A plurality of connecting leads, each consisting of an internal lead and an external lead, are provided so as to extend inward from a lead frame main body, and are then cut off the lead frame main body. The connecting leads are electrically connected with an aluminum electrode of the semiconductor chip. A plurality of fixing leads, each having a distal end bent toward the semiconductor, are provided so as to extend inward from the lead frame main body and thereafter are cut off the lead frame main body. The semiconductor chip is clamped by the distal ends of the fixing leads. The semiconductor chip, the plural connecting leads and the plural fixing leads are sealed together into a resin package.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device having an arrangement of molding a semiconductor chip with resin and a manufacturing method of the same.
Advances of electronic components in size and thickness reduction technologies in the past few years have made it possible to provide electronic components having highly improved performances, specifically in the field of semiconductor devices such as memories. This tendency will lead to the need of developing semiconductor devices which are compact in size, thin in thickness, low in cost, reliable in performance, and suitable for high-density packaging.
The package of semiconductor devices, used to be made of ceramic, are being rapidly changed to the resin type to realize the above requirements. Among them, surface mounting type resin molding packages have been increasing their demands since they are advantageous in providing higher mounting density compared with their competitive insertion type packages. The surface mounting type semiconductor packages are generally classified into some specific groups, such as QFP, SOP and SOJ, depending on their detailed constructions.
A semiconductor device having an SOP-type resin package will be explained hereinafter as a first conventional semiconductor device with reference to FIG. 21.
FIG. 21 is a cross-sectional view showing the first conventional semiconductor device. In FIG. 21, a reference numeral 21 represents a semiconductor chip, a reference numeral 22 represents a resin package, a reference numeral 23 represents a connecting lead made of 42 alloy or copper, a reference numeral 25 represents an aluminum electrode, a reference numeral 26 represents a bonding wire made of Au, a reference numeral 27 represents a die pad, and a reference numeral 28 represents a die bonding paste such as Ag paste.
The semiconductor chip 21 is fixed to the die pad 27 by means of the die bonding paste 28. An internal lead 23a of the connecting lead 23 is applied a thin coating of Ag or the like. The aluminum electrode 25 of the semiconductor chip 21 is connected to the internal lead 23a of the connecting lead 23 via the bonding wire 26. The package resin 22 seals the semiconductor chip 21, the bonding wire 26, the die pad 27 and the internal lead 23a therein. An external lead 23b of the connecting lead 23 extends out of the package 22.
In the field of general purpose memory devices, an outer configuration of the package, having a small size regulated by the industrial standards such as JEDEC and EIAJ, tends to cause a very severe problem of how such a small package can accommodate a newly developed semiconductor chip having a capacity rapidly expanded every generation.
Proposed to solve such a problem is an LOG (Lead On Ship) arrangement advantageous to install a large area semiconductor chip into a small-sized package.
With reference to FIG. 22, a second conventional semiconductor device having an LOG arrangement will be explained.
FIG. 22 is a cross-sectional view showing the second conventional semiconductor device. In FIG. 22, a reference numeral 21 represents a semiconductor chip, a reference numeral 22 represents a resin package, a reference numeral 23 represents a connecting lead, a reference numeral 25 represents an aluminum electrode, a reference numeral 26 represents a bonding wire, and a reference numeral 29 represents a polyimide tape. As shown in FIG. 22, an internal lead 23a of the connecting lead 23 is disposed above the main surface of the semiconductor chip 21.
The polyimide tape 29 has both surfaces on which thermoplastic adhesive material such as polyether amide is coated. The internal lead 23a is connected to the main surface of the semiconductor chip 21 by means of this adhesive material. As the polyimide tape 29 of the second conventional semiconductor device serves as a means of connecting the semiconductor chip 21 and the connecting lead 23 in this manner, the die pad 27 is no longer necessary.
Thus, the semiconductor device having an LOC arrangement allows the internal lead 23a of the connecting lead 23 to extend above the main surface of the semiconductor chip 21, so that the internal lead 23a is connected to the aluminum electrode 25 by means of the bonding wire 26. Accordingly, it becomes possible to reduce the unuseful space around the semiconductor chip 21, thereby enabling the large-area semiconductor chip 21 to be housed in the small-sized package 22.
However, such a semiconductor device having an LOC arrangement is inherently disadvantageous in that the package has a tall height. For the reduction of the height of the package, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application No. HEI 5235249/1993 discloses an improved semiconductor device having an arrangement shown in FIG. 23.
Hereinafter, a third conventional semiconductor device will be explained with reference to FIG. 23. In FIG. 23, a reference numeral 21 represents a semiconductor chip, a reference numeral 22 represents a package, a reference numeral 23 represents a connecting lead, a reference numeral 25 represents an aluminum electrode, a reference numeral 26 represents a bonding wire, and a reference numeral 30 represents a bus bar for electric power supply. As shown in FIG. 23, the bus bar 30 extends along the side surface of the semiconductor chip 21 so that the bus bar 30 is connected through a film with the semiconductor chip 21. Thus, it becomes possible to omit the die pad 27 shown in FIG. 21 and the polyimide 29 shown in FIG. 22.
However, the above-described second conventional semiconductor device has the following problems:
(1) Presence of the polyimide tape having high hygroscopicity causes moisture absorbed in the polyimide tape to vaporize during solder reflowing operation; therefore, cracks and voids will be easily caused in the semiconductor device. PA1 (2) Using the polyimide tape having such high hygroscopicity for connecting the internal leads tends to cause leakage between the connecting leads due to hygroscopicity. PA1 (3) A lead frame with a polyimide tape increases the production cost. PA1 (4) A process of setting a semiconductor chip into the lead frame requires a thermocompression bonding between the semiconductor chip and the lead frame by means of a 300-400.degree. C. high-temperature tool to melt the thermoplastic adhesive material coated on both surfaces of the polyimide tape to connect the semiconductor chip with the internal leads. Therefore, the semiconductor chip is possibly damaged by load and heat of the heating tool. PA1 (1) A process of setting the semiconductor chip into a clearance between two bus bars extending in parallel with each other is not easy to carry out. PA1 (2) Heat of sealing resin acts to thermally expand both the semiconductor chip and the lead frame. Difference of thermal expansion between the semiconductor chip and the lead frame will possibly damage the semiconductor chip by the compression force given from the lead frame. PA1 (3) Layout of the bus bar extending along the side surface of the semiconductor chip necessarily locates the distal end of the internal lead outside the bus bar; therefore, the LOC arrangement cannot be employed in this third conventional semiconductor device.
The third conventional semiconductor device has the following problems:

Semiconductor device having a lead clamping arrangement

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


Techniques are provided for determining whether a particular Access Point (AP) is to be designated as an Infrastructure Access Point (IAP) or a Backhaul Mesh Access Point (BMAP) based on the connectivity of the particular AP to a network which includes at least one multicast heartbeat message (MCHBM) source. Techniques are provided which can allow an Infrastructure Access Point (IAP) to change its device type to a Backhaul Mesh Access Point (BMAP) device type when the IAP determines that connectivity to the network is lost. Other techniques are provided which can allow a Backhaul Mesh Access Point (BMAP) to change its device type to an Infrastructure Access Point (IAP) device type when the BMAP determines that connectivity to the network is established.

Types of wireless networks include infrastructure-based wireless networks and ad hoc wireless networks.
Ad hoc networks are self-forming networks which can operate in the absence of any fixed infrastructure, and in some cases the ad hoc network is formed entirely of mobile nodes. An ad hoc network typically includes a number of geographically-distributed, potentially mobile units, sometimes referred to as "nodes," which are wirelessly connected to each other by one or more links (e.g., radio frequency communication channels). The nodes can communicate with each other over a wireless media without the support of an infrastructure-based or wired network. Links or connections between these nodes can change dynamically in an arbitrary manner as existing nodes move within the ad hoc network, as new nodes join or enter the ad hoc network, or as existing nodes leave or exit the ad hoc network. Because the topology of an ad hoc network can change significantly techniques are needed which can allow the ad hoc network to dynamically adjust to these changes. Due to the lack of a central controller, many network-controlling functions can be distributed among the nodes such that the nodes can self-organize and reconfigure in response to topology changes.
One characteristic of the nodes is that each node can directly communicate over a short range with nodes which are a single "hop" away. Such nodes are sometimes referred to as "neighbor nodes." When a node transmits packets to a destination node and the nodes are separated by more than one hop (e.g., the distance between two nodes exceeds the radio transmission range of the nodes, or a physical barrier is present between the nodes), the packets can be relayed via intermediate nodes ("multi-hopping") until the packets reach the destination node. In such situations, each intermediate node routes the packets (e.g., data and control information) to the next node along the route, until the packets reach their final destination. For relaying packets to the next node, each node should maintain routing information collected through conversation with neighboring nodes. The routing information can also be periodically broadcast in the network to reflect the current network topology. Alternatively, to reduce the amount of information transmitted for maintaining accurate routing information, the network nodes may exchange routing information only when it is needed. One approach for routing information, known as Mesh Scalable Routing (MSR), is described in U.S. Patent Application 20040143842 entitled "System and method for achieving continuous connectivity to an access point or gateway in a wireless network following an on-demand routing protocol, and to perform smooth handoff of mobile terminals between fixed terminals in the network", filed on Jan. 13, 2004, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. The Mesh Scalable Routing (MSR) defines two types of Access Points (APs): a Mesh Access Point (MAP) and an Infrastructure Access Point (IAP). MAPs can have an infrastructure state and an ad-hoc state, whereas IAPs are statically defined.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.

