Essential SMSs: developing a service management scheme for semiconductor factory management systems

A semiconductor factory contains hundreds of pieces of equipment. More reliable service by equipment managers is required to increase the utilization of equipment and improve product quality and yield. Therefore, developing a reliable service management scheme (SMS) for semiconductor factory management systems is essential. This study presents an SMS that applies Jini Technology and uses the design by contract technologies. The SMS has error-detecting and function-replacing capabilities. The SMS detects the malfunctioning of an equipment manager (service) and sends an event notice to the factory manager. The GEV in the SMS archives the credit values of all of the equipment managers so that the factory manager can select better equipment managers for service by checking their credit values. The illustrative example and the evaluation of the reliability improvement reveal that the proposed SMS provides an efficient, reliable, fault tolerant, and cost-effective mechanism for semiconductor factory management systems. Lastly, this illustrative example is successfully implemented and demonstrated and the core technology of SMS is transferred to and commercialized by Charming Systems Corporation.     

Feasible pretreatment of textile wastewater for dark fermentative hydrogen production

In this study, the yield of hydrogen production was investigated under different feedstock pretreatment conditions. The feedstock for dark fermentative hydrogen production was textile wastewater which was obtained from the de-sizing process in a textile factory, located in northern Taiwan. The wastewater was pretreated with activated carbon, cation exchange resin or was not pretreated before being fed into the batch bottles. Biohydrogen production was carried out in a batch reactor with the sludge of mixed-culture using the feedstock from the pretreated wastewater. The sludge was obtained from the Taichung municipal wastewater treatment plant. The yield of hydrogen production using the two pretreatment methods or non – treatment were compared.     

Proton conductors of cerium pyrophosphate for intermediate temperature fuel cell

The crystal structure and proton conductivity of cerium pyrophosphate are investigated to explore its potential electrolyte applications for intermediate temperature fuel cell. Among the CeP₂O₇ thin plates, which are sintered at 300–900 °C, the 450 °C CeP₂O₇ sample exhibits superior proton conductivity under humidified conditions. Its conductivity, measured with impedance spectroscopy, is higher than 10⁻² S cm⁻¹ in the intermediate temperature range, with a maximum value 3.0 × 10⁻² S cm⁻¹ at 180 °C. When 10 mol% Mg is doped on the Ce site of CeP₂O₇, the maximum conductivity is raised to 4.0 × 10⁻² S cm⁻¹ at 200 °C. The Mg doping not only raises the conductivity, but also shifts and widens its temperature window for electrolyte applications. Ce_0.9Mg_0.1P₂O₇ is considered a more appropriate composition, with conductivity >10⁻² S cm⁻¹ between 160 and 280 °C. Accordingly, a hydrogen–air cell is built with the Ce_0.9Mg_0.1P₂O₇ electrolyte and its performance is measured. The fuel cell generates electricity up to 122 mA cm⁻² at 0.33 V using 50% H₂ at 240 °C.     

Effect of long-chain branching molar fraction on scratch behavior of polypropylene

Polymers containing a certain amount of long-chain-branching (LCB) structure are expected to possess improved mechanical properties over those of the linear structure counterpart. However, fundamental knowledge on the structure–property relationship in LCB containing polypropylene (PP) is still illusive. In the present study, a set of model PP systems containing an increasing molar fraction of LCB (5–19 mol%) were prepared by reactive extrusion to determine how LCB content may influence the scratch behavior of PP. It is shown that with only 5 mol% of LCB content in PP can improve resistance against scratch-induced fish-scale formation by over 25%. The improvement of scratch resistance is attributed to the increases in entanglement density in LCB-containing PPs, which is evidenced by their creep-recovery behavior. The present study demonstrates that the incorporation of LCB in PP leads to higher viscoelastic recovery and increased tensile strength, which account for the observed improvement in scratch performance. The usefulness of LCB in polymers for improving scratch performance is discussed.     

Preparation and characterization of CuCrO2–CeO2 nanofibers by electrospinning method

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - In this study, CuCrO2–CeO2 nanofibers were prepared by the electrospinning method and the influences of different concentrations on...     

The power of a thumbs-up: Will e-commerce switch to social commerce?

