Wafer bonding using Cu–Sn intermetallic bonding layers

Wafer-level Cu–Sn intermetallic bonding is an interesting process for advanced applications in the area of MEMS and 3D interconnects. The existence of two intermetallic phases for Cu–Sn system makes the wafer bonding process challenging. The impact of process parameters on final bonding layer quality have been investigated for transient liquid phase wafer-level bonding based on the Cu–Sn system. Subjects of this investigation were bonding temperature profile, bonding time and contact pressure as well as the choice of metal deposition method and the ratio of deposited metal layer thicknesses. Typical failure modes in intermetallic compound growth for the mentioned process and design parameters have been identified and were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. The possibilities to avoid abovementioned failures are indicated based on experimental results.     

Nature-Inspired Meta-Heuristics on Modern GPUs: State of the Art and Brief Survey of Selected Algorithms

Graphic processing units (GPUs) emerged recently as an exciting new hardware environment for a truly parallel implementation and execution of Nature and Bio-inspired Algorithms with excellent price-to-power ratio. In contrast to common multicore CPUs that contain up to tens of independent cores, the GPUs represent a massively parallel single-instruction multiple-data devices that can nowadays reach peak performance of hundreds and thousands of giga floating-point operations per second. Nature and Bio-inspired Algorithms implement parallel optimization strategies in which a single candidate solution, a group of candidate solutions (population), or multiple populations seek for optimal solution or set of solutions of given problem. Genetic algorithms (GA) constitute a family of traditional and very well-known nature-inspired populational meta-heuristic algorithms that have proved its usefulness on a plethora of tasks through the years. Differential evolution (DE) is another efficient populational meta-heuristic algorithm for real-parameter optimization. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) can be seen as nature-inspired multiagent method in which the interaction of simple independent agents yields intelligent collective behavior. Simulated annealing (SA) is global optimization algorithm which combines statistical mechanics and combinatorial optimization with inspiration in metallurgy. This survey provides a brief overview of the latest state-of-the-art research on the design, implementation, and applications of parallel GA, DE, PSO, and SA-based methods on the GPUs.     

Surface and subsurface products of the interaction of O2 with Ag under catalytic conditions

Polycrystalline Ag treated with O₂ at pressures up to 1 bar and at temperatures up to 920 K was examined by TDS. It was found that the peak commonly observed at 595±25 K and assigned to adsorbed atomic oxygen (O_a) is shifted to higher desorption temperatures with rising dosing temperatures. Since saturation of the uptake was not possible either, this peak was identified as dissolved atomic oxygen (O_d). The existence of a maximum for the O₂ uptake after exposure at 820 K was found. Hence, under conditions of formaldehyde synthesis ( 920 K) the ability of the catalyst to dissolve oxygen is near its maximum.     

Prediction of suspended sediment concentration from water quality variables

This study investigates use of water quality (WQ) variables, namely total chromium concentration, total iron concentration, and turbidity for predicting suspended sediment concentration (SSC). For this purpose, the artificial neural networks (ANNs) and regression analysis (RA) models are employed. Seven different RA models are constructed, considering the functional relation between measured WQ variables and SSC. The WQ and SSC data are fortnightly obtained from six monitoring stations, located on the stream Harsit, Eastern Black Sea Basin, Turkey. A total of 132 water samples are collected from April 2009 to February 2010. Model prediction results reveal that ANN is able to predict SSC from WQ data, with mean absolute error (MAE) of 10.30 mg/L and root mean square error (RMSE) of 13.06 mg/L. Among seven RA models, the best one, which has the form including all independent parameters, produces results comparable to those of ANN, with MAE = 14.28 mg/L and RMSE = 15.35 mg/L. The sensitivity analysis results reveal that the most effective parameter on the SSC is total chromium concentration. These results have time- and cost-saving implications.     

Ion exchange kinetics of the protonation of weak acid ion exchange resins

A mathematical model to describe the protonation of weak acid ion-exchange resins with various acids has been developed. The charge profiles calculated using the theory are demonstrated by photographs. Interdiffusion coefficients in the resin phase have been determined and it is shown how they depend on the system parameters and on the properties of the resin.     

On the nature of the active state of silver during catalytic oxidation of methanol

Under the applied high reaction temperatures (900 K) the Ag surface is restructured and a tightly held oxygen species is formed on the surface (O) apart from O atoms dissolved in the bulk (O). Methanol oxidation to formaldehyde proceeds through this O species as demonstrated by application of a variety of spectroscopic techniques.     

Continuous Levels‐of‐Detail and Visual Abstraction for Seamless Molecular Visualization

Molecular visualization is often challenged with rendering of large molecular structures in real time. We introduce a novel approach that enables us to show even large protein complexes. Our method is based on the level‐of‐detail concept, where we exploit three different abstractions combined in one visualization. Firstly, molecular surface abstraction exploits three different surfaces, solvent‐excluded surface (SES), Gaussian kernels and van der Waals spheres, combined as one surface by linear interpolation. Secondly, we introduce three shading abstraction levels and a method for creating seamless transitions between these representations. The SES representation with full shading and added contours stands in focus while on the other side a sphere representation of a cluster of atoms with constant shading and without contours provide the context. Thirdly, we propose a hierarchical abstraction based on a set of clusters formed on molecular atoms. All three abstraction models are driven by one importance function classifying the scene into the near‐, mid‐ and far‐field. Moreover, we introduce a methodology to render the entire molecule directly using the A‐buffer technique, which further improves the performance. The rendering performance is evaluated on series of molecules of varying atom counts.     

Study of rotational mobility of stable nitroxide radicals in solid polymers

The rotational mobility of stable nitroxide radicals in PS, PMMA, PVC, PP and PE has been studied over a wide temperature range by the e.s.r. method. At temperatures T lower than T_g, spin probes act as kinetically independent particles, the rotational frequency of which is deter mined mainly by the micropore dimensions of the polymer and depends indirectly on the mobility of segments or side groups.     

13C- and 23Na-NMR investigations on alkali cellulose

Summary Solid state ²³Na- and ¹³C-NMR spectra of alkali cellulose are presented as a function of NaOH-concentration of the steeping lye, steeping temperature and amount of adhering lye (press factor). Results are discussed with regard to chemical binding of NaOH to the cellulose chain in the system cellulose/ NaOH/H₂O.Presented at the 22nd Microsymposium, Characterization of Structure and Dynamics of Macromolecular Systems by NMR Methods, Prague, CSSR, July 20–23,1981