Changing access point (AP) device type based on connectivity to a network


A method, and apparatus and a computer program product for determining coverage in hardware verification based on relations between coverage events. The method comprises generating an over-approximation model of the hardware being verified to perform formal verification thereof with respect to a target coverage event being utilized in the verification process along with a set of coverage events. A score indicating an estimated conditional probability to hit the target coverage event in the verification process, given that the coverage event is hit in the verification process, may be determined for each coverage event based on the formal verification. The method further comprises selecting test suits to be executed in the verification process based on the scores and the test suits probability to hit each coverage event. The verification process may be the performed the selected test suits in order to cover the target coverage event.

Hardware Verification is a challenging task in silicon development which has a big impact on the key business drivers of quality, schedule and cost. One quality indicator for Hardware Verification process is coverage which is a measure used to describe the degree to which the hardware design is verified when a particular test suite runs. Different coverage models may be applied to check that a given design correctly implements its specification, such as function coverage, statement coverage, control flow edge coverage, branch coverage, condition coverage, or the like (commonly known as structural coverage). Another model is functional coverage which is added manually by the logic designer or the verification engineer, and attempts to capture complex system behaviors, where bugs may hide. As an example a condition where a state machine is in some state while two transactions arrive back-to-back.
In some cases, coverage may be measured as the degree of Hardware Description Language (HDL) code exercised during simulation. Different metrics of the HDL code may be used in hardware verification, such as a line or a block of code (e.g., a sequence of lines with no control branches), branch, expression, and path coverage. Such metrics involve the control flow through the HDL code during simulation and may be described by the Control Flow Graph (CFG) corresponding to that code.
Coverage status is hence an important criterion for many project milestones, such as tape-outs. Coverage closure is the process of advancing coverage goals in general, and the coverage levels specifically. Specifically, understanding the relationship between coverage and test-templates is an important layer in understanding the state and progress of the verification process. Today, this is extremely hard to achieve and is based on expert knowledge.

Hardware verification based on relations between coverage events

International Business Machines Corporation


A method of hiding a pattern in a host image increases and decreases parameter values at randomly selected host image locations assigned to respective first and second groups. The alteration modifies the statistical behavior of a test statistic equivalent to a linear combination of a large number of instances of respective functions, associated with the pattern, of the parameter values at first and second group locations. The presence or absence of the pattern in a test image is determined by comparing the experimental value of the test statistic associated with the pattern with the expected value of the same sum for an unaltered host image.

The digital representation of data has advanced the efficient and widespread distribution of information. This enhanced availability is, in general, desirable. However, facile access to data also presents an increased opportunity for copyright violation. The possibility of unauthorized use of such widely available data has created a demand for reliable and economical methods for incorporating and detecting signature information in data amenable to electronic distribution. Such a signature could be used, for example, to mark photographs or other types of images as proprietary material before electronic publication or distribution through on-line services. The presence of the signature in a suspect image may serve, for example, to verify illegitimate use of that image. Also, different versions of the same image may be marked with different signatures to identify different routes of distribution.
Data hiding is a class of processes used to embed recoverable (e.g., signature) data in digitally represented information, such as a host image, with minimal degradation to the host information. Although the changes introduced by embedded data may be perceptible by a human observer, they need not be conspicuous or objectionable. The goal of data hiding is not to restrict access to the host information, but rather to make it impossible to distribute the host information without the embedded data. The ability to embed inconspicuous data makes data hiding attractive for adding signature information in images.
It is to be anticipated that after receiving the signature information, the encoded image will undergo intentional and inadvertent modification due, for example, to channel noise, filtering, resampling, rotation, cropping, lossy compression, or digital-to-analog (or analog-to-digital) conversion. In order to be effective, the data hiding technique should embed the signature information in a manner that allows determination of its presence or absence even after such modifications. For the present application, it is especially important that the technique also be resistant to attempts by an unauthorized user to obscure or eliminate the embedded data.
Many known data-hiding techniques are deficient in that the embedded data is not resistant to removal by lossy compression, e.g., by JPEG coding, one of the most widely used of such techniques for still images. The JPEG method applies a discrete cosine transform ("DCT"), closely related to a discrete Fourier transform, to nonoverlapping blocks of the image. A quantizer value is then applied to each coefficient of the transform to perform frequency-adaptive weighting. The weighting removes subjective redundancies in the image in order to optimize the visual quality of the decoded image for a given bit rate. The human visual system is less sensitive to reconstruction errors related to luminance variations of high spatial frequency than to those of low spatial frequency. JPEG's emphasis on preserving low DCT coefficients at the expense of higher ones exploits this differential sensitivity.
One class of techniques that is known to resist JPEG is direct-sequence modulation spread-spectrum methods. These embed data by adding to the host information a composite signal formed by linearly modulating a sequence of pseudo-random numbers onto a sequence of code signals. Decoding includes correlation of the test image data with the composite signal. These techniques allow direction of embedded data to frequency ranges that are less likely to be attenuated by anticipated future processing, and so can avoid loss of the data by lossy compression. Also, because decoding requires knowledge of the added composite signal, the embedded data is difficult to detect and deliberately remove. Nonetheless, decoding is problematic because it requires exact pixel-wise registration of the test image with the host image. Efficacious testing of an image that has been subjected to modifications such as filtering, cropping, rotation, or resealing would require complete knowledge of the details of the modification.

Method and apparatus for data hiding in images


Method for determining the orientation of the trajectory followed by a pedestrian, associated with a trajectory frame, with respect to a reference frame is provided. At least one motion sensor associated with the pedestrian generates data representative of the motion of the sensor housing on the basis of said sensor assembly in the reference frame. A first rotation transformation operator representative of the orientation of the reference frame with respect to the trajectory frame is calculated. The data representative of the motion after transformation by said first operator exhibits at least one characteristic of a set of characteristics which are representative of signals of walking or running motion of a pedestrian and are expressed in the pedestrian frame.

