarded, or folded, into, the arithmetic instruction.
Once the store has been forwarded through the arithmetic instruction, the store instruction is removed from the floating point instruction queue. When execution of the arithmetic instruction is completed, the floating point unit immediately processes the store instruction. Thus, the system writes to the floating point register and signals the data cache to access the data for the store. Consequently, a separate instruction is made unnecessary.
This conventional method can forward a store instruction. However, conventional systems are only capable of forwarding a store instruction from the bottom, oldest entry in the floating point instruction queue into the floating point arithmetic instruction that is in the first stage of the execution unit's pipeline. Thus, the floating point arithmetic instruction on which the store instruction depends must also immediately precede the store instruction for forwarding to occur. Where the floating point arithmetic instruction does not immediately precede the store instruction, for example because the floating point instruction is in the second stage of the pipeline, the store instruction will not be forwarded.
If the store instruction is forwarded into the floating point arithmetic instruction, the store instruction is removed from the floating point instruction queue. Another instruction can then replace the store. However, this can only occur as soon as the next cycle, when the store should be placed in the first stage of the pipeline. Thus, removal of the store instruction leaves the first stage of the pipeline, the execution stage behind the instruction to which the store instruction is forwarded, empty. This creates a delay in the floating point unit. The speed of the floating point unit is thereby reduced.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for instruction forwarding with an increased probability of forwarding. In addition, the method and system should reduce delays due to removal of the forwarded instruction from the execution unit's instruction queue. The present invention addresses such a need.

Method and system for forwarding instructions in a processor with increased forwarding probability

International Business Machines Corporation


A parallel computer system includes a plurality of processing elements each comprising a network control unit. The network control unit of the processing element has ports to north, east, west and south, and row directional communication lines and column directional communication lines are connected to each port forming a taurus mesh network. Each processing element operates in two communication control modes, in a bi-directional communication mode or in a unidirectional communication mode. In the bi-directional communication mode, the network control unit permits eastward and westward transmission of data through the row directional communication lines and northward and southward transmission of data through the column directional communication lines. In the unidirectional communication mode, only the one way data transmission from west to east is permitted in the row directional communication lines, and only the one way data transmission from north to south is permitted in the column directional communication lines.

1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a parallel computer system including processing elements and, in particular, to a parallel computer system including a plurality of processing elements and performing data transmissions among the processing elements.
2. Description of the prior art
In recent years much research has been conducted toward the realization of practical parallel computer systems. Especially, with the advancement of the semiconductor technology, a communication control unit and a data processing unit can now be realized as a processing element on a single LSI chip, and there are a number of researches where a parallel computer is realized by connecting a number-of such processing element LSIs.
An example of such a parallel computer, a large-scale data-flow computer named EDDEN (Enhanced Data Driven ENgine) having maximum of 1024 one-chip processing elements connected, is currently under development as disclosed in pages 1048-1049 of the book 2T-2 of the proceedings of 38th conference o Information Processing Society. In such a large-scale data-flow computer, all the communications among processing elements are bi-directional, and the distance between any two processing elements in such data communication is can be made minimum.
Furthermore, it has been proposed to use bi-directional parallel communication lines for communication links connecting processing elements, for this would make it possible to use the same communication link for both transmitting and receiving of data and would reduce the number of signal lines used to connect processing elements in a large-scale data-flow computer.
As done in the EDDEN system above, the implementation of the bi-directional communication among the processing elements can not only improve communication efficiency but can also keep the uniformity of the communication network. Furthermore, by having transmissions in both directions share the same communication line, the number of input/output terminals of a processing element can be reduced, and a processing element can then be realized on a single LSI chip.
In a conventional parallel computer, when a packet consisting of a plurality of words is being transmitted in one direction, there occurs a state where the packet may exist over multiple processing elements. If another packet being transmitted to the opposite direction is similarly existent over multiple processing elements, both packets would come to a halt to wait for the completion of other packet's transmission. Therefore, a deadlock in which the both packets will never be able to move again occurs.
Such a deadlock can be avoided by equipping each processing element with a data buffer having the size equivalent to the number of words in a packet. This will cause the entire one packet to be stored within the data buffer of a processing element and will avoid the spreading out of a packet over multiple processing elements as mentioned before. In other words, if the number of words in a packet is fixed, deadlocks can be avoided by equipping each processing unit with a data buffer whose size is equivalent to the number of words in a packet.
However, when a structure packet, e.g., one-dimensional vector, having large number of words of variable sizes are transmitted between processing elements, the above-mentioned deadlock cannot be avoided even when each of the processing elements is equipped with the data buffer as described before. This is because when the number of words in a structure packet exceeds the size of the data buffer in each of the processing elements, a packet again becomes spread out over multiple processing elements.

Parallel computer system with error status signal and data-driven processor


A mechanical apparatus and method for producing a folded paper rose from an elongated strip of paper. The apparatus is operated by feeding an elongated paper strip through a rotating shuttle assembly, and securing the end of the paper strip onto a slotted stem which is rotated simultaneously with the shuttle assembly. Rotating the shuttle assembly causes a pair of shuttles to cooperate with a paper folding member adjacent the ends of the shuttles to produce a series of sequential folds in the paper strip. Meanwhile, the stem is simultaneously rotating to assemble the folded paper around the stem. Once the paper is fully assembled around the stem the folded paper strip is compressed toward the top of the stem to form a compact flower assembly at the end of the stem.

The instant invention relates to artificial flowers and more specifically relates to a method and apparatus for producing a folded paper flower which resembles a rose.
Apparatus for producing various types of twisted bows and ornaments have heretofore been known in the art. For example, such apparatus are disclosed in the Cotton U.S. Pat. No. 1,728,724; Napier U.S. Pat. No. 3,129,861; Goldfarb U.S. Pat. No. 3,225,976; West U.S. Pat. No. 3,553,061; Mancel et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,661,197; Raiskums et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,840,689; and Mancel et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,009, which are believed to be of general interest with respect to the subject invention.
Apparatus for producing artificial flowers, and in particular fabric roses, have also been known in the art. In this regard the Little et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,893 which represents the closest prior art to the subject invention of which the applicant is aware discloses a method and apparatus for producing fabric roses for garment applications. The method disclosed in this patent involves inserting a fabric ribbon between two needle-like devices which are adapted to hold the ribbon. The needle-like devices are then rotated by means of a variable speed motor to rotate the fabric. As the fabric is rotated, the center of a rose is formed and then the petals of the rose are formed by folding the ribbon numerous times in a direction away from the needle-like devices. Once the rose has been completed, it is removed from the needle-like device, and it is finished by heat sealing the portions of the ribbon which form the base of the rose.

