Electrical Properties of Isotropic Conductive Adhesives Composed of Silicone-Based Elastomer Binders Containing Ag Particles

The electrical properties of isotropic conductive adhesives (ICAs) with two different types of silicone-based binder containing Ag particles were examined. The ICAs were printed on glass substrates in order to prepare specimens for evaluating the electrical properties. In the case of adhesives containing a denatured silicone binder, both the curing and cooling steps in the isothermal curing process generated electrical conductivity. Adhesives that were cured at 120°C to 200°C exhibited similar values of electrical resistivity regardless of the different curing temperatures. By contrast, electrical conductivity was generated only during the cooling step when adhesives containing a dimethyl methylvinyl siloxane were isothermally cured. In this case, adhesives cured above 160°C exhibited high electrical resistivity. In evaluating the temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity, we found physical annealing to have significantly different effects on these specimens. In addition, we were able to make small sensitive variations in the properties of silicone-based ICAs by controlling the isothermal annealing and thermal cycling processes.     

Dynamic Power Integrity Control of ATE for Eliminating Overkills and Underkills in Device Testing

This paper proposes a power integrity control technique for dynamically controlling power supply voltage fluctuations for a device under test (DUT), and demonstrates its effectiveness for eliminating the overkills/underkills due to the difference of power supply impedance between an automatic test equipment (ATE) and a practical operating environment of the DUT. The proposed method injects compensation currents into the power supply nodes on the ATE system in a feed-forward manner such that the ATE power supply waveform matches with the one on the customer’s operating environment of the DUT. A method for calculating the compensation current is also described. Experimental results show that the proposed method can emulate the power supply voltage waveform under a customer’s operating condition and eliminate 95 % of overkills/underkills in the maximum operating frequency testing with 105 real silicon devices. Limitations and applications of the proposed method are also discussed.     

Characterization of Li<Subscript>2</Subscript>S–P<Subscript>2</Subscript>S<Subscript>5</Subscript>–Cu composite electrode for all-solid-state lithium secondary batteries

Electrochemical performance of the Li₂S–P₂S₅–Cu composite materials was examined in all-solid-state lithium secondary batteries. The 80Li₂S·20P₂S₅ (mol.%) solid electrolyte with the addition of Cu was partially used as an active material with lithium source in all-solid-state cells. The initial discharge capacity of 110 mAh g⁻¹ (normalized by the weight of 80Li₂S·20P₂S₅–Cu), which corresponds to 400 mAh g⁻¹ (normalized by the weight of Li₂S), was obtained in the cell using the 80Li₂S·20P₂S₅–Cu composite electrode with the molar ratio of Li₂S/Cu = 48/52. Cycling performance and reaction mechanism of the electrode in the solid-state cell were investigated.     

Annealing Effect in GaDyN on Optical and Magnetic Properties

The annealing effect on the optical and magnetic properties of the GaDyN layers was studied. The PL intensities of yellow and green bands as well as the intra-4f orbital transition of Dy³⁺ ions were found to decrease for the samples annealed at 900 and 1000 °C. It is supposed that the intra-4f orbital transition is related to the broad peak luminescence coming from defects. Increasing the annealing temperature, the magnetization becomes smaller. It is considerable that the number of electrons coming from defects was reduced by the annealing treatments and that the ferromagnetism in GaDyN is attributed as carrier induced ferromagnetism.     

Compiling for Reduced Bit-Width Queue Processors

Embedded systems are characterized by the requirement of demanding small memory footprint code. A popular architectural modification to improve code density in RISC embedded processors is to use a reduced bit-width instruction set. This approach reduces the length of the instructions to improve code size. However, having less addressable registers by the reduced instructions, these architectures suffer a slight performance degradation as more reduced instructions are required to execute a given task. On the other hand, 0-operand computers such as stack and queue machines implicitly access their source and destination operands making instructions naturally short. Queue machines offer a highly parallel computation model, unlike the stack model. This paper proposes a novel alternative for reducing code size by using a queue-based reduced instruction set while retaining the high parallelism characteristics in programs. We introduce an efficient code generation algorithm to generate programs for our reduced instruction set. Our algorithm successfully constrains the code to the reduced instruction set with the addition of only 4% extra code, in average. We show that our proposed technique is able to generate about 16% more compact code than MIPS16, 26% over ARM/Thumb, and 50% over MIPS32 code. Furthermore, we show that our compiler is able to extract about the same parallelism than fully optimized RISC code.     