A method for determining the orientation of the trajectory followed by a pedestrian, associated with a trajectory frame, with respect to a reference frame, by means of a sensor assembly comprising at least one motion sensor, with which the pedestrian is furnished, can be useful in diverse applications such as pedestrian navigation, be it indoors or outdoors, for which it is necessary to locate the pedestrian and/or determine his trajectory. The pedestrian can undertake a walking or running activity. Several techniques are known for locating a pedestrian in an absolute manner on a plane. It is for example possible to refer to the article by Robert Harle, "A Survey of Indoor Inertial Positioning Systems for Pedestrians" published under the reference IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 15, NO. 3, THIRD QUARTER 2013 1281.
The techniques most commonly used in navigation are the GNSS techniques (the acronym standing for "Global Navigation Satellite System"). In the optimal cases, these techniques make it possible to attain accuracies of a few meters. The carrier of the GNNS receiver is located in an absolute manner, at each instant. These techniques are, however, dependent on the capacity of the carrier to receive the signals from the satellites. Indoors, or in urban environments where several satellites may be hidden (so-called "urban canyon" effect), GNSS techniques may turn out to be inoperative or defective. Moreover, they exhibit a rather unadvantageous electrical consumption budget.
The use of the radio signals (GSM, WIFI, etc.) transmitted and received by a mobile telephone can also be utilized, including indoors, to locate pedestrians in an absolute manner with respect to the points of radio access but they generate rather inaccurate or noisy positions (at best 100 meters for the GSM radio signal, errors of several tens of meters are possible for WIFI, with notably position jumps from one instant to the next), they are dependent on the equipment in situ, and exhibit an unfavorable consumption budget.
The use of a sensor assembly with which the pedestrian is furnished, comprising at least one motion sensor, makes it possible to alleviate these defects, by replacing or by complementing the weaknesses of the procedures conventionally used, by providing a relative trajectory, based on the instantaneous estimations of speed and heading. The trajectory is then computed gradually by accumulation of elementary displacements (these techniques are known by the name "dead reckoning" or "navigation by dead reckoning"). Applications can range from the mass-market sector to the civil security or defense sectors, in all situations notably or other location systems are absent or deficient. "Dead reckoning" turns out to be very complementary to solutions involving absolute location. These latter provide noisy absolute positions, whereas "dead reckoning" provides a relative displacement.
For several years, the problem of indoor location of people has been a very active research topic, so numerous are the potential applications. Among the most promising technologies (location by Ultra Large Band (ULB) radio technique, location by Wifi technique, or location by Vision technique for example), the approach based on inertial measurement exhibits significant attractiveness for mass-market applications since the primary measurement means (a sensor assembly comprising at least one motion sensor) are now available to users through portable telephones and PC tablets. Other accessory devices are appearing on the market, also equipped with these means for measuring motion, such as interactive spectacles or watches worn on the wrist. The approach to location based on measuring motion of the present patent application relies indeed only on motion sensors carried or worn by the user, and is therefore independent of any infrastructure. Mass-market devices such as portable telephones or other tablets, interactive spectacles, watches, or other accessories now incorporate the basic sensors, namely accelerometer (A), gyrometer (G), magnetometer (M) and pressure sensor (P), and it is thus possible, without resorting to prior specific mappings and/or equipment in situ where the location is practiced (on which the other procedures cited are dependent), to provide the information regarding displacements over time and hence to plot the trajectory of the pedestrian.
The technique commonly employed for indoor location of a pedestrian with the aid of inertial sensors (in which in addition gyrometric sensors (G) and accelerometric sensors (A) and loosely speaking the magnetometer (M) are often included) consists in applying a so-called "dead reckoning" procedure, which estimates the current position in a reference frame (generally tied to a terrestrial frame, often merged therewith, in the North, East, Vertical direction) on the basis of the previous position, to which is added a displacement increment. For a very conventional case of a displacement over a plane in two dimensions (example of a ship moving on the surface of the sea, or of a vehicle moving on the surface of the earth, or of a pedestrian moving over a horizontal surface), the displacement increment is defined by a two-dimensional vector, whose norm is equal to the speed of displacement multiplied by the time increment from the instant of the previous position, and the angle is computed by the heading of the mobile object which is moving.
For a boat (one then often speaks of "navigation by dead reckoning"), it is possible to estimate the speed of displacement for example on the basis of instruments measuring the relative speed of the boat with respect to the water. Such an instrument can consist for example of a floating anchor, which is immobilized with respect to the water, and to which a rope will have been attached. The floating anchor is thrown into the water by an operator, and the operator then counts the length of rope which unwinds per unit time, so as to deduce the speed of the boat with respect to the water. The unwound length of rope can be charted by virtue of a system of knots distributed over the rope. The operator then counts the number of knots per unit time (whence the fact that the speed is expressed in knots). The heading can be estimated by a compass. For a terrestrial vehicle, it will be possible to estimate the speed on the basis of the number of revolution of wheels per second. The heading being able to be estimated by a procedure similar to the case of the ship and optionally supplemented with the direction information given by the steering wheel. In the case of a pedestrian wearing a system of motion sensors, such as those present in a smartphone or other worn accessory such as watches (on the wrist) or interactive spectacles (worn on the head), it is commonplace to estimate the modulus of the velocity vector on the basis of the measurement of the walking rate or, what is equivalent, by counting the footsteps taken, which can be obtained on the basis of the signals sensed by sensors responsive to the motions that the pedestrian impresses on the sensors, and of a function which thereafter transforms the rate into speed, or the number of footsteps into distance, according, for example, to models related to the morphology of the person. These procedures are perfectible but, for example, if one has access to a calibration of the function carried out with the aid of a test suite, it is possible to obtain accuracies of a few percent.
However, in the case of the pedestrian, the heading is not easy to estimate, insofar as, if the system of sensors actually makes it possible to measure an orientation (and therefore a heading) of the sensor system in the reference frame (or to fix matters, of the terrestrial frame), it is not possible to simply link this orientation to the heading followed by the pedestrian. Indeed, depending on the way in which the pedestrian carries or wears the sensor, and multiple possibilities are noted, able in addition to vary over time, it appears a priori that it is not possible to establish any relationship between the heading of the trajectory and the orientation of the sensor in the terrestrial frame.
A simple solution can be to ask the user to carry or wear his sensor, i.e. his mobile terminal or his accessory, since the sensor is tied in motion or bound in motion to the mobile terminal, in a constrained manner, for example by pointing it in the direction of walking, or by fixing the sensor (i.e. the mobile terminal or the accessory) in a unique and known manner on their body. The heading of the trajectory is then known since this heading can be deduced from the orientation of the mobile terminal. However, this constraining procedure hampers the adoption of location solutions based on the principle of inertial sensors, and on the other hand, there is no guarantee of the user being capable of keeping to the command. Moreover, for devices which guarantee a known position on the body, such as interactive spectacles equipped with motion sensors and placed on the head in a known manner, or an accessory belted around the waist, it is still necessary to cope with common situations in which the user turns their head to a heading which is not that of the trajectory that he is following or that the position of the accessory changes from one day to the next or even during one and the same navigation exercise. Indeed, the position of the accessory on the waist does not of itself make it possible to guarantee the relation between the orientation of this accessory and the heading of the pedestrian. For watches equipped with motion sensors, the way in which the watch is worn remains variable from one individual to another, the motions impressed on the arm generate temporal variations of the heading of the watch, and the manner of carriage may also vary over time for one and the same individual. The heading of the trajectory of the user may not therefore be deduced from the heading of the watch.
It is therefore apparent that there is a significant need to propose procedures for continuous estimation of this unknown orientation of the sensor with respect to the trajectory followed by the pedestrian. It is the object of this invention to propose a method for estimating this orientation.
This problem consisting in determining the relationship between sensor and trajectory, called for example "sensor-to-trajectory" or "sensor-to-traj" or "angle misalignment", is very complex.
This complex problem is little studied in the literature. Most inertial navigation systems for pedestrians generally assume that the orientation of the sensor with respect to the trajectory is known (such is the case for example for a sensor attached to the sternum or to the foot etc.). However, a certain number of articles and patent documents dealing with the problem have been identified, hereinafter.
The article "Which way am I facing: Inferring horizontal device orientation from an accelerometer signal", by Kunze K., Lukowicz P., Partridge K., and Begole, B., International symposium on wearable computers, 2009, assumes that the horizontal accelerations (p 149, 1. Introduction, left column) occur principally in the direction of the motion.
The signal is firstly projected into the horizontal plane by using the rest periods (minimum variance on each of the axes) to compute the vertical direction: in a rest period, the accelerometric signal represents solely the gravity field, that is to say the vertical direction. This direction is thereafter used to project the accelerometric signal into the horizontal plane.
A principal components analysis (PCA), that is to say a decomposition into eigenvectors and/or eigenvalues, is thereafter performed on the result of the projection so as to retrieve the direction of the displacement.
The article gives few elements, but announces five degrees of error over a course of 30 m, this being significant. We note by way of comment regarding this prior art that the principle according to which the horizontal accelerations are directed principally along the direction of advance is not satisfied since, as is seen subsequently, a pedestrian in a walking or running situation also generates accelerations perpendicular to the direction of advance. Depending on the user's gait, we thus have a superposition of acceleration components in the direction of walking and in the direction perpendicular to that of walking. Another variability factor which is not taken into account by the article is the position of the sensor. Moreover, the vertical direction identified in a rest period is no longer valid as soon as a motion which substantially modifies the orientation of the sensor housing is generated. It is thus appropriate to solve the problem of continuous estimation of the heading of the pedestrian on a terrestrial plane by virtue of the sensor data, and to do so continuously.
The article "Dead Reckoning from the pocket—An experimental study" by Ulrich Steinhoff and Bernt Schiele, Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, Mar. 29, 2010, pertains to a comparative and experimental study of various approaches for estimating direction of displacement, solely for sensors in the pocket, by using a database, comprising 8 people and 23 traces.
The principles studied to determine the direction of displacement rest upon two principles:
a rotational approach: the idea is that the sensor "turns" about an axis which is orthogonal to the direction of displacement, this approach being targeted rather more on a sensor in a trouser pocket (the rotation axis is that of the femur or of the pelvis). We note that here, the author seeks the axes of rotation of the sensor rather than the directions of acceleration. He proposes a totally different approach from the previous article and this underlines the lack of universal solution in respect of the problem of the pedestrian, who carries or wears a motion sensor system whose position is unknown with respect to the body.
The article underlines the lack of robustness of the approach which is an approach based on eigenvalue decomposition: PCA ("principal component analysis") in 2D or 3D, filtered or unfiltered.
The idea here is that the inherent accelerations occur in the direction of displacement, the various procedures studied differ simply in the implementation of this principle. The 3D approach seeks the 3 principal components of the sensor signal, and then retains the 3rd (that is to say the one associated with the smallest of the eigenvalues) as being that which indicates the motion.
The two-dimensional or 2D approaches (PCA2D and PCA2Df) firstly project the signal into the horizontal plane, and then perform an eigenvector decomposition. Here, it is the most significant eigenvector (that associated with the largest eigenvalue) which is assumed to indicate the direction of walking. The article concludes that the PCA2Df approach (projection in the horizontal plane (2D) and then search for the principal component) with filtering at 5 Hz gives the best results with less than 5° error. Here again, it should be noted that a pedestrian in a walking or running situation generates accelerations in several directions on the horizontal plane, both in the direction of walking and also perpendicularly. The combination of the two, according to the user's gait, according to the position of the sensor does not afford any guarantee that this resulting horizontal acceleration is always oriented in the direction of walking.
Document US20130030754 seems to pertain to another approach. The orientation RRS, described by equation 1, is assumed known by virtue of the use of accelerometers and magnetometers (optionally gyrometers).
The projection of the sensor frame into the horizontal plane gives rise to a new frame called the p-frame, such that zp-frame points upwards, and the directions xp-frame and yp-frame are respectively collinear with the projection of xsensor and ysensor in the horizontal plane.
In this frame the acceleration in relation to zp-frame is neglected since it cannot discriminate a direction of displacement in relation to the horizontal plane, although it may be non-zero.
Thereafter it is assumed that the horizontal acceleration seen by the sensor is related solely to the displacement, and is therefore, by definition, carried by the direction xtraj.
The criterion used consists in searching for the angle which maximizes the acceleration in this direction, thus amounting (implicitly) to saying that the maximum acceleration is in the direction of the displacement. It should however be noted that a pedestrian in a walking or running situation generates accelerations in the direction of the trajectory and also in directions perpendicular to the trajectory and that the combination of the two can generate resultants in all directions and that the result is then completely uncertain.
This constitutes the core of the principle used for determining the orientation between the sensor and the trajectory. Provision is also made to correlate the accelerometer signals (or a combination of) with expected patterns corresponding to the various possible positions of the sensor (pocket, hand etc.) The search for the correlation maximum must make it possible to determine the position of the sensor (pocket, hand etc.). However, the articulation of this technique with the previous principle does not seem very clear. Without doubt the author introduces it since he notes that the previous procedure does not suffice on its own. Moreover, it seems complex to have firstly to classify a sensor position on the body in order to apply the procedure thereafter. Finally, the signals of the accelerometers are also used to detect the footsteps, a necessary and conventional technique for estimating the pedestrian's displacement.
Document WO2012141811 discloses estimation of the position based on selection from among possible positions, for each of which a likelihood is computed. The likelihood is computed on the basis of the data of the accelerometers, light sensors, and more generally all the available sensors, for example:
the walking/resting situation can be detected using the variance of the norm of the accelerometers;
the pitch and/or roll angles, computed on the basis of the averaged accelerometric data, give indications on the attitude of the device;
the angle θ=direction of motion, can be computed by eigenvalue decomposition (similar to the method of WO2012158751A1, without all the refinements for suppressing the transverse accelerations);
the use of coefficients MFCCs arising from voice recognition can aid classification; and
the use of the optical sensor makes it possible to determine the number of occluded faces.
This multisensor fusion is complex, it requires a classification stage, itself error prone, in order to produce results.
Document WO2012158751 pertains essentially to an eigenvector and/or eigenvalue decomposition of the accelerometer signal except that the transverse accelerations are suppressed by a preprocessing comprising the following steps consisting in:
splitting the accelerations into horizontal and vertical accelerations;
suppressing the transverse accelerations by summing the accelerations of the "left" and "right" footsteps to obtain a zero resultant;
if the sensor is not centered, the resultant is non-zero, correlating the vertical accelerations with the horizontal delayed/advanced accelerations since it has been noted that the latter are phase-shifted by +/−π/2. The result is high for the so-called "displacement" accelerations and low for the transverse accelerations which are, however, also accelerations tied to the displacement, that is to say to the motion of the pedestrian in a walking or running situation; and
the misalignment in angle (MA) is ultimately computed by eigenvalue decomposition.
This procedure is based only on the principle that the measured principal acceleration is along the direction of displacement and proposes a mode of selecting the accelerations along the direction of walking which is prone to error.
Document WO201316875 proposes a description of a complete system of pedestrian Navigation, centered on detecting the direction of the motion. It provides moreover for the use of radio (WIFI, GPS), of maps, of particle filter for the data fusion. The determination of the direction of the motion is much like patent US20130030754 and consists in finding the principal direction of the accelerations.
The idea is to extract the high-frequency components of the signal which are presumed to contain the inherent accelerations while the low-frequency components contain the gravity field. This operation is performed by a simple high-pass filtering of the accelerometer signals. At this juncture, the signals contain the accelerations in 3D space, that is to say in space of dimension 3×N, N being the number of measurements collected.
It is thereafter stated that the only relevant components are the horizontal accelerations, that is to say those which are orthogonal to the z axis of the reference frame, however it is not stated how these components are extracted (numerous techniques are possible for projecting the signals into the horizontal plane). Moreover, by definition of the low-frequency components, the procedure obtains an average direction of the vertical, which is not applicable to the motion as a whole. The extraction of the horizontal components does not therefore seem to be possible, if the motion comprises substantial rotations. The extraction of the horizontal components leads to a 2×N matrix.
On the basis of this matrix, the energy of the horizontal components of the accelerometer signal is computed, and then this energy signal is filtered. It is thereafter assumed that the energy is a maximum in the direction of the motion. This assumption is subject to caution, since, as we introduced previously, and as will be set forth again in more detail, a pedestrian in a walking or running situation generates at one and the same time accelerations in the direction of the trajectory, and also accelerations in the direction perpendicular to the trajectory. Here again, the assumption upon which the method rests is fragile.
Thereafter, one seeks the angle rotation which maximizes the energy in the first direction, (thus amounting to diagonalizing the energy matrix, that is to say performing an eigenvector decomposition) by solving a criterion.
This entails an analytical solution for the computation of the angle.
The principal weakness of all these approaches resides in their robustness, in particular in the assumption that the measured accelerations are carried by the direction of displacement, while the accelerations generated by the motion of a pedestrian in a walking or running situation generate transverse as well as longitudinal accelerations. Moreover, the robustness of the processing to the position of the sensor is not covered, we note that according to the position of the sensor, notably on the limbs such as the arms or the legs, the principles of computing the direction of the trajectory are not the same.
Indeed, whatever the procedure employed or the name given to it, all these approaches rely on the fact that the measured acceleration component is collinear with the direction of the motion. This assumption seems likely for the motions of the pedestrian's feet.
However, one can question the way in which this acceleration propagates from the feet to the other possible positions of the sensor: hands, pockets, breast etc., it is indeed apparent that these points of the body have directions of accelerations that are much less marked than those of the feet. We will indeed see hereinafter in the present patent application that the motion of the body is characterized by accelerations in the direction of walking and also in the direction perpendicular to that of walking. The power of these accelerations depends notably on the gait of the user and also on the position of the system of motion sensors on the body.
Moreover, other positions of the body are affected by motions that are not tied to the direction of displacement and that may engender relatively significant accelerations, such is for example the case for the swinging motions of the arm.
Finally, still for robustness reasons, the implementation of these principles involves processing a sufficiently long duration of signal so as to attenuate the effect of "spiky" spurious phenomena and extract a "mean" effect. A problem is that the notion of duration is in contradiction with that of real time which is central for the applications envisaged. The vertical directions are sometimes found by low-pass filtering (so as to extract the value of the direction of the gravity field), or as soon as the motions impressed on the sensor system comprise substantial rotational motions, this mean direction can no longer be used. This is true for cyclic walking motions. Moreover, for example, if a user changes the position sensor, it will only be possible for the new position to be determined accurately after a duration T such that the accelerometer signal collected over this duration contains several cycles of footsteps. The duration of a footstep being of the order of about a second, it is contemplated that durations of ten seconds are easily attained (analysis of the inherent accelerations over ten footsteps), or possibly more, according to the compromise adopted between the latency of the system and the desired accuracy.