By taking advantage of social networking capabilities, social commerce provides features that encourage customers to share their personal experiences. The popularity of online social networks has driven the purchase decisions of buyers on social commerce sites, but few studies have explored why consumers switch between e-commerce (product-centered) and social (social-centered) commerce sites. In applying the push–pull–mooring model, the objective of this study was to gain an understanding of specifically how push, pull, and mooring factors shape their switching intentions. The findings revealed that push effect, in terms of low transaction efficiency, drives customers away from e-commerce sites, whereas the pull effects, including social presence, social support, social benefit, and self-presentation, attract customers to social commerce sites. Moreover, mooring effects, including conformity and personal experience, strengthened consumers’ behavior in switching between e-commerce and social commerce sites. Besides, conformity was also found to moderate the influences of social presence, social support, social benefit, and efficiency on switching intention, whereas personal experience moderated the effects of social benefit, self-presentation, and efficiency on switching intention. Such an understanding assists online retailers in understanding online shoppers’ switching behaviors, and thus turning social interactions into profits and sales.     

Co-transport of metal complexes by the green mussel Perna viridis

We examined the uptake of ligand-bound metals (Cd and Zn) by the green mussel Perna viridis using defined artificial seawater. Different free ion concentrations (1 pM to 10 microM) in uptake solutions were created by adding different amounts of total metals (Cd 0.1 nM to 0.1 mM; Zn 0.5 nM to 0.05 mM) and ligands (EDTA, NTA, citric acid). Our results showed that Cd and Zn uptake could not be fully explained by the free Cd and Zn concentrations in the presence of different ligands, indicating that metal-ligand complexes were at least partially available for uptake by the mussels. Total Zn concentrations appeared to be a better predictor of metal uptake than the free Zn ion concentrations in the presence of different ligands. Uptake of lipophilic organic metal complexes was substantially greater than the hydrophilic metal complexes, even though the free ion concentration was comparable or lower. Moreover, the radiolabeled ligand compounds were directly accumulated by the mussels. The accumulation of metal complexes may explain the increased metal uptake with increasing ligand and total metal concentration, even though the free ion metal concentration was constant. Overall, our experimental results indicated that free metal ion cannot fully explain metal uptake since metal complex species were also available to the mussels to some extent, apparently through a co-transport process.     

Quantifying Equiaxed vs Epitaxial Solidification in Laser Melting of CMSX-4 Single Crystal Superalloy

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - The competition between epitaxial vs. equiaxed solidification has been investigated in CMSX-4 single crystal superalloy during laser melting as...     

Precipitation Kinetics During Post-heat Treatment of an Additively Manufactured Ferritic Stainless Steel

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - The microstructure response of laser-powder bed fusion (L-PBF)-processed ferritic stainless steel (AISI 441) during post-heat treatments is studied in...     

Copper oxide photocathodes prepared by a solution based process

Solution based processes are well known by their low-cost trait to fabricate semiconductor devices. In this study, we devised an economical solution based route to photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells, taking copper nitrate as the copper ion source and adding an alkali hydroxide, here NaOH, to produce high aspect ratio (3.1–9.7) CuO nanoparticles. These CuO particles were used for splitting water and generation of hydrogen via a PEC cell. CuO nanoparticle morphology, i.e. rod-like, spindle-like, and needle-like, was dependent on the processing temperature. Sintering the spin coated CuO films, improved crystallinity. The bandgaps for these films were estimated to be 1.35 eV and 1.64 eV for sintering temperatures of 600 °C and 400 °C for 1 h, respectively. The porous structure of the nano-sized CuO films increased surface area and thus led to a high photocurrent, i.e. 1.20 mA/cm², for powder prepared at 60 °C and sintered at 600 °C for 1 h. These films demonstrated 0.91% solar conversion efficiency at an applied voltage of −0.55 V vs. Ag/AgCl in 1 M KOH electrolyte with 1 sun (AM1.5G) illumination. The charge carrier density was estimated to be 6.1 × 10²⁰ cm⁻³. This relatively high charge carrier density may be due to the high surface area and short transport distance to the electrode/electrolyte interface in the porous nanostructure.