Method and apparatus for making artificial flowers


The present invention provides a method and apparatus for detecting a red eye in an image. The method comprises steps of: calculating a skin color reference vector for said image; identifying a candidate for red eye region in said image; identifying skin color pixels in said candidate for red eye region; removing skin color pixels from said candidate for red eye region; deciding whether said candidate for red eye region is a red eye or not. The present invention also provides a method and apparatus for detecting a human face in an image. Moreover, the present invention provides corresponding storage medium including instructions for causing a processor to implement the methods. According to the present invention, red eyes and/or human faces can be detected with consideration of skin color pixels. The speed and accuracy of detecting red eyes and human faces are greatly increased.

Recently, human face detection technology is widely used in various application fields. For example, this technology can be used in digital video devices and office apparatus, such as digital camera, digital video camera, printer, scanner and the like. It is well known that images of persons are the principal part of a digital image in general. To make an image including one or more human faces reflect the object in a more real mode, some processes, such as automatically remedying skin color of the face, removing red eyes, removing glasses, judging expressions of the face and the like, should be performed. All the above processes are based on human face detection technology.
Human face detection is a process of detecting the locations in images where faces are present. However, face detection is a challenging task because of variability in scale, location, orientation (up-right, rotated), and pose (frontal, profile). Facial expression and lighting conditions also change the overall appearance of faces.
Conventionally, the methods for face detection are classified into four categories, i.e., knowledge-based methods, feature-based methods, template matching methods and appearance-based methods.
The knowledge-based methods encode human knowledge of what constitutes a typical face. Usually, the rules capture the relationships between facial features. These methods are designed mainly for face localization.
The feature-based methods aim to find structural features that exist even when the pose, viewpoint, or lighting conditions vary, and then use these to locate faces. These methods are designed mainly for face localization.
In the template matching methods, several standard patterns of a face are stored to describe the face as a whole or the facial features separately. The correlations between an input image and the stored patterns are computed for detection. These methods have been used for both face localization and detection.
In the appearance-based methods, the models are learned from a set of training images which should capture the representative variability of facial appearance. These learned models are then used for detection. These methods are designed mainly for face detection.
In the feature-based methods, invariant features of faces are found for detection. The underlying assumption is based on the observation that humans can effortlessly detect faces and objects in different poses and lighting conditions, and therefore there must exist properties or features which are invariant over these variabilities. Numerous methods have been proposed to first detect facial features and then to infer the presence of a face. Facial features such as eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, and hair-line are commonly extracted using edge detectors. Based on the extracted features, a statistical model is built to describe their relationships and to verify the existence of a face. One problem with these feature-based algorithms is that the image features can be severely corrupted due to illumination, noise, and occlusion. Feature boundaries can be weakened for faces, while shadows can cause numerous strong edges which together render perceptual grouping algorithms useless.
In general, facial features, texture in human faces and skin color are taken as the feature invariant in the feature-based methods. Further, several facial features, such as skin color, size and shape are combined to find face candidates, and then verify these face candidates using local, detailed features such as eye brows, nose, and hair etc.
Human skin color has been used and proven to be an effective feature in many applications for face detection. Color information is an efficient tool for identifying facial areas and specific facial features if the skin color model can be properly adapted for different lighting environment. However, such skin color models are not effective where the spectrum of the light source varies significantly. In other words, color appearance is often unstable due to changes in both background and foreground lighting.
Moreover, many of the above models only can process the images of specified races. If a skin color model for a specific race is used to process an image including one or more human faces of other race, wrong result may occur.
These prior skin color models use absolute values of face skin colors of the face candidates to determine whether or not they are real human faces. In other words, these skin color models explicitly define the boundaries of skin cluster in some color space.
Therefore, it is difficult to determine exactly whether or not the images taken under various illumination conditions are real human faces. Also, the prior skin color models cannot be used to process the images including the human faces of various races.
Red eye is the appearance of an unnatural red hue around a person's pupil. It is usually caused by the light of flash reflection from the blood vessels. At present, there are numerous methods of identifying red eyes.
In the existent methods of identifying red eyes, candidates for red eye regions are first identified in a digital image, and then further detections or calculations are made to determine whether the candidates for red eye regions are red eyes or not. Usually the candidates for red eye regions include skin color pixels, but not red eye pixels. The inclusion of skin color pixels in candidates for red eye regions lowers the accuracy of detecting red eyes.

Detecting human faces and detecting red eyes


A vertical heat treatment system has a transfer apparatus for transferring semiconductor wafers and a cassette serving as a transport container for the semiconductor wafers. The transfer apparatus has a base disposed to be vertically movable and rotatable within a horizontal plane. Wafer arms for transferring the wafers placed on them are disposed on the base. The wafer arms can reciprocally move on the base between a standby position and an advanced position in the horizontal direction. A cassette arm for transferring a cassette placed on it is also disposed on the base. The cassette arm can reciprocally move on the base between a retreat position and a protruded position in the horizontal direction. The wafer arms and the cassette arm are reciprocally movable in opposite directions to oppose each other. While the wafer arms and the cassette arm are at the standby position and the retreat position, respectively, a holding portion of the cassette arm is present immediately above the wafer arms.

The present invention relates to a transfer apparatus for transferring flat substrates, e.g., semiconductor wafers, and a container for storing them, and a treatment system using the transfer apparatus.
In the manufacture of semiconductor devices, a treatment system such as a vertical heat treatment system is used to perform various types of treatments, e.g., oxidation, diffusion, CVD, and the like, for semiconductor wafers as target substrates. In this treatment system, a cassette (also called a carrier) as a transport container storing a plurality of wafers is loaded/unloaded by a transport robot or an operator through an in/out section. A cassette storing new wafers is arranged on a shelf in the system, and the wafers are mounted from the cassette on the shelf to a boat. The boat on which the wafers are mounted is charged in a heat treatment furnace, and the wafers are subjected to a predetermined treatment. When the predetermined heat treatment is ended, the boat is unloaded from the heat treatment furnace, and the treated wafers are returned from the boat to the cassette in the order opposite to that described above.
A transfer apparatus in which a cassette transfer member is attached to the drive system of a wafer transfer member in such a treatment system is known (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 3-48439). This transfer apparatus has a vertically movable and rotatable base, and a cassette transfer member attached to the base, in addition to the wafer transfer member. The cassette transfer member is disposed back to back with the wafer transfer member, and is advanced and retreated by an air cylinder in a direction opposite to the wafer transfer member. This reduces the space occupied by the transfer mechanism and down-sizes the treatment system.
In this transfer apparatus, the radius of turn during cassette transfer becomes large because of the usage of the air cylinder and the arrangement of the cassette transfer member. A certain degree of extra space be given around the transfer apparatus, thus limiting any reduction in space in the horizontal direction. This problem becomes conspicuous particularly as the diameter of the wafer increases and accordingly the size of the cassette increases.