Method for determining the orientation of a sensor frame of reference tied to a mobile terminal carried or worn by a user


A device under test is divided into multiple test domains, and test conditions for each of the multiple test domains are defined separately, so that each test domain has its own test pattern, timing data, and other test conditions. Each test domain can start and stop independently, and run at different speeds. Further, triggers are used to specify how the tests executed in the different test domains interact and communicate with one another. Any test domain can generate or wait for a trigger from any other test domain (including the CPU).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electronic device testing, and more particularly, to multi-domain execution of tests on electronic devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
A test system having a multiple instrument platform represents a significant advance in the art. One example of such a test system is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/222,191, entitled "Circuit Testing with Ring-Connected Test Instrument Modules," filed Aug. 16, 2002, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.
In this test system 100, illustrated in FIG. 1, a test head interface module 110 and a plurality of instruments (collectively referred to as 120; individually referred to as instrument A, instrument B, and instrument C) are connected together over a ring bus 130. The test head interface module 110 houses a global clock 140 to which all of the instruments 120 are synchronized.
During testing, the test system 100 operates under the control of software, e.g., a test program. The test program specifies the test conditions, including the test data to be supplied to a device under test (DUT) 150, the expect data to be compared with the response signals from the DUT 150, and timing information indicating when the test data are to be supplied and when the response signals are to be strobed.
With a multiple instrument platform, the designer of a test has the flexibility to simultaneously test different pins of the DUT 150 with different test data and to condition the triggering of this test with respect to certain programmed events or certain events detected at the DUT 150. In addition, the test system having a multiple instrument platform is able to accommodate testing of pins at different clock rates. For example, if the core part of the DUT 150 operates at 250 MHz and other parts of the DUT 150 operates at 100 MHz, the pins corresponding to the core part are tested with instruments running at 250 MHz and the pins corresponding to the other parts are tested with instruments running at 100 MHz.

Multi-domain execution of tests on electronic devices


An electromagnetic shielding structure has conductive parts for blocking propagation of electromagnetic interference, whereof at least one has an appendage or an edge configuration that is shaped so as to bite into the edge of the other of the conductive parts, such as along a narrowing groove. The appendage or edge can have a structure resembling an insulation displacement connector, but is arranged to engage the edge of a sheet-like or planar shielding element, as opposed to biting into an insulated wire. The connection achieves both electrical and mechanical connection between the parts, preferably thereby completing at least part of a shielding enclosure.

