A selective CVD tungsten-strapped polysilicon local interconnectiontechnology

A local interconnection technology utilizing polysilicon strapped with selective-chemical-vapor-deposited (CVD) tungsten has been developed. Both n- and p-channel MOS transistors have been successfully fabricated using this technology. Tungsten deposited on polysilicon is an attractive gate shunt and local interconnection material because of its low resistivity, immunity to dopant segregation and diffusion, and resistance to electromigration. A potential problem of this technology is the excessive diode leakage current associated with strapping shallow source/drain diodes with tungsten. The leakage is attributed to defects induced by the heavy source/drain implant, which can be effectively eliminated with a proper annealing procedure     

Prevention of bleeding after cardiopulmonary bypass with high-dose tranexamic acid. Double-blind, randomized clinical trial

This prospective, double-blind, randomized trial assessed the effectiveness of high-dose tranexamic acid given in the preoperative period on blood loss in patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass. One hundred fifty patients scheduled to undergo cardiac operations with cardiopulmonary bypass were randomized into three groups of equal size. The first group received 10 gm of tranexamic acid intravenously over 20 minutes before sternotomy and a placebo infusion over 5 hours. The second group received 10 gm of tranexamic acid over 20 minutes and then another 10 gm infused intravenously over 5 hours. The control group received a placebo bolus and a placebo infusion over 5 hours (0.9% normal saline solution). The blood loss after the operation was measured at 6 hours and 24 hours. The homologous blood and blood products given during and up to 48 hours after operation were recorded. Eighteen percent of the control group patients shed more than 750 ml blood in 6 hours compared with only 2% in both tranexamic acid groups. Patients who shed more than 750 ml blood required 93% more red blood cell transfusions than patients without excessive bleeding. Tranexamic acid (10 gm) given intravenously in the period before cardiopulmonary bypass reduced blood loss over 6 hours by 50% and over 24 hours by 35%. Continued tranexamic acid infusion (10 gm over 5 hours) did not reduce bleeding further. There was no difference in the coagulation profile before operation between patients with and without excessive bleeding. However, coagulation tests done in the postoperative period indicated ongoing fibrinolysis and platelet dysfunction in patients with excessive bleeding.     

Multiplexed biochemical assays with biological chips

High density peptide and oligonucleotide chips are fabricated using semiconductor-based technologies. These chips have a variety of biological applications.     

A technique for extracting physiological parameters and therequired input function simultaneously from PET image measurements:theory and simulation study

Positron emission tomography (PET) is an important tool for enabling quantification of human brain function. However, quantitative studies using tracer kinetic modeling require the measurement of the tracer time-activity curve in plasma (PTAC) as the model input function. It is widely believed that the insertion of arterial lines and the subsequent collection and processing of the biomedical signal sampled from the arterial blood are not compatible with the practice of clinical PET, as it is invasive and exposes personnel to the risks associated with the handling of patient blood and radiation dose. Therefore, it is of interest to develop practical noninvasive measurement techniques for tracer kinetic modeling with PET. In this paper, a technique is proposed to extract the input function together with the physiological parameters from the brain dynamic images alone. The identifiability of this method is tested rigorously by using Monte Carlo simulation. The results show that the proposed method is able to quantify all the required parameters by using the information obtained from two or more regions of interest (ROIs) with very different dynamics in the PET dynamic images. There is no significant improvement in parameter estimation for the local cerebral metabolic rate of glucose (LCMRGlc) if there are more than three ROIs. The proposed method can provide very reliable estimation of LCMRGlc, which is our primary interest in this study     

Ordered dynamic channel assignment scheme with reassignment inhighway microcells

An ordered dynamic channel assignment with reassignment (ODCAR) scheme is proposed, and its performance is studied in a highway microcellular radio environment. Channels are assigned in an ordered basis in conjunction with a minimax algorithm under cochannel interference constraints, to provide high capacity and to alleviate worst case channel congestion in each microcell. Simulation results show significant performance improvements in terms of channel utilization and probability of call failure, at the expense of an increase in complexity and call switching requirements     

A PLL clock generator with 5 to 10 MHz of lock range formicroprocessors

A microprocessor clock generator based on an analog phase-locked loop (PLL) is described for deskewing the internal logic control lock to an external system lock. This PLL is fully generated onto a 1.2-million-transistor microprocessor in 0.8-μm CMOS technology without the need for external components. It operates with a lock range from 5 to 110 MHz. The clock skew is less than 0.1 ns, with a peak-to-peak jitter of less than 0.3 ns for a 50-MHz system clock frequency     

Degradation Behaviors of Metal-Induced Laterally Crystallized n-Type Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors Under DC Bias Stresses

Device degradation behaviors of typical-sized n-type metal-induced laterally crystallized polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors were investigated in detail under two kinds of dc bias stresses: hot-carrier (HC) stress and self-heating (SH) stress. Under HC stress, device degradation is the consequence of HC induced defect generation locally at the drain side. Under a unified model that postulates, the establishment of a potential barrier at the drain side due to carrier transport near trap states, device degradation behavior such as asymmetric on current recovery and threshold voltage degradation can be understood. Under SH stress, a general degradation in subthreshold characteristic was observed. Device degradation is the consequence of deep state generation along the entire channel. Device degradation behaviors were compared in low V_d-stress and in high V_d-stress condition. Defect generation distribution along the channel appears to be different in two cases. In both cases of SH degradation, asymmetric on current recovery was observed. This observation, when in low V_d-stress condition, is tentatively explained by dehydrogenation (hydrogenation) effect at the drain (source) side during stress