Transfer apparatus and vertical heat-processing system using the same


A mounting component for mounting an electronic part has a base that extends along a first surface of the electronic part, and a pair of left side and right side surface supporting sections that are extended from the base and bent along the right and left side surfaces of the electronic part, respectively. The pair of side surface supporting sections each have the screwing through hole at a position close to the one of the front end surface and the rear end surface. Further, a cushion member is interposed between the base and the electronic part, at a position close to the other of the front end surface and the rear end surface of the electronic part. The electronic part is screwed to the base through the surface supporting sections.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a component for mounting an electronic part in a cabinet and to an electronic device equipped with the electronic part to which the component is attached.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an electronic device like a personal computer (hereafter referred to as PC) is equipped with multiple electronic parts. Some of the electronic parts are fixed to an electronic device as follows: a component for fixing an electronic part to a cabinet of the electronic device is fixed to the electronic part; the component fixed to the electronic part is fixed to the cabinet.
As a hard disk drive (HDD) that is commonly used in a PC and the like is likely to malfunction under external vibration, and may break in the worst case. Further, as the HDD generates vibration by itself, a component for mounting an electronic part is usually interposed between HDD and a cabinet to suppress transmittance of vibration.
From now on, descriptions will be made taking the HDD as an example.
The mounting component for mounting a HDD in a PC and the like has a base portion that extends to cover the top surface of the HDD to serve as a shield, and a pair of right and left side surface supporting portions that are bent and extend respectively along the two side surfaces of the HDD from the base portion. The mounting component is fixed to the HDD with screws at four positions in total, two for each side surface supporting portion including a position close to the front side and a position close the rear side. In addition, the mounting component has a flanged portion that extends from the base portion toward the front side or the rear side of the HDD. The flanged portion is used to fix the mounting component to the cabinet of a PC and or the like.
Since the mounting component having the above structure is fixed to the electronic part with screws at four positions including two at positions close to the front side and two at positions close to rear side and suppression of vibration is dependent on a shape of the side surface supporting portion, it is not sufficient to suppress transmittance of vibration. Further, the number of screws used for fixing the mounting component to the electronic part should be decreased in view of the demand for reduction in the number of parts and of the assembling works.
Under such circumstances, Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2003-16770 and 2003-16771 discloses a disk unit that improves vibration immunity by contriving a structure. However, contrivance only in terms of a structure of the disc unit cannot sufficiently suppress vibration.
In addition, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H09-293370 discloses a technique that absorbs and attenuates vibration by using a characteristic of a non-linear spring. However, this technique has a problem in cost and space as multiple plate springs are stacked, making the technique into a complicated structure.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-38538 discloses a structure in which a HDD is interposed between rubber buffers. This structure may absorb vibration by enlarging the thickness of the buffer, however, it requires space in an electronic device for installing the HDD. Further, it may be necessary to consider placing a shield additionally.
The above problem is not limited to a HDD, but is common in electronic devices in the case where an electronic part is mounted to an electronic device through a mounting component.

Electronic part-mounting component and electronic device


A radiotherapy device controller includes: a visual line calculator configured to calculate a visual line based on a position on a transmissive image imaged using a radiation penetrating a subject, a specific part of the subject being shown at the position; a position calculator configured to calculate a position of the specific part based on a position of a trajectory of the specific part and a position of the visual line; and an emitter configured to control a radiation emitter that emits a therapeutic radiation, so that the therapeutic radiation penetrates at the position of the specific part.

Radiotherapy for treating a patient by emitting therapeutic radiation to an affected part (tumor) has been well known. A high therapeutic effect is demanded for the radiotherapy. Regarding the radiation, the dose of radiation to be emitted to a normal cell is preferably lower than the dose of radiation to be emitted to a cell of the affected part. For this reason, it is necessary to precisely emit therapeutic radiation to the affected part. A radiotherapy device that performs radiotherapy includes: an imaging system that images a transmissive image of a patient; a therapeutic radiation emitter that emits therapeutic radiation; and a driver that drives the therapeutic radiation emitter. The radiotherapy device calculates the position of the affected part based on the transmissive image, and drives the therapeutic radiation emitter by using the driver so that therapeutic radiation is emitted to the position.
A support structure for supporting the therapeutic radiation emitter and the imaging system is deflected under the weight of the support structure itself or the therapeutic radiation emitter thereof. For this reason, when the support structure is moved, the transmissive image of the patient shows another visual field deviated from the desired visual field in some cases. In this case, a user is given erroneous information when determining the position of a subject to be irradiated or when confirming the precision of position determination. It has been demanded to precisely determine the position of a subject to be irradiated and to confirm the precision of position determination.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2001-259059 discloses an affected-part tracking method that precisely tracks respiratory displacement of an affected part. The affected-part tracking method for tracking a displacement of the affected part is characterized in that an optical flow is calculated from transmissive images of a periphery of the affected part, flow vectors thereof are combined, and thereby calculating a motion vector of the affected part.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 4064952 discloses a radiation emitter that can properly emit therapeutic radiation to a subject to be irradiated. The radiotherapy device is a radiotherapy device for emitting therapeutic radiation to an affected part of a patient positioned at the isocenter. The radiotherapy device includes: a plurality of transmissive-image radiation generator provided on a rotation member rotatable about an rotation axis passing through the isocenter; a plurality of image detectors configured to detect transmissive image radiation emitted from each of the plurality of transmissive-image radiation generator and to detect an image of the affected part positioned between the transmissive-image radiation generators; a therapeutic radiation generator provided on the rotation member and configured to emit therapeutic radiation to the affected part; a moving means configured to move the therapeutic radiation generator with respect to the rotation member; a time-series data processor configured to calculate an estimated position of the affected part based on each of the transmissive image data imaged in chronological order by the plurality of transmissive-image radiation generator and the plurality of image detectors; an analyzer configured to calculate displacement for moving the irradiation axis of the therapeutic radiation generator to the estimated position of the affected part based on the information of the estimated position of the affected part; and a controller configured to control the moving means so as to move the irradiation axis of the therapeutic radiation generator to the estimated position of the affected part based on the information of the displacement. The controller is configured to control the plurality of transmissive-image radiation generators such that two of the plurality of transmissive-image radiation generators do not simultaneously emit the transmissive image radiation to the affected part positioned at the isocenter.
Japanese Unexamined Patent, First Publication No. 2007-236760 discloses a radiotherapy device controller that properly emits radiation to part of a moving subject. The radiotherapy device controller is a radiotherapy device controller configured to control a radiotherapy device including: a therapeutic radiation emitter configured to emit therapeutic radiation to part of the subject; a motion detector configured to detect a motion of the subject; and a driver configured to move the therapeutic radiation emitter with respect to the subject. The radiotherapy device controller includes: an affected-part database configured to correlate a set of motions with a set of positions; a motion collector configured to collect a motion from the motion detector; and an irradiation position controller configured to move, using the driver, the therapeutic radiation emitter so that the therapeutic radiation is emitted to the position of the set of positions which is correlated with the motion.