Some electrical and electronic circuits generate undesirable electromagnetic emissions and some circuits are adversely affected by electromagnetic emissions from other circuits. There are various causes for electromagnetic emission and for sensitivity to emissions. Current levels, conductor lengths, inductance and high frequency operation, and high slew rates (e.g., from switching inductive loads) contribute to generating electromagnetic interference or "EMI." High amplifier gains, low common mode rejection, low signal to noise ratios and other factors contribute to circuit sensitivity to incoming noise.
One technique for blocking the propagation of emissions, either incoming or outgoing, is to place a conductive barrier across the propagation path. An incident electromagnetic signal produces current in the conductive barrier, but the propagating signal is attenuated, particularly if the barrier is connected along a low resistance path to the applicable signal ground reference.
Therefore, problematic sensitive and/or high frequency circuits are often shielded by grounded conductive barriers. In one example, box-like sheet metal structures wholly or partly enclose around such circuits. In other examples, enclosures are formed of conductive polymers, or coated with conductive foils or conductive paints. The enclosures can be rigid or flexible, and can be box shaped, cylindrical, domed or otherwise shaped to define an enclosure of conductive material around the applicable circuit. It is also possible to laminate over circuit elements with a relatively close fitting conductive coating or flexible cover. However, there may be cooling interests as well as shielding interests. A conductive enclosure around a circuit can have holes or slots, or can be constructed using a conductive mesh screen. Shields having holes or slots or other openings can be effective as conductive barriers for frequencies at and below a characteristic frequency related to the size of the holes. For relatively higher frequency shielding, any holes through the shield barrier need to be relatively smaller, etc.
In connection with a printed circuit board arrangement, a rectilinear sheet metal box often is used as all or part of the shield barrier. A box can be formed by folding an integral sheet and/or attaching together two or more integral sheets so that the sheets together form a conductive barrier in the required shape of a box or cylinder or tube, etc.
Assuming the example of a rectilinear box on a printed circuit board, conductive portions of the board can define part of the barrier around a given circuit element, or barriers can be provided on opposite sides if necessary. On a given side, standing conductive walls of thin sheet metal can extend from the plane of the circuit board, e.g., extending perpendicularly upwardly from a folded flange attached to the board, or carried by one or more integral tabs that engage openings on or through the board as attachment pegs, feet, floor panel elements or the like.
The standing wall elements act as the panels of a fence defining a perimeter and keeping the EMI emissions of the circuit in or out. The panels need to be mechanically mounted to remain in position, and electrically connected to one another and to one or more points on the circuit board, typically a common ground point. Electrical and mechanical connections can be made between adjacent conductive walls. Two adjacent panels can be attached to an intervening post that provides a secure attachment to the circuit card. A full enclosure also requires a cover, e.g., parallel to and spaced from the circuit board, and also connected electrically to the walls and thereby to the circuit ground or other point of reference.
The sheet metal elements of shield enclosures are typically inexpensive thin sheet metal stampings of aluminum, stainless steel or another material. There may be instances where it is desirable, e.g., for compactness and to reduce internal enclosure dimensions, to provide a shield with a complicated shape. This could necessitate multiple metal forming steps, such as successive folds made in a sheet metal stamping operation. More often it is desirable to minimize expense by using a minimum of stamping steps, to produce a simple structure.
An exemplary simple structure could resemble the walls and lid of a shoe box, with rectilinear standing walls having a rectangular footprint, covered by a lid having downwardly turned flange edges. Some structure is needed to ensure that the lid remains fixed on the side walls. This could be accomplished by providing a snug frictional fit, but a snug fit can be demanding of precision in the shape and dimensions of the inter-fitting parts, leading to expense. Alternatively, one of the lid or walls might be provided with slots, for receiving tabs associated the other of the lid or walls. The tabs can be barbed or arranged to be passed through a slot and then twisted or bent over to form a lock. These assembly steps such as fitting and bending over tabs also generate some expense.
It would be desirable to provide a technique whereby simple shielding enclosures could be made without the need for great precision in the size and shaping of the parts, so as to minimize expense. At the same time, however, such shielding enclosures need to be mechanically tight and secure as well as providing dependable low resistance electrical connections.
Electrical connections with conductors that are enclosed by insulation in cables can be made by providing a so-called insulation displacement connector or "IDC" structure. There are several alternative IDC structures in use. The typical connector includes an insulation-piercing or slicing part that is electrically conductive, and is intended to penetrate the insulation that encloses the cable conductor(s). Additionally, some mechanical arrangements are needed to position and support the cable while applying pressure between the penetrating part and the cable, so as to cut through the insulation to the conductor. The connector is termed an insulation displacement connector because when cutting through the insulation, the conductive penetrating part displaces the insulation along its path.
One type of insulation displacement connector comprises a conductive plate portion having a vee-shaped groove opening at one edge. A wire or similar conductor with insulation thereon is forced by a mechanical clamping arrangement toward the bottom of the vee-shaped groove. As the insulated wire is forced toward the bottom of the vee-groove, the converging walls of the groove function as knife edges to displace the insulation. At some extent of progress toward the bottom of the vee-shaped groove, one of the knife edges comes into contact with the wire, and when the lateral space between the converging walls of the groove is equal to the diameter of the wire, the wire comes into contact with both of the converging walls.
It is not desirable to shear off the conductor in a guillotine fashion, which might occur from applying sufficient pressure on the wire when disposed at the apex or bottom of the vee-groove that the wire is cut through. On the other hand, it is necessary to hold the conductive wire securely in contact against the conductive edges of the groove to maintain electrical contact.
In order to reduce the need for precise positioning or limitation on the pressure applied, the space between the converging knife edge walls of the vee-groove can be extended at the bottom of the vee groove by a slot along the center line of the vee groove. The slot has parallel edges that each join to one of the converging edges leading into the bottom of the groove. The spacing between the parallel edges is just slightly smaller than the outside diameter of the wire. In this way, pressing the insulated wire toward the bottom of the vee groove causes the converging knife edges to slice through the insulation. When the wire arrives near the bottom of the vee groove, the insulation on both opposite sides of the wire has been displaced. By further forcing the wire downwardly into the slot, there is some deformation or abrasion of the wire surface, but the wire is mechanically and electrically engaged in the IDC connection.
Connection of the insulated wire and its engagement in the vee groove generally require that the longitudinal axis of the wire pass at least somewhat perpendicularly through a plane defined by the knife edges. It is possible to vary the angle from perpendicular, but only up to a point. As the angle of incidence of the wire relative to the plane of the knife edges becomes more and more acute, the tendency increases to shear off the wire. If the wire is parallel to the plane, the wire cannot engage between the knife edges.
A bare wire could be engaged in a slot that is dimensioned to engage opposite sides of the wire between parallel edges. If there is no insulation to be displaced, one might dispense with having a vee groove and converging knife edges. The wire could be moved laterally to find the entry to the slot and pressed down into a slot defined between parallel walls. Assuming that the slot width and the wire outside diameter are approximately equal, or assuming that the wire diameter is only slightly larger than the slot at rest, the result would be mechanical engagement and electrical contact.
It would be advantageous if adjacent panels that reside in parallel planes (such as a lid flange overlapping the top edge of a box wall) could be mechanically and electrically attached as easily as engaging a wire in the vee groove of an insulation displacement connector. It would also be advantageous if panels that are at right angles and meet along an edge could be mechanically and electrically attached so easily. However, such panels are not arranged so that their edges cross perpendicularly. If arranged to cross perpendicularly (for example if a depending lid flange is lengthened to protrude beyond a standing side or end wall of a box), there is a resulting gap that may detract from shielding performance.

Electromagnetic shield with vee-slot panel joints


A liquid crystal display has pixel electrodes, a common electrode, a liquid crystal layer provided between the pixel electrodes and the common electrode, and a back light that supplies light transmitting through the liquid crystal layer, further has a control circuit that applies a drive voltage corresponding to image data between the pixel electrodes and the common electrode such that the polarity of the drive voltage is inverted for each predetermined period. Within a frame period, the control circuit applies a drive voltage of a first polarity in a first period, applies a drive voltage of a second polarity opposite to the first polarity, which is the same voltage as the drive voltage of the first polarity, in a second period after the first period, and controls such that the back light is turned off in the first period and turned on in the second period.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a liquid crystal display, and, more particularly, to a liquid crystal display driven in a frame inversion mode, which constrains flickers associated with the frame inversion drive.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display is provided with a liquid crystal layer between a common electrode and pixel electrodes disposed on a matrix, applies a voltage corresponding to an image signal between both electrodes to change a transmission factor of the liquid crystal layer, and transmits light from a back light through the liquid crystal layer to perform gradation display. In this case, in order to prevent burn-in of a liquid crystal panel and deterioration of a liquid crystal material due to movement of ion components in the liquid crystal material toward one electrode through its long-time driving, the liquid crystal layer is driven by alternately inverting the polarity of the voltage applied to the liquid crystal layer. A mode inverting the polarity for each frame is referred to as a frame inversion mode, and a mode inverting the polarity for each line is referred to as a line inversion mode.
On the other hand, it is proposed to use a ferroelectric material as the liquid crystal material to enhance a response speed of the liquid crystal material to the applied voltage. For example, this is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-219938. In such a liquid crystal display, writing is performed by applying a voltage with only one polarity to the liquid crystal material; the back light is turned on in the state of holding the voltage after the writing; and subsequently, an inversion voltage is applied for erasing. Color display can be achieved through a field sequential color mode by displaying a RGB frame image in a time-sharing manner using RGB LED devices as the back-light light source without using a color filter.

Flicker-constrained liquid crystal display


Methods and compositions are provided for protecting or enhancing excitable tissue function in mammals by systemic administration of an erythropoietin receptor activity modulator, such as erythropoietin, which signals via an EPO-activated receptor to modulate the function of excitable tissue. Excitable tissues include central neuronal tissues, such as the brain, peripheral neuronal tissues, retina, and heart tissue. Protection of excitable tissues provides treatment of hypoxia, seizure disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, hypoglycemia, and neurotoxin poisoning. Enhancement of function is useful in learning and memory. The invention is also directed to compositions and methods for facilitating the transport of molecules across endothelial cell tight junction barriers, such as the blood-brain barrier, by association of molecules with an erythropoietin receptor activity modulator, such as an erythropoietin.

