A method used to form a semiconductor device having a capacitor comprises placing a semiconductor wafer assembly into a chamber of a plasma source, the wafer assembly comprising a layer of insulation having at least one contact therein and a surface, and further comprising a conductive layer over the surface and in the contact. Next, in the chamber, a layer of etch resistant material is formed wit...

A Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) capacitor structure and method of fabricating the same in an integrated circuit improve capacitance density in a MIM capacitor structure by utilizing a sidewall spacer extending along a channel defined between a pair of legs that define portions of the MIM capacitor structure. Each of the legs includes top and bottom electrodes and an insulator layer interposed thereb...

A semiconductor inductor and a method for making a semiconductor inductor are provided. An oxide layer disposed over a substrate is etched to form an interconnect metallization trench within the oxide layer. The oxide layer is also etched to form a first inductor trench within the oxide layer such that the first inductor trench is defined in an inductor geometry. The oxide layer is then etched to ...

A ferroelectric memory device includes memory cells including ferroelectric capacitors formed in regions in which first signal electrodes intersect second signal electrodes. Information is written into a selected memory cell by applying a write voltage between one of the first signal electrodes and one of the second signal electrodes in the memory cell. Information is read from the selected memory...

PURPOSE: A capacitor structure for an IC semiconductor device employing a dual damascene interconnect system and a fabricating method thereof are provided to form the IC semiconductor device by integrating junctions of varying conductivity types. CONSTITUTION: The first conductive via(20) and the second conductive via(22) are formed within a dielectric substrate. The first conductive runner(18) an...

The invention comprises a method and apparatus for generating a synthetic echocardiographic image. The method comprises first obtaining, for a plurality of pathologically similar reference hearts, a reference echocardiographic image of each reference heart at end-systole and at end-diastole. Next, the coupled epicardial and endocardial borders are identified in each echocardiographic image. An epi...

An apparatus for measuring an inferior-and-superior-limb blood-pressure index of a living subject, including an inferior-limb blood-pressure measuring device which measures an inferior-limb blood pressure of an inferior limb of the subject, a superior-limb blood-pressure measuring device which measures a superior-limb blood pressure of a superior limb of the subject, an inferior-and-superior-limb ...

The present invention provides automated systems, methods, screens, and software for the analysis of cell spreading. The invention involves providing cells containing fluorescent reporter molecules in an array of locations, contacting the cells with a test stimulus, acquiring images from the cells, and automatically calculating one or more morphological features that provide a measure of cell spre...

A three-dimensional stacked semiconductor package device includes first and second semiconductor package devices and a conductive bond. The first device includes a first insulative housing, a first semiconductor chip and a first conductive trace. The first insulative housing includes a peripheral ledge and a central portion that is recessed relative to the peripheral ledge, and the peripheral ledg...

A process for oxidizing cellulose, in which a nitroxyl compound such as TEMPO is oxidized using an oxidizing agent in the presence of a complex of a transition metal such as Mn, Fe, Cu, and a complexing agent such as a polyamine, or an oxidative enzyme, and the resulting nitrosonium ion is used to selectively oxidize cellulose 6-hydroxy-methylene groups to carbaldehyde groups and carboxylic acid g...

The present invention describes the synthesis of ascorbic acid with reduced color. The present invention employs palladium catalysts for the synthesis of ascorbic acid from 2-keto-gulonic acid or derivatives of 2-keto-gulonic acid. The palladium catalyst may include an inert support such as, but not limited to, carbon or barium sulfate. Unlike other palladium catalysts, the catalyst of the present...

A safety electrical outlet for receiving metallic prongs of an electrical plug. The outlet has a housing with at least two plug passages being sized for receiving the metallic prongs of the electrical plug, and two metallic connectors mounted on the housing for connection to an electrical power source. At least two transverse channels communicate with the corresponding plug passages and extend tow...

A heatable mirror having a transparent surface element made from a substrate of inorganic material and at least one reflective layer as well as at least one heat-conducting layer applied to the substrate and/or the reflective layer and which has contact elements. The heat-conducting layer is formed by conductive particles having an average diameter of 3 to 100 mum at least partially embedded in th...

A drive system which integrates an electric generator, one or more electric motors and an electronic control module is configured as a variable speed drive in either single, dual or four wheeled traction drive configurations for a vehicle. The generator is mechanically driven by the output shaft of an internal combustion engine to generate the electrical power for energizing the electric motors. A...

A surface acoustic wave filter includes a plurality of one-terminal-pair surface acoustic wave resonators each including interdigital electrodes and an insulating film deposited on the interdigital electrodes. The one-terminal-pair surface acoustic wave resonators include a series arm resonator and a parallel arm resonator. When the electrode duty of a one-terminal pair surface acoustic resonator ...

A low-profile magnetic core capable of reducing the thickness of an inductor component is provided. The magnetic core includes at least one gap in a magnetic path, and a permanent magnet is inserted in the gap. The magnetic core has an alternating current magnetic permeability at 20 kHz of 45 or more in a magnetic field of 120 Oe under application of direct current, and has a core loss characteris...

A method and system of providing segmentation of volumetric three-dimensional image data set such as MRA images. Initially, a three-dimensional MRA volume is input. An initial surface S is then generated by thresholding the input. A signed distance function v to S is then generated, where v=v(x,t) and S is the zero level set of v(.,0). The process proceeds by iteratively updating v according tothe...

A medical imaging system includes an imaging device for producing temporally spaced image representations, a memory for storing the image representations, and a processor. The processor aligns the image representations by iteratively deriving a transform between progressively smaller sub-sets of pixels in temporally adjacent images until the sub-sets converge, and, applies the transform to the tem...

A method for optimizing signal quantification comprising applying reversible filters to the signal in order to pre-quantify the signal as a continuous function of the frequency domain; pre-processing the signal in order to place it in the proper colorspace and frequency domain; applying subband transforms to the signal in order to split the signal into frequency regions; and entropy coding the sig...

An instrument support member with an integrated air conducting unit to be mounted between the A-columns of a motor vehicle is composed of at least two metal shells which are connected to each other by plasma jet welding with an effective focus remote from the nozzle, and a plastic tube surrounded by the shells. The plastic tube is mounted at a radial distance from the shells.