Radiotherapy device controller and method of measuring position of specific-part


Immediately after a Si/SiGe film containing a contaminant is formed over all surfaces of a substrate by epitaxial growth, a portion of the Si/SiGe film formed to the back surface side of the substrate is removed by wet etching. In addition, the Si/SiGe film is subjected to processing with heating in a container, after which a dummy run is carried out in the container. These processings prevent secondary wafer contamination through a stage, a robot arm or a vacuum wand for handling a wafer and the contamination of the container also used in the fabrication process of a semiconductor device free from any group IV element but Si.

The present invention relates to methods for fabricating a semiconductor device, and particularly to methods for fabricating a semiconductor device which includes a semiconductor layer containing silicon (Si) and a group IV element other than Si (referred hereinafter to as a contaminant).
With recent progress in performance enhancement and size reduction of mobile communication devices, transistors mounted in a semiconductor device are required to provide high-frequency operation in a higher frequency band and high-speed operation with lower power consumption. As a solution capable of satisfying such requirements, for example, a conventional method of fabricating a semiconductor device with a heterojunction bipolar transistor as described below is known.
FIGS. 5A through 8B are sectional views illustrating process steps in an exemplary conventional method of fabricating a semiconductor device having a heterojunction bipolar transistor.
First, in the step shown in FIG. 5A, a p-type semiconductor substrate 200 is prepared which is made of single crystal silicon whose principal plane is the (100) plane having a resistivity of 10 to 15 Ω·cm, for example. The semiconductor substrate 200 is subjected to ion implantation using a resist film (not shown) as an implantation mask, and thus an n-type buried layer 201 is formed in a bipolar-transistor formation region of the semiconductor substrate 200. After the removal of the resist film and the heat treatment for the substrate, a silicon crystal layer is epitaxially grown to form an n-type epitaxial layer 202 on the main surface side of the substrate.
Next, trenches deeper than the buried layer 201 are formed in regions located at the main surface side of the semiconductor substrate 200 and alongside of the buried layer 201. By thermal oxidation, the surfaces of the deep trenches are oxidized. A polysilicon film 203 is then deposited over all surfaces of the substrate. The resulting polysilicon film 203 is etched back, thereby providing the deep trenches filled with the polysilicon film 203.
In the step shown in FIG. 5B, a resist film 204 having shallow-trench formation regions opened therein is formed, and the semiconductor substrate 200 is etched using this resist film as an etching mask. As a result, shallow trenches 205 are formed to the main surface side of the semiconductor substrate 200.
Subsequently, in the step shown in FIG. 5C, a first silicon oxide film 206 is deposited to the main surface side of the substrate, after which planarization of the deposited film is performed by chemical-mechanical polishing (referred hereinafter to as CMP) or the like. As a result, all the shallow trenches 205 are filled with the first silicon oxide film 206. An N-type dopant is then implanted into the contact portion of the substrate with a metallic collector electrode to form a collector connecting layer 207.
In the step shown in FIG. 5D, a second silicon oxide film 208 is deposited over all surfaces of the substrate, and then a first polysilicon film 209 is deposited on the second silicon oxide film 208. Then, a resist film 210 having an opening therein is formed to the main surface side of the substrate. The second silicon oxide film 208 and the first polysilicon film 209 are patterned by etching using this resist film as a mask, thereby forming a collector opening Aco. In the opening Aco, a base formation region of the bipolar transistor exists.
Next, in the step shown in FIG. 6A, selective epitaxial growth is performed to form a p-type intrinsic base layer 211 containing a SiGe layer and a Si layer on the base formation region. During the growth, p-type polycrystalline Si/SiGe films 212 are also formed to the main and back surface sides of the substrate. When the intrinsic base layer 211 is grown to have a great thickness, the growth selectivity would break down, resulting in the growth of the polycrystalline Si/SiGe film 212 on the silicon oxide film as well. This undesirable growth may lead to the occurrence of particles causing the failure of semiconductor elements. In order to avoid this, the first polysilicon film 209 as a seed layer for the polycrystalline Si/SiGe film 212 is often formed in advance.
Next, in the step shown in FIG. 6B, a third silicon oxide film 213 is deposited over all surfaces of the substrate.
In the step shown in FIG. 6C, a resist film 214 is formed to the main surface side of the substrate, and etching is made using this resist film as a mask such that the third silicon oxide film 213 is allowed to remain on the center portion of the intrinsic base layer 211 and on the Si/SiGe film 212.
In the step shown in FIG. 6D, a p-type polysilicon film 215 is deposited over all surfaces of the substrate, after which a fourth silicon oxide film 216 is deposited on the polysilicon film 215.
In the step shown in FIG. 7A, a resist film 217 is formed to the main surface side of the substrate. By etching using this resist film as a mask, the polysilicon film 215 and the fourth silicon oxide film 216 are patterned. Thus, an emitter opening Aem is formed and the center portion of the third silicon oxide film 213 is exposed at the bottom of the emitter opening Aem.
In the step shown in FIG. 7B, a fifth silicon oxide film 218 is deposited over all surfaces of the substrate, and then an n-type polysilicon film 219, for example, is formed on the fifth silicon oxide film 218. The fifth silicon oxide film 218 and the polysilicon film 219 are etched back. The resulting fifth silicon oxide film 218 and polysilicon film 219 are allowed to remain as side walls on the sides of the emitter opening Aem.
By wet etching, a portion of the third silicon oxide film 213 exposed at the bottom of the emitter opening Aem is removed to expose the center portion of the intrinsic base layer 211. At the time, the Si/SiGe film 212 which is formed on the first polysilicon film 209 is also exposed. Note that the edge of the fifth silicon oxide film 218 is also etched and set back due to this wet etching.
Next, in the step shown in FIG. 7C, an n-type polysilicon film 220 is formed over all surfaces of the substrate, and then the substrate is subjected to heat treatment by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) or the like. The heat treatment diffuses the n-type dopant contained in the polysilicon film 220 into the intrinsic base layer 211, thereby forming an emitter layer 221.