Various acute and chronic conditions and diseases originate from excitable tissue damage and dysfunction brought about by external and internal stimuli. Such stimuli include lack of adequate oxygenation or glucose, neurotoxins, consequences of aging, infectious agents, and trauma. For example, excitable tissue may be subjected to damage as a consequence of seizures and chronic seizure disorders, convulsions, epilepsy, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, central nervous system injury, hypoxia, cerebral palsy, brain or spinal cord trauma, AIDS dementia and other forms of dementia, age-related loss of cognitive function, memory loss, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, hypotension, cardiac arrest, neuronal loss, smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning.
It is widely understood that decreases in energy supply available to the brain, such as glucose or oxygen, results in a profound impairment of brain function, including cognition. Many (but not all) neurons in the central nervous system are easily damaged while working under metabolically-limited conditions, e.g., hypoxia, hypoglycemia, stress, and/or prolonged, strong excitation. Under these circumstances, the electrochemical gradients of these cells often collapse, resulting in irreversible neuronal injury and cell death. Current opinion favors this general mechanism as a common final pathway for a wide range of common and debilitating degenerative neurological diseases including stroke, epilepsy, and Alzheimer's disease.
Although the consequences of limited energy substrate on brain function are well known, the effects of improving energy delivery in an otherwise normal brain has been less extensively explored. Current data suggest strongly that improved delivery of either glucose or oxygen markedly improves complex cognitive function in both animal models and in normal human subjects (Kopf et al., 1994, Behavioral and Neural Biology 62:237-243; Li et al., 1998, Neuroscience 85:785-794; Moss et al., 1996, Psychopharmacology 124:255-260). Further, a growing list of neuropeptides produced within the brain have been demonstrated to directly provide an improvement in cognitive function in normal brain. The physiological basis of these enhancements ultimately depends upon remodeling of neuronal interconnections through synaptic changes.
Brain tissue cytoarchitecture exhibits extreme plasticity and undergoes continuous remodeling. These processes, mediated by many trophic molecules, occur not only following injury, but also play a prominent role in learning, memory, and cognitive function. Although the prototype neurotrophin is nerve growth factor (NGF), an increasing number of cytokines have been recognized to perform trophic functions in the brain (Hefti et al. 1997, Annu. Rev. Pharmacol. Toxicol. 37:239-67).
Recently, a number of independent investigators have recognized that nervous tissue expresses high levels of both EPO and its receptor (EPO-R; Digicaylioglu et al., 1998, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:3717-20; Juul et al., Pediatr. Res. 43:40-9; Marti et al., 1997, Kidney Int. 51:416-8; Morishita et al., 1997, Neuroscience 76:105-16). Although it appears that EPO and its receptor proteins are each the products of single genes, the CNS versions are significantly smaller. The physiological meaning of this observation has not been clarified, but the mass differences do appear to modify biological activity. For example, in studies of human patients, investigators have concluded that EPO is not transported into the brain from the periphery (Marti et al., 1997, supra). To date, however, this possibility has not been evaluated for EPO by any direct study. Although brain EPO is about 15% smaller than renal EPO (due to differences in sialylation), brain EPO is more active in erythroid colony stimulation at low ligand concentrations (Masuda et al., 1994, J. Biol. Chem. 269:19488-93). On the other hand, the CNS receptor exhibits a much lower affinity for deglycosylated EPO than the 30% larger peripheral receptor (Konishi et al., 1993, Brain Res. 609:29-35; (Masuda et al., 1993, J. Biol. Chem. 268:11208-16).
In the brain, EPO expression has been found in astrocytes, and increased EPO expression and release can be induced by hypoxia and other metabolic stressors (Marti et al., 1996, Eur. J. Neurosci. 8:666-76; Masuda et al., 1993, J. Biol. Chem. 268:11208-16; Masuda et al., 1994, J. Biol. Chem. 269:19488-93) or even by occupancy of other receptors such as insulin-like growth factor family (Masuda et al., 1997, Brain Res. 746:63-70). Neurons are one target for this secreted EPO as they express EPO-R in a highly cell type-specific manner (Morishita et al., 1997, Neuroscience 76:105-16). In contrast to EPO itself, EPO-R density does not appear to be modulated during metabolic stress (Digicaylioglu et al., 1995, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:3717-20).
Recent study has demonstrated that EPO impressively protects against hypoxic neuronal injury in vitro, as well as in vivo when injected directly into the cerebral ventricles (Morishita et al., 1997, Neuroscience 76:105-16; Sadamoto et al., 1998, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 253:26-32; Sakanaka et al., 1998, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95:4635-40). Konishi et al. (1993, Brain Res. 609:29-35) have demonstrated that EPO promotes the in vivo survival of cholinergic neurons in adult rats when injected directly into the cerebral ventricles. EPO administered centrally into the cerebral ventricles also successfully prevents ischemic injury-related deficits in spatial learning in rats (Sadamoto et al., 1998, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 253:26-32). A recent publication suggests that only a 17-amino acid portion of EPO is needed for these neurotrophic effects in cultured neural cells (Campana et al., 1998, Int. J. Mol. Med. 1:235-41).
For many years, the only clear physiological role of erythropoietin (EPO) had been its control of the production of red blood cells. Recently, several lines of evidence suggest that EPO, as a member of the cytokine superfamily, performs other important physiologic functions which are mediated through interaction with the erythropoietin receptor (EPO-R). These actions include mitogenesis, modulation of calcium influx into smooth muscle and neural cells, and effects on intermediary metabolism. It is believed that EPO provides compensatory responses that serve to improve hypoxic cellular microenvironments. Although studies have established that EPO injected intracranially protects neurons against hypoxic neuronal injury, intracranial administration is an impractical and unacceptable route of administration for therapeutic use, particularly for normal individuals. Furthermore, previous studies of anemic patients given EPO have concluded that peripherally-administered EPO is not transported into the brain (Marti et al., 1997, supra).
Citation or discussion of a reference herein shall not be construed as an admission that such is prior art to the present invention.

Methods for treatment of neurodegenerative conditions by peripherally administered erythropoietin