In the step shown in FIG. 8A, a resist film 222 is formed to the main surface side of the substrate. By etching using the resist film 222 as a mask, the polysilicon film 220, the fifth silicon oxide film 218 and the fourth silicon oxide film 216 are patterned, and the resulting polysilicon film 220 is used as an emitter connecting electrode. During this patterning, the first polysilicon film 209 and the Si/SiGe film 212, which are formed on the second silicon oxide film 208, are also patterned, and the resulting first polysilicon film 209 and polysilicon film 215 are used for a base connecting electrode.
Subsequently, in the step shown in FIG. 8B, a sixth silicon oxide film 223 as an interlayer insulating film is deposited to the main surface side of the substrate, after which the surface of the sixth silicon oxide film 223 is planarized by CMP or the like. Contact holes are then formed in portions of the sixth silicon oxide film 223 by photolithography and etching. Finally, a film made of an aluminum alloy (an Al alloy film) is deposited by sputtering in the contact holes and on the sixth silicon oxide film 233 and the sputtered Al alloy film is patterned by photolithography and etching, thereby forming Al wiring 224.
With the foregoing steps, a semiconductor device including a heterojunction bipolar transistor is obtained. Although not shown in FIGS. 5A through 8B, a CMOS device may be formed on the semiconductor substrate 200 apart from the bipolar transistor.
In a conventional method for fabricating a semiconductor device, a wafer which contains a contaminant, such as germanium (Ge), adversely affecting the characteristics of a Si device is generally processed separately from a wafer containing no contaminant by providing a dedicated fabrication line. This separate process is very common in fabricating a semiconductor device such as a DRAM. More specifically, the device fabrication is broadly separated into: the process steps free from contamination (master process); the process steps using tungsten silicide or the like which causes a middle level of contamination damage (siliciding process); and the process steps using aluminum, copper or the like which causes a high level of contamination damage (interconnecting process). In each process, dedicated semiconductor fabrication equipment processes the wafer.
The formation of such fabrication lines is made implementable by the fact that a high volume of semiconductor devices are manufactured using such fabrication lines and therefore a high rate of operation of the semiconductor fabrication equipment can be set. With the conventional semiconductor-device fabrication lines, however, no device fabrication has been made by processing wafers containing a contaminant and wafers containing no contaminant while sharing almost all fabrication equipment in a common fabrication line. The reason for this is to avoid the deterioration in the performance of the fabricated semiconductor device due to contamination.
Heterojunction devices including a Si/SiGe heterojunction (hereinafter, referred simply to as "SiGe devices") can function as semiconductor devices with a high performance owing to germanium contained therein. Since germanium is a contaminant for CMOS devices, however, it is necessary to build a dedicated line for the fabrication of the SiGe devices, as described above. If the dedicated line for the SiGe devices is not provided, the quality of gate oxide films of the fabricated devices or the reliability of the fabricated devices may be deteriorated. For example, where a 20 nm-thick gate oxide film is formed on each wafer and Qbd (charge to breakdown) at which the cumulative failure rate for the wafer is 50% is measured, the wafer forcedly contaminated with germanium (Ge content: 2.5 to 8×1012 atoms/cm2) has a Qbd of 0.2 to 0.9 C/cm2. This value is remarkably smaller than that of the wafer free from contamination, that is, 2.0 to 3.0 C/cm2 (Ge content: less than 1×109 atoms/cm2, which is the sensitivity limit). It is found from these values that the contaminated wafer has a poor breakdown voltage.
However, provision of a dedicated fabrication line to fabricate SiGe devices without adversely affecting Si devices would bring many cost disadvantages for products fabricated in large item small volume production, which is impractical.
Moreover, SiGe devices are generally fabricated in a fabrication line one or more generation older than CMOS devices. The reason for this is as follows. Very expensive fabrication equipment is used in the fabrication line requiring the cutting edge of fine patterning, so that a high depreciation cost would be required for that equipment. This restricts the use of the fabrication line only to the fabrication of CMOS devices which would promise a high operation rate. On the contrary, the fabrication of SiGe devices in such a cutting-edge line would be a large economic burden because it is unlikely to promise a high operation rate. For this reason, mass-production SiGe devices lag behind CMOS devices in performance enhancement by fine pattering.
As is apparent from the above, in fabricating a SiGe device in an existing fabrication line shared with the fabrication of other devices such as a CMOS device, there exist the following problems. Specifically, in the conventional fabrication step of a semiconductor device shown in FIG. 6A, if the p-type intrinsic base layer 211, which is formed by selective epitaxial growth, contains a contaminant such as germanium, the p-type Si/SiGe film 212 formed to the back surface side of the substrate also contains germanium as a contaminant. When, in the wafer of the structure shown in FIG. 6A, the thickness of the epitaxial growth layer is measured or the wafer is checked by a microscope, germanium contained in the film 212 may be a source of contamination and adhere to another wafer through a stage, robot arm, vacuum wand and the like of the measurement equipment or the check equipment. As a result, germanium adhered to that wafer may cause subsequent contamination (referred hereinafter to as "secondary contamination").
Furthermore, in the case where the third silicon oxide film 213 is formed by LP-CVD in the step shown in FIG. 6B or in the case where the n-type polysilicon film 220 is formed by LP-CVD in the step shown in FIG. 7C, secondary contamination may occur through a tube, boat and wafer loader in a furnace.
Likewise, in the case where the silicon oxide film 213 is subjected to wet etching in the step shown in FIG. 7B, or in the case where the p-type Si/SiGe film 212 to the main surface side of the semiconductor substrate is subjected to dry etching in the step shown in FIG. 8A, secondary contamination may occur through an etching bath, chamber, wafer loader and the like.

Method for fabricating semiconductor device

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A core layer of a planar gradient-index waveguide lens is formed from a longitudinal section of a graded-index blank. The longitudinal section is mounted on a substrate that provides support for subsequent operations on the longitudinal section and that also functions as a cladding layer of the waveguide lens. The longitudinal section can be machined or redrawn in a furnace together with the substrate to a final thickness dimension.

Gradient-index (GRIN) lenses have a refractive index that varies in one or more coordinate directions. Generally, the refractive index varies in a direction transverse to the intended direction of propagation through the lenses. Parabolic or Gaussian distributions are used for the shape of the index profiles. (Note: The term "index" refers to "refractive index" throughout this specification.)
Three-dimensional GRIN lenses (generally in the 1 to 3 millimeter diameter range) can be made by an ion-exchange process in which a silica glass rod doped with thallium or cesium is immersed in a molten potassium salt bath. Potassium ions from the bath replace some of the thallium or cesium ions in the glass rod by diffusion, leaving a distribution of dopant that progressively decreases toward the periphery of the rod. Such ion distributions provide parabolic-like index profiles in the rods.
Smaller three-dimensional GRIN lenses (e.g., 125 micron diameter) can be made from conventional multi-mode fibers that already have graded-index profiles. The conventional fibers are cleaved to a specific lengths for controlling focusing qualities of the resulting lens. A paper entitled "Analysis and Evaluation of Graded-Index Fiber-Lenses" by W. L. Emkey et al. published in the Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. LT-5, No. 9, September 1987 discusses the performance of such fiber lenses.
Two-dimensional (planar) GRIN lenses are more difficult to make. In fact, planar waveguides themselves in which the two-dimensional GRIN lenses are formed require a complex sequence of operations starting with a substrate and laying down successive layers of lower refractive-index cladding surrounding a layer of higher refractive-index core. The required refractive-index profiles are produced by controlling the distribution of dopant in the core layer of the waveguide. The dopant, which typically increases the refractive index in proportion to its concentration, is distributed in concentrations matching the desired index profile. Higher concentrations are distributed at the center of the core, and progressively lower concentrations are distributed approaching the surrounding cladding.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,980 to Keil et al. describes the manufacture of planar GRIN lenses through diffusion of titanium into a lithium niobate crystal core. During a sputtering or vapor deposition operation, a shadow mask or variable diaphragm is used to control areas of the core exposed to the dopant. Alternatively, the core can be variably doped by ion implantation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,746 to Tobita et al. describes similar methods for forming planar GRIN lenses. A core layer of PMMA contains styrene or other resin material whose refractive index can be varied through photo polymerization. Ultraviolet light irradiates the core layer through one or more relatively movable masks for varying the amount of area exposed to the light. The resulting index of the core areas varies with the exposure time.
All of these methods are very difficult and expensive to carry out to required accuracy. Most require movements of masks or other apparatus that are difficult to time with other processing variables and can lead to contamination of the core. The various deposition techniques also produce irregularities at interfaces between the core and cladding resulting in reduced transmission efficiencies.

Method of manufacturing planar gradient-index waveguide lenses


A component of a slip assembly is formed by rolling sheet molding compound into a rolled charge. The rolled charge is positioned in a compression molding press and compressed to produce a molded element. The molded element is removed from the compression molding press and can be machined for use as the component of the slip assembly. The component can be a slip segment or can be a cylindrical body for the slip segment. The compound layers in the molded component can be oriented in a number of different orientations in the component and can increase the overall strength of the component.

An oil or gas well includes a bore extending into a well to some depth below the surface. The bore is lined with tubulars or casing to strengthen the walls of the bore. To further strengthen the walls of the bore, the annular area formed between the casing and the bore is typically filled with cement to permanently set the casing in the bore. The casing is then perforated to allow production fluid to enter the bore and to be retrieved at the surface of the well.
Typically, downhole tools with sealing elements are placed within the bore to isolate the production fluid or to manage production fluid flow through the well. For example, a bridge plug, a fracture plug, or a packer is placed within a bore to isolate upper and lower sections of production zones. Thus, by creating a pressure seal in the bore, these plugs allow pressurized fluids or solids to treat an isolated formation. These tools are usually constructed of cast iron, aluminum, or other alloyed metals, but have a malleable, synthetic element system. The plug or packer system can also be composed of non-metallic components made of composites, plastics, and elastomers.
Slips are a part of these downhole tools, such as plugs and packers, and the slips can also be composed of metallic or non-metallic components. However, metallic slips can cause problems during mill-up operations of the downhole tools in horizontal wells. As one solution to these problems, slip segments composed of composite material can be held on a mandrel of a downhole tool, such as a plug. These composite slip segments are typically held together with bands on the tool's mandrel until actuated to engage the surrounding casing downhole. Additionally, the composite slips segments can have inserts or buttons that are composed of metallic materials (e.g., tungsten carbide or the like) that grip the inner wall of the surrounding casing or tubular. Examples of downhole tools with slip segments with inserts are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,976,534 and 8,047,279.
FIG. 1A illustrates a fracturing system 10 having a composite plug 20 according to the prior art disposed in a bore. As shown, the system 10 can have at least one of the composite plugs 20 disposed within the casing 12 lining the bore.
Casing 12, as known in the art, is used to further strengthen the walls of the bore, and therefore the area formed between the casing 12 and the bore is typically filled with cement to permanently set the casing 12 within the bore. Also as shown, the casing 12 is perforated to allow production fluid to enter the casing 12 so the produced fluids can be retrieved at the surface of the well. The perforations 15 in the casing 12 are formed in formation zones 14 as shown. The formation zones 14 indicate zones where production fluid potentially exists. Accordingly, the casing 12 at these zones 14 is perforated in order to allow fluid to flow into the casing 12 and eventually to the surface.
FIG. 1B illustrates the composite plug 20 of the prior art in more detail. As shown, the plug 20 has a mandrel 22. As known in the art, the mandrel 22 is designed with a cylindrical hole (i.e., bore) through the center to allow for pressure equalization and well flow back prior to milling up the plug 20 after its use downhole. Also as shown, the plug 20 has uphole and downhole slip assemblies 24a-b, each having slip segments 30, inserts 34, and bands 32. The plug 20 also has uphole and downhole cones 26a-b, backups 28a-b, and a packing element 29.
Conventional composite slip assemblies 24a-b include multiple slip segments 30 disposed around the mandrel 22. Further, bands 32 typically hold the slip segments 30 in place, and the composite slip segments 30 include one or more metallic inserts 34 in order to engage the casing (12). During operation, the slip segments 30 move away from the mandrel 22 and compress the inserts 34 against the surrounding casing (12) when the plug 20 is compressed. Examples of the operation of conventional slip components of such a plug 20 are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,124,831, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
One method for forming composite slip segments 30 uses sheet molding compound (SMC). As is known, the sheet molding compound includes discontinuous fibers (e.g., glass filaments) impregnated with a composite matrix (e.g., resin). The composite matrix can include thermosetting resin, fillers, and additives such as initiators, inhibitors, thickeners, mold release agents, and the like.
The sheet molding compound is formed by forming the matrix as a paste layer onto conveyed carrier film. A doctor box (also known as a paste reservoir) places resin paste onto the carrier film (typically composed of plastic). Afterward, discontinuous fibers are distributed onto the paste layer as a mat of fibers. For example, the carrier film with the past layer passes under a chopper that releases strands of glass fiber. Long strands (more than 1″) of chopped glass fibers are released onto the layer of resin.
Another layer of resin is applied to hold all the fibers together, and another carrier film is added on the top layer. Subsequently, the sandwich layers are calendered to compact, impregnate, and wet the fiber bed by the paste to form a compounded sheet, which can then be matured to a malleable state.
The sheet molding compound can be made into larger composite parts using compression molding. When the sheet molding compound has matured enough for molding, for example, the compounded sheet is cut into pieces or charges, and the carrier films are removed. The pieces are then stacked together and put in a mold mounted on a steel die in a hydraulic or mechanical press, which is heated and applies pressure to the stacked charge to form the component.
This conventional molding method used to mold the composite slip segment 30 orients the fibers in parallel layers. According, such a molding process may enable the composite slip segment 30 to have a higher compressive strength, but the slip segment may have a low shear or tensile strength due to the orientation of the fibers.
Another method for forming composite slip segments 30 that uses sheet molding compound (SMC) is disclosed in U.S. Pub. 2008/0199642 to Barlow. A strip of sheet molding compound is wrapped into a seven layer roll, is placed in the mold with the axis of the roll along the length of the mold, and is compression molded at about 4000-psi pressure at a temperature of about 300-310 degrees Fahrenheit for twelve minutes. The mold is overcharged with the sheet molding compound so that a portion of the charge is squeezed out of the mold between the two pieces of the mold. When the slip body is removed from the mold, only grinding off of flashing is needed at the parting line. Granular abrasive is used on the slip body for gripping an internal surface of a tubular.
Of course, cast iron or other metallic slip assemblies 24a-b can be used in applications with increased loads, higher pressures, and higher temperatures. Such metallic slips assemblies 24a-b provide a higher overall strength for high pressure and temperature environments. However, at least one problem associated with such metallic slip assemblies 24a-b is that it is often less desirable to use such metallic components due to the time required to mill the components.
That is, plugs 20 are sometimes intended to be temporary and must be removed to access the casing (12). Rather than de-actuating the plug 20 and bringing it to the surface of the well, the plug 20 is typically destroyed with a rotating milling or drilling device. As the mill contacts the plug 20, the plug 20 is "drilled up" or reduced to small pieces that are either washed out of the bore or simply left at the bottom of the bore. Consequently, the more metal parts making up the plug 20, the longer the milling operation takes, and more damage to the milling equipment may result. Although, alternative solutions like fabric wrap resin infusion have also been used to remedy the mechanical properties of composite slips, this method has pressure and or temperature limitations that render it less suitable for some operations.
Accordingly, there is a need for non-metallic slip 24a-b components that will effectively have a high strength in all directions, not just have a high strength in one direction and a lower strength in another. The subject matter of the present disclosure is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above.