A system that executes a long transaction in a system with limited transactional hardware resources. During operation, the system executes the long transaction in a non transactional mode, which does not use transactional hardware resources. The system defers stores generated during the long transaction so that the stores are not committed to the architectural state of a processor until the transaction is successfully completed. If the long transaction successfully completes, the system commits the long transaction, which involves performing multiple hardware transactions to commit the deferred stores to the architectural state of the processor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for executing a long transaction in a system with limited transactional hardware resources.
2. Related Art
Synchronization mechanisms facilitate preventing, avoiding, or recovering from inopportune interleavings of concurrent operations which are referred to "races." One such synchronization mechanism is mutual-exclusion locking, wherein at most one thread is permitted access to protected code or data (e.g., critical sections).
In the Java programming language, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) provides monitors by which threads running application code can ensure that certain operations are performed atomically with respect to the execution of other threads. (Note that Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.) Typical JVMs implement monitors with mutual-exclusion locking mechanisms, wherein the monitor is either locked or unlocked, and wherein only one thread can own the monitor at any given time. A thread can enter a critical section protected by a monitor only after acquiring ownership of the monitor. If a thread attempts to lock a monitor that is in an unlocked state, the thread gains ownership of the monitor. However, if a thread attempts to acquire ownership of a monitor that has been locked by another thread, the thread is not permitted to enter into a critical section until the owner of the lock releases the lock and the thread gains exclusive ownership of the lock.
Unfortunately, mutual exclusion can cause problems. For example, under mutual exclusion, threads can be vulnerable to deadlock and a thread that is stalled or preempted while executing a critical section can impede other threads trying to acquire the lock, which can cause excessive latency in acquiring the lock, priority inversion, and excessive context switching.
One solution to this problem is to use a "lock-free" synchronization mechanism. A synchronization mechanism is considered lock-free if a system that is executing a group of threads that communicate with each other is guaranteed to make useful forward progress (e.g., completing an atomic update) in a finite number of processor cycles. Lock-freedom does not guarantee that a specific thread makes progress in a finite number of program steps, but rather that at least one of the threads being executed by the system is guaranteed to make progress after a finite number of program steps.
The Java synchronization mechanism is the synchronized( ) construct. A JVM can implement the synchronized( ) construct in a number of ways:                (1) through mutual-exclusion locking (used by many JVM implementations);        (2) through lock-free updates; or        (3) through a hardware transaction (H-Transaction).Using H-transactions involves commuting a synchronized block to use transactional-memory mechanisms. If the H-transaction fails because the requested operation is not feasible (e.g., exceeds the hardware resources available to the processor) the operation reverts to mutual-exclusion locking.
Processors that support hardware transactional memory typically have limited hardware resources. The number of tracked loads and conditionally-deferred stores is finite in these processors. Some of these processors do not support large transactions that load from or store to a large number of disparate cache lines. Furthermore, some of these processors do not allow SAVE and RESTORE instructions in transactional mode, thereby precluding procedure calls to non-leaf routines while in transactional mode.
Commuting a synchronized block to an H-transaction affords two benefits:                (1) lock-freedom—other threads are not impeded if a thread in the midst of a transaction stalls; and        (2) increased parallelism—non-conflicting operations can proceed in parallel, increasing overall system throughput. Using hardware transactions provides the effect of using optimal or ideal fine-grained locking without the effort and risk associated with explicitly coded fine-grain locks. Pure readers (i.e., synchronized blocks that only read shared variables) are a degenerate case and never conflict with each other.
For example, the following operations, although synchronizing on the same object and executed by different threads, commuted to H-transactions can proceed in parallel because the operands do not conflict:
TXN1: synchronized(o) { a++; b++; }TXN2: synchronized(o) { c++; d++; }However, if the implementation of synchronized( ) uses mutual-exclusion locking, TXN1 and TXN2 cannot be executed in parallel and are instead is executed in series.
The following example illustrates the process of commuting synchronized( ) blocks to H-Transactions. Consider the following Java code fragment:
synchronized(o) { a++; if (a & 1) b++; }A typical JVM will transform the above synchronized( ) block into code that is equivalent to the following code:
// Lock( ) and Unlock( ) are runtime// infrastructure support routines.Lock(o); a++; if (a & 1) b++; Unlock(o);More accurately, the code has the form:
try {  Lock(o); a++; if (a & 1) b++;} finally { Unlock(o);  }
If transactional memory is available, the JVM can emit the following code:
// Prefer transactional mode over locksint txn = 1; // auto or thread-local variableif (CHKPT( ) == 0) {  if !isLocked(o) goto Enter;  COMMIT( ); // Either COMMIT( ) or ABORT( ) suffices}txn = 0;Lock (o);Enter :// The same code in both transactional and// mutual-exclusion modes.a++; if (a & 1) b++;if (txn) { COMMIT( ); } else { Unlock(o);  }
The above code attempts to use an H-Transaction. If the object is locked at the start of execution of the critical section, mutual-exclusion locking is used. Otherwise, a hardware transaction is used. Note that islocked( ) loads and tests a lockword for an object. If a second thread acquires the lock while a first thread is executing a transaction, the lockword is modified and the first transaction aborts immediately because of the interference by the second thread.
COMMIT, CHKPT and ABORT can be defined as inline or leaf routines. For example:
COMMIT( )  retl  commitCHKPT( )  !! usage is similar to setjmp( )  mov %g0, %o0  chkpt 1f  nop  retl  nop1 : retl  rd %cps, %o0 !! read cps - will be non-zeroABORT( )  ta 0  retl  nop
Note that if hardware transactional memory is not available, mutual-exclusion locking is used (not shown in the above code). In practice, the CHKPT( ) routine returns a specified non-zero value which indicates whether hardware transactional memory is supported by the processor.
Also note that a more sophisticated transaction-triage-failure policy can be used. The code above checks the return value from CHKPT( ). If the transaction fails because of interference or contention, as evidenced by the return code from CHKPT( ), a more sophisticated failure policy can retry the operation using hardware transactions a specified number of times before attempting to acquire a mutual-exclusion lock. Typically, once mutual-exclusion locking is used on an object, the object tends to remain in mutual-exclusion mode until the contention abates.
Furthermore, note that some critical sections are not eligible to be commuted to H-transactional form. For example, a critical section is ineligible if any of the following occurs:                (1) the critical section is too long or is infeasible (e.g., it requires more transactional memory resources than are available in the processor);        (2) the critical section executes I/O instructions or any other operation that can alter the non-transactional state; (Note that this issue can be somewhat mitigated by emitting non-leaf routines that avoid using SAVE and RESTORE, but instead use the gcc "−mflat" calling convention, which are callable from within H-transactions.)        (3) the critical section calls non-leaf routines (typically, this stricture subsumes (2));        (4) the critical section accesses volatile variables;        (5) the critical section uses java.util.concurrent atomic operators (e.g., atomic compare-and-swap (CAS) is not permitted in some hardware transactional memory architectures and executing a CAS within a transaction causes the transaction to abort); and        (6) the critical section itself contains synchronized blocks (only leaf or terminal synchronized blocks are commutable).
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus for executing a long transaction without the problems described above.

Method and apparatus for executing a long transaction


A disk drive is disclosed which executes a rotational position optimization (RPO) algorithm for selecting a next command to execute out of a plurality of pending commands. The RPO algorithm comprises a first phase and a second phase. The first phase of the RPO algorithm is executed relative to a first priority and in response to at least one non-real-time parameter. The second phase of the RPO algorithm is executed relative to a second priority higher than the first priority and in response to at least one real-time parameter.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to disk drives for computer systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a disk drive employing a multi-phase rotational position optimization (RPO) algorithm.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A disk drive may employ an RPO algorithm in order to execute commands in an order which minimizes the seek latency of the head as well as the rotational latency of the disk. After executing a current command, the RPO algorithm will typically evaluate seek parameters to select the next command that minimizes the access time with respect to the radial and circumferential location of the head. However, it may be desirable for the RPO algorithm to consider other parameters in addition to seek parameters when ordering the commands in the RPO queue. For example, if the disk drive is low on cache memory the RPO algorithm may order the write commands in the RPO queue relative to their size so that larger write commands will be executed first, thereby freeing cache memory for other commands. However, increasing the number of parameters considered by the RPO algorithm increases the computational complexity and latency, thereby degrading the ability to select the next best command in real-time.

Disk drive employing a multi-phase rotational position optimization (RPO) algorithm


One embodiment provides a system that analyzes telemetry data from a monitored system. During operation, the system periodically obtains the telemetry data as a set of telemetry variables from the monitored system and updates a multidimensional real-time distribution of the telemetry data using the obtained telemetry variables. Next, the system analyzes a statistical deviation of the multidimensional real-time distribution from a multidimensional reference distribution for the monitored system using a multivariate sequential probability ratio test (SPRT) and assesses the integrity of the monitored system based on the statistical deviation of the multidimensional real-time distribution. If the assessed integrity falls below a threshold, the system determines a fault in the monitored system corresponding to a source of the statistical deviation.

1. Field
The present embodiments relate to techniques for analyzing telemetry data. More specifically, the present embodiments relate to a method and system for analyzing telemetry data using a multivariate sequential probability ratio test.
2. Related Art
As electronic commerce becomes more prevalent, businesses are increasingly relying on enterprise computing systems to process ever-larger volumes of electronic transactions. A failure in one of these enterprise computing systems can be disastrous, potentially resulting in millions of dollars of lost business. More importantly, a failure can seriously undermine consumer confidence in a business, making customers less likely to purchase goods and services from the business. Hence, it is important to ensure high availability in such enterprise computing systems.
To achieve high availability, it is necessary to be able to capture unambiguous diagnostic information that can quickly locate faults in hardware or software. If systems perform too little event monitoring, when a problem crops up at a customer site, service engineers may be unable to quickly identify the source of the problem. This can lead to increased down time.
Fortunately, high-end computer servers are now equipped with a large number of sensors that measure physical performance parameters such as temperature, voltage, current, vibration, and acoustics. Software-based monitoring mechanisms also monitor software-related telemetry parameters, such as processor load, memory and cache usage, system throughput, queue lengths, I/O traffic, and quality of service. Typically, special software analyzes the collected telemetry data and issues alerts when there is an anomaly. In addition, it is important to archive historical telemetry data to allow long-term monitoring and to facilitate detection of slow system degradation.
A threshold-based monitoring system may commonly be used to detect anomalies in the telemetry data by determining whether each telemetry parameter is operating within a specified range. If the value of a telemetry parameter goes out of range, the threshold-based monitoring system generates an alert. However, threshold-based monitoring systems are typically associated with a number of drawbacks. In particular, the accuracy of a threshold-based monitoring system may depend heavily on the accuracy of the sensors used to measure system parameters. If a sensor is imperfect and returns noisy signals, the sensor may cause the threshold-monitoring system to malfunction. Moreover, process variations during the sensor manufacturing process may cause measurement differences between different sensors. These measurement differences can also cause the threshold-monitoring system to malfunction.
Such drawbacks may partially be overcome by setting wide thresholds, which reduce the incidence of false alarms in threshold-based monitoring systems. Unfortunately, wide thresholds may delay the detection of failure conditions until degradation has reached an advanced stage. Late detection of degradation may further preclude the use of preventive maintenance and lead to forcibly shutting down the computer system for maintenance purposes, resulting in loss of productivity and business.
Hence, what is needed is a technique for early detection of degradation in monitored computer systems.

Telemetry data analysis using multivariate sequential probability ratio test


Disclosed is a hot-rolled steel strip having a tensile strength greater than 875 MPa and containing in mass-%:                C 0.06-0.12,        Si 0-0.5,        Mn 0.70-2.20,        Nb 0.005-0.100,        Ti 0.01-0.10,        V 0.11-0.40,        whereby the total amount of V+Nb+Ti is 0.20-0.40        Al 0.005-0.150,        B 0-0.0008,        Cr 0-1.0,        whereby the total amount of Mn+Cr is 0.9-2.5,        Mo 0-0.5,        Cu 0-0.5,        Ni 0-1.0,        P 0-0.05,        S 0-0.01,        Zr 0-0.1        Co 0-0.1        W 0-0.1        Ca 0-0.005,        N 0-0.01,        balance Fe and unavoidable impurities, and having a microstructure at ¼ thickness that is:                    at least 90% martensite and bainite with island-shaped martensite-austenite (MA) constituents,                        the remainder being:                    less than 5% polygonal ferrite and quasi-polygonal ferrite,            less than 5% pearlite,            less than 5% austenite,                        so that the total area percentage is 100%.