Molded composite slip of sheet molded compound for downhole tool


An electron emission device includes first electrodes formed on a substrate and oriented in a first direction of the substrate, and isolated electrodes disposed on a same plane as the first electrodes while being spaced apart from the first electrodes. The isolated electrodes are separately formed and arranged in the first direction as well as in a second direction crossing the first direction. Line electrodes are placed on a different plane from the first electrodes and the isolated electrodes and are disposed on an insulating layer. Each of the line electrodes is electrically connected to a respective plurality of the isolated electrodes arranged along the second direction to form a second electrode together with the respective plurality of the isolated electrodes. Electron emission regions are formed on the isolated electrodes along the peripheral sides of the isolated electrodes proximate to the first electrodes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electron emission device, and in particular, to an electron emission device which involves improved structure of electron emission regions and driving electrodes to enhance the emission efficiency, and a method of manufacturing the electron emission device.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, electron emission devices are classified into those using hot cathodes as an electron emission source, and those using cold cathodes as the electron emission source. There are several types of cold cathode electron emission devices, including a field emitter array (FEA) type, a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) type, a metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) type, and a surface conduction emitter (SCE) type.
The MIM type and the MIS type electron emission devices have a metal/insulator/metal (MIM) electron emission region and a metal/insulator/semiconductor (MIS) electron emission region, respectively. When voltages are applied to the metallic layers or to the metallic and the semiconductor layers, electrons are migrated and accelerated from the metallic layer or the semiconductor layer having a high electric potential to the metallic layer having a low electric potential, thereby making the electron emission.
The SCE type electron emission device includes first and second electrodes arranged on a substrate parallel to each other, and a conductive thin film disposed between the first and the second electrodes. Micro-cracks are made at the conductive thin film to form electron emission regions. When voltages are applied to the electrodes while making an electric current flow to the surface of the conductive thin film, electrons are emitted from the electron emission regions.
The FEA type electron emission device is based on the principle that when a material having a low work function or a high aspect ratio is used as an electron emission source, electrons are easily emitted from the material due to the electric field under the vacuum atmosphere. A sharp-pointed tip structure based on molybdenum Mo or silicon Si, or a carbonaceous material, such as carbon nanotube has been developed to be used as the electron emission region.
The electron emission device using the cold cathode basically has first and second substrates forming a vacuum vessel, and electron emission regions formed on the first substrate together with driving electrodes for controlling the electron emission of the electron emission regions. Phosphor layers are formed on the second substrate together with an anode electrode for accelerating the electrons emitted from the first substrate toward the phosphor layers, thereby displaying the desired images.
The FEA type electron emission device has cathode and gate electrodes as the driving electrodes. The cathode and the gate electrodes are placed on different planes with an insulating layer therebetween. Any one of the cathode and the gate electrodes receives a scan driving voltage, and the other electrode receives a data driving voltage such that electrons are emitted from the electron emission regions connected to the cathode electrode.
It is necessary with the FEA type electron emission device that the emission efficiency should be enhanced to realize a high luminance display screen. The emission efficiency is determined depending upon various factors, such as a contact resistance between the cathode electrode and the electron emission region, the dimension of the effective electron emission portion of the electron emission region, and the distance between the electron emission region and the gate electrode.
In case the contact resistance between the cathode electrode and the electron emission region is high, it becomes difficult to apply the required electric current to the electron emission regions, so the emission efficiency is deteriorated. The effective electron emission portion is the portion of the electron emission region where the electron emission is intensive. The emission efficiency increases as the effective electron emission increases. Furthermore, the strength of the electric field formed around the electron emission regions increases as the distance between the electron emission region and the gate electrode decreases, thereby enhancing the emission efficiency.
However, with the above-described electron emission device, the above factors are not all optimized, and hence, enhancement of the emission efficiency is limited so that a high luminance display screen cannot be obtained. Of course, it is possible to solve such a problem by heightening the driving voltage. However, in such a case, power consumption is increased, and high cost drivers should be used, resulting in increased production cost of the electron emission device.