The current trend in many industrial areas is to create lighter designs. For example, in the automotive industry this trend is visible in the increasing usage of advanced high strength steel grades, like dual or complex phase steels. However, there are still several applications in which traditional micro-alloyed high strength steel is a more suitable material than dual or complex phase steel. In those applications, high strength together with good hole expansion ratio or good bendability are required.
High strength formable steel grades are typically utilized in automated manufacturing lines within the automotive industry, which require homogenous material properties. In particular, the yield strength of the steel must be uniform essentially throughout the full length of the steel strip utilized because variations in yield strength cause changes in the spring back effect, which results in dimensional failures of steel components, which is unacceptable.
Micro-alloying elements, namely small amounts of titanium, niobium and/or vanadium (i.e. less than 0.15 mass-% of each and less than 0.25 mass-% of these elements in total), are used in high strength formable steels. Despite the micro-level of alloying content, these alloying elements are commonly utilized since they provide major improvements in the mechanical properties of such steel products. Due to the low alloying levels, the weldability of these micro-alloyed steels is excellent. Micro-alloying elements facilitate grain refinement during hot-rolling, which results in hot-rolled steel products having a smaller grain size. The strength of hot-rolled steel strips is also increased due to the precipitation of such micro-alloying elements during coiling at temperatures higher than 400° C., such as coiling at a temperature in the range 550 to 650° C., and also during subsequent cooling on a run-out table. At such coiling temperatures, the micro-alloying elements form precipitates, with carbon and/or nitrogen for example, which results in a strength increase because the movement of dislocations within the steel is hindered. When the coiling is carried out at such high temperatures, the microstructure of the hot-rolled steel strip typically becomes ferritic-pearlitic.
However, when hot-rolled steels strips are strengthened by precipitation hardening, manufactured using typical coiling temperatures, and further processed by annealing in a continuous annealing line (hereinafter referred to as CAL), or by annealing in a hot-dip coating line (hereinafter referred to as HDCL), an undesired effect arises. A coarsening of the precipitates namely takes place due to the temperature at which the further processing of the hot-rolled steel strip is carried out, and the time for which the steel is subjected to that temperature. This means that some of the strength increase gained by precipitation hardening may be lost during the further processing. Furthermore, the coarsened precipitates do not eliminate grain growth during annealing in a CAL or in a HDCL, which may lead to excessive grain growth, which adversely affects the formability of the steel. Additionally, coarsened precipitates can serve as starting points for fractures, which weaken the elongation properties of the steel strip.
Additionally, typical high coiling temperatures result in uneven mechanical properties throughout the length of the steel strip. Steel components made from the head or tail of a steel strip which exhibit different mechanical properties can be removed, but this increases the amount of steel material that is lost during the production process, which is always undesired.
In the case of cold-rolled and continuously annealed steels produced using a typical high coiling temperature, it is difficult to achieve yield strength levels above 500 MPa (such as grades having a yield strength of 600-700 MPa) and tensile strength above 875 MPa with a fully recrystallized microstructure without phase hardening. The cold-rolled grain structure should be completely recrystallized after cold-rolling in a continuous annealing process in order for the steel to exhibit acceptable formability, but, in turn, precipitation strengthening should not be lost.
In order to ensure complete recrystallization of the cold-rolled grain structure, the literature has suggested that recrystallization could be facilitated by raising the coiling temperature and/or increasing the cold-rolling reduction. However, coiling at high temperatures leads to coarsened precipitates and unsatisfied strength requirements of such continuously annealed steel strips, as explained above. Furthermore, increased cold-rolling reductions are problematic for the same reason due to the fact that if cold-rolling reductions are increased, the dislocation density is increased, and this speeds up diffusion. This means that at least a partial coarsening of precipitates will easily take place. This in turn decreases the strength of the steel. In other words, particularly in cold-rolled and continuously annealed high strength formable steel strips, there arises a difficulty in how to simultaneously obtain effective precipitation strengthening and complete recrystallization. Furthermore, cold rolling and annealing increase production time and cost compared to a more simple method of hot rolling and direct quenching to low temperature.
European patent no. EP 2,647,730 solves, or at least alleviates the problems outlined above. EP 2,647,730 discloses a high-strength formable continuously annealed steel strip that provides for simultaneous high strength (i.e. steel having a yield strength, Rp0.2 in the range of 340 to 800 MPa), good general formability (elongation, A80>10%) and improved formability by reducing variations in yield strength which cause changes in the spring back effect during forming. The method for manufacturing such a continuously annealed high strength formable steel strip product comprises the steps of:                providing a microalloyed steel slab having the following chemical composition (in mass-%): C 0.04-0.18%, Mn 0.2-3.0%, Si 0-2.0%, Al 0-1.5%, Cr 0-2%, Ni 0-2%, Cu 0-2%, Mo 0-0.5%, B 0-0.005%, Ca 0-0.01% and one or more of the following V: 0.01-0.15%, or Nb: 0.005-0.10%, or Ti: 0.01-0.15%, the balance being iron and unavoidable impurities, and Mneq>0.5, as calculated by the equation below:Mneq=Mn(%)+124B(%)+3Mo(%)+1½Cr(%)+⅓Si(%)+⅓Ni(%)+½Cu(%)        hot-rolling the steel slab in order to obtain a hot-rolled steel strip,        direct quenching the hot-rolled steel strip to a temperature below 400° C., using an average cooling rate of at least 30° C./s to obtain a quenched steel strip, and        continuously annealing the quenched steel strip at an annealing temperature between 400-900° C. to obtain a continuously annealed high strength formable steel strip product.
However, EP 2,647,730 discloses that a continuously annealed high strength formable steel strip product having a tensile strength greater than 800 MPa, is difficult to achieve using the method disclosed therein. Additionally, the microstructure of the disclosed continuously annealed high strength formable steel strip product before and after annealing is mainly bainitic ferritic and ferritic. It is well known that such a microstructure (i.e. mainly bainitic ferrite and ferrite as annealed, or not annealed) is not optimal for achieving good bending properties or wear resistance.
US patent application no. US 2018/265939A1 relates to a hot-rolled high-strength steel strip or sheet with excellent roll-forming characteristics and excellent stretch-flange formability suitable for an automotive chassis part or the like, and more particularly, to a high-strength steel strip or sheet with tensile strength of 780 MPa or higher, or preferably 950 MPa or higher, with an excellent combination of total elongation, stretch-flange formability and fatigue resistance, and to a method of manufacturing the steel strip or sheet, and to the use of the strip or sheet in a part.
Japanese patent application no. JP 2015 160985A aims to provide a high strength hot rolled steel sheet excellent in surface quality and punchability and having a tensile strength of 690 MPa or more. The high strength hot rolled steel sheet has a composition containing, by mass %, C: 0.06 to 0.13%, Si: 0.09% or less, Mn: 0.01 to 1.20%, P: 0.03% or less, S: 0.005% or less, Al: 0.1% or less, N: 0.01% or less, Nb: 0.10 to 0.18%, V: 0.03 to 0.20%, Ti: 0.02% or less (including 0) and balance Fe with inevitable impurities, and a structure having an area percentage of a bainite phase of 80% or more, an area percentage of a ferrite phase of 15% or less, an area percentage of a martensite phase of 5% or less, a deposition amount of cementite of 0.08% or more and an average particle diameter of 2 μm or less, and containing carbide having an average particle diameter of less than 10 nm, finely dispersed in a crystal particle of the bainite phase, whereby the Si concentration amount is limited from a surface to depth of 0.2 μm.

Hot-rolled steel strip and manufacturing method


A semiconductor device manufacturing method includes a step of forming a hole reaching a first insulating layer over a first conductive member; a step of forming a trench reaching a second insulating layer and in communication with the hole; a step of forming an opening exposing the first conductive member in the hole; and a step of forming a second conductive member connected to the first conductive member by embedding a conductive material in the opening, the hole, and the trench. The trench is formed under an etching condition such that the etching rate with respect to the second insulating layer is lower than the etching rate with respect to the third insulating layer.

Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a semiconductor device manufacturing method using dual damascene method, and a photoelectric conversion device.
Description of the Related Art
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-147588, a via-first dual damascene method is disclosed. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-147588, etching stoppers (104, 107) are disposed under a wiring interlayer film (103) and a via interlayer film (105).
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-087190, it is described that a dual damascene structure is configured in which a third plug (216) and a first wiring (217) are connected to a second plug (212). It is also described that a second opening (216h) in which the third plug (216) is disposed is formed in a second insulating film (214) first, and then a first opening (217h) in which the first wiring (217) is disposed is formed in a third insulating film (215).
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-147588, in order to form four types of insulators included in a wiring structure, it is necessary to perform film formation four times, which is disadvantageous in obtaining a low profile wiring structure. When it is attempted to reduce the thickness of the four types of insulators for achieving low profile, it may become difficult to perform uniform film formation of the respective insulators, or sufficient etching stopper function may not be obtained, resulting in a decrease in reliability.
When the second opening is formed first as in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-087190, the earlier-exposed second plug is exposed to the etching for forming the first opening. As a result, the second plug may be damaged, the resistance of the second plug may be increased, or contamination may be caused due to metal included in the second plug. Thus, reliability may be decreased.
An object of the present disclosure is to provide a semiconductor device manufacturing method such that both low profile and reliability are achieved. Another object of the present disclosure is to increase the sensitivity of a photoelectric conversion device.

Semiconductor device manufacturing method, and photoelectric conversion device