Electron emission device and method for manufacturing the same


Processing a set of records, each record of the dataset having multiple attributes, including a dimension group of attributes and a measure group of attributes. Each record of the dataset is processed by: comparing a current value of at least one attribute of the record's dimension group with a previous value of the attribute in a previously processed record and creating a new record. The value of each attribute of the new record is determined as a combination of the values of the attribute in the set of records. The values of each attribute of the new record are associated with a quality score determined as a combination of quality scores of the attribute in the set of records.

The present invention relates to the field of digital computer systems, and more specifically, to a method of processing a dataset.
Controlling database systems based on a reduced amount of data such as aggregated attribute values of a dataset may be beneficial, in particular as the quality of the dataset can accurately be represented by the aggregated attribute values. However, when data with a poor quality are used for an aggregation, this could lead to an inappropriate control of the systems.

International Business Machines Corporation


The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for adding a new entry to a speech recognition dictionary, more particularly to a system and method for generating transcriptions from multiple utterances of a given word. The novel method and apparatus automatically transcribes several training utterances into transcriptions without knowledge of the orthography of the word being added. It also provides a method and apparatus for transcribing multiple utterances into a single transcription that can be added to a speech recognition dictionary. In a first step, each utterance is analyzed individually to get their respective acoustic characteristics. Following this, these characteristics are combined to generate a set of the most likely transcriptions using the acoustic information obtained from each of the training utterances.

In addition to providing printed telephone directories, telephone companies provide information services to their subscribers. The services may include stock quotes, directory assistance and many others. In most of these applications, when the information requested can be expressed as a number or number sequence, the user is required to enter his request via a touch tone telephone. This is often aggravating for the user since he is usually obliged to make repetitive entries in order to obtain a single answer. This situation becomes even more difficult when the input information is a word or phrase. In these situations, the involvement of a human operator may be required to complete the desired task.
Because telephone companies are likely to handle a very large number of calls per year, the associated labour costs are very significant. Consequently, telephone companies and telephone equipment manufacturers have devoted considerable efforts to the development of systems that reduce the labour costs associated with providing information services on the telephone network. These efforts comprise the development of sophisticated speech processing and recognition systems that can be used in the context of telephone networks.
In typical speech recognition systems, the user enters his request using isolated word, connected word or continuous speech via a microphone or telephone set. The request may be a name, a city or any other type of information for which either a function is to be performed or information is to be supplied. If valid speech is detected, the speech recognition layer of the system is invoked in an attempt to recognize the unknown utterance. Typically entries in a speech recognition dictionary are scored in order to determine the most likely match to the utterance.
In many speech applications, users may want to augment the vocabulary of the speech recognition dictionary by simply providing sample utterances of a new word. For example, the user of a voice activated dialing system may wish to add a new name and associated telephone number to his directory. In order to achieve this, the user repeats the name he wishes to add several times (typically 2 or 3 times) followed by the telephone number to be associated with the name. Based on these sample training utterances a new entry is created in the speech recognition dictionary and used for recognition purposes at a later time.
In many speech applications, particularly in telephone speech recognition applications such as voice activated dialing (VAD), it may be impossible or impractical to obtain the correct orthography for the new word from the user that he wishes to add to the dictionary. However, most approaches present in the prior art to augment a speech recognition dictionary require knowledge of the orthography of the new word to be added. For example, this is used in A. Asadi et al. "Automatic Modeling For Adding New Words To A Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition System", Proc. Of ICASSP'91, pp.305-308, 1991. The content of this document is incorporated herein by reference. Since the orthography cannot easily be obtained in telephone applications, these methods are not practical.
A common approach in generating the transcription for a new word is to obtain from the user a series of training utterances of the same word and decode each of the utterances separately. This approach generates a series of separate alternative acoustic sub-word representations each representation corresponding to different pronunciations of the same word. All these transcriptions are then stored in a speech recognition dictionary. Mathematically, this operation can be expressed as follows: ##EQU1## where T.sub.i is the transcription of the ith utterance, p is the number of training utterances, {Y.sub.1, Y.sub.2, Y.sub.3, . . . Y.sub.p } are the training utterances, T is the set of all possible transcriptions for any word and P(.vertline.) designates a conditional probability computation. A problem with this approach is that the computational coat of the recognition stage is very high since, for each word, the speech recognition system must score multiple entries in the dictionary, For a more detailed explanation, the reader is invited to consult R. Haeb-Umbach et al. "Automatic Transcription Of Unknown Words In A Speech Recognition System", Proc. Of ICASSP'95, pp.840-843, 1995 and N. Jain et al. "Creating Speaker-Specific Phonetic Templates With A Speaker-Independent Phonetic Recognizer: Implications For Voice Dialing", Proc. ICASSP'96, pp.881-884, 1996. The content of these documents is hereby incorporated by reference.
Another approach is to take the series of separate alternative transcriptions of the new word, generated as described in equation 1, and then select a single transcription which best represents all the utterances. Essentially, a transcription T.sub.best is chosen which is the most likely to have produced all utterances {Y.sub.1, Y.sub.2, Y.sub.3, . . . Y.sub.p }. Mathematically, this operation can be expressed as follows: ##EQU2##
For a more detailed explanation, the reader is invited to consult R. Haeb-Umbach et al. "Automatic Transcription Of Unknown Words In A Speech Recognition System", Proc. Of ICASSP'95, pp.840-843, 1995 whose content is incorporated by reference Choosing a single transcription for the new word reduces the memory space required for the dictionary and reduces the amount of time necessary to score the dictionary. However, the selected transcription merely reflects the acoustic information in the utterance that originated the transcription, and disregards the acoustic information of the utterances associated with the transcriptions that where rejected during the selection process. Thus, there exists a need in the industry to refine the process of adding a new word to a speech recognition dictionary such as to obtain a more accurate representation for new entries and to reduce the computational costs at the recognition stage.

Method and apparatus for obtaining transcriptions from multiple training utterances