Effect of poly(acrylic acid) on the preparation of thick silica films by electrophoretic sol–gel deposition of re-dispersed silica particles

Thick silica films were prepared by the electrophoretic sol–gel deposition technique in the presence of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) using monodispersed silica particles; the particles were prepared by the sol–gel method, pre-heat treated and then re-dispersed in the mixture of H2O and ethanol. The weight of deposited silica films was maximized when 0.2 mass % of PAA against the whole amount of sol was added. The particles constructing the thick silica films were packed densely when the amount of added PAA was less than 0.2 mass%. The weight of the film increased with decrease in the content of H2O in the sol when a fixed amount of PAA was added. After the heat treatment of deposited films at 800 °C, crack-free silica films of about 30 m thickness were prepared. © 1998 Chapman & Hall     

A Retargetable Compilation Methodology for Embedded Digital Signal Processors Using a Machine-Dependent Code Optimization Library

We address the problem of code generation for embedded DSP systems. Such systems devote a limited quantity of silicon to program memory, so the embedded software must be sufficiently dense. Additionally, this software must be written so as to meet various high-performance constraints. Unfortunately, current compiler technology is unable to generate dense, high-performance code for DSPs, due to the fact that it does not provide adequate support for the specialized architectural features of DSPs via machine-dependent code optimizations. Thus, designers often program the embedded software in assembly, a very time-consuming task. In order to increase productivity, compilers must be developed that are capable of generating high-quality code for DSPs. The compilation process must also be made retargetable, so that a variety of DSPs may be efficiently evaluated for potential use in an embedded system. We present a retargetable compilation methodology that enables high-quality code to be generated for a wide range of DSPs. Previous work in retargetable DSP compilation has focused on complete automation, and this desire for automation has limited the number of machine-dependent optimizations that can be supported. In our efforts, we have given code quality higher priority over complete automation. We demonstrate how by using a library of machine-dependent optimization routines accessible via a programming interface, it is possible to support a wide range of machine-dependent optimizations, albeit at some cost to automation. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our methodology, which has been used to build good-quality compilers for three fixed-point DSPs. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Wireless Body Area Network Combined with Satellite Communication for Remote Medical and Healthcare Applications

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is expected to play an important role in supporting medical and healthcare services with increased convenience and comfort. One main advantage of WBAN is that it enables automatic biosignal collection in real time which is essential in medical treatment and healthcare vigilance. To harmonize with the strong demands from both medical and healthcare societies, and information and communications technology industries, IEEE 802 Standard Committee set up a task group of TG15.6 to develop an IEEE wireless standard on WBAN. In this paper, we first review the main activities of TG15.6 with the updated status. Then, we present a prototype WBAN system that is implemented by using ultra-wideband technology. Multi-hop mechanism is adopted to guarantee reliable connection. Finally, we describe an experimental system that uses the developed WBAN system by combining with satellite communication in supporting remote medical treatment and healthcare. In case of less of medical resources such as in emergency, in rural or isolated areas, such a system is important in sending the corresponding biosignal to a remote hospital in real time to help patient management. The relative delay of WBAN data delivery via satellite is measured which is dependent on the satellite link capacity.     

Thermodynamics of iron oxide in Fe x O-dilute CaO + Al2O3 + MgO + Fe x O slags at 1873 K

In order to determine the ferrous and ferric ion capacities: 3

Fas-independent and nonapoptotic cytotoxicity mediated by a human CD4(+) T-cell clone directed against an acute myelogenous leukemia-associated DEK-CAN fusion peptide

The mechanism underlying the cytotoxicity mediated by a human CD4(+) cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) clone directed against a peptide derived from the acute myelogenous leukemia-associated fusion protein, DEK-CAN, was investigated. A DEK-CAN fusion peptide-specific CD4(+) Th0 CTL clone, designated HO-1, was established from the peripheral blood lymphocytes of a healthy individual. HO-1 exerted direct but not "innocent bystander" cytotoxicity within 2 hours. The cytotoxicity mediated by HO-1 was completely Ca2+-dependent. Because HO-1 lysed peptide-loaded Fas-deficient target cells derived from a patient with a homozygous Fas gene mutation, its cytotoxicity appeared to be mediated by a Fas-independent pathway. In addition, its cytotoxicity was only partially inhibited by treatment with concanamycin A and strontium ions, which are inhibitors of the perforin-based cytotoxic pathway. Although membrane-bound type of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) was expressed on HO-1, an anti-TNF-alpha antibody had no effect on HO-1-mediated cytotoxicity. HO-1 expressed mRNA for apoptosis-inducing mediators, including perforin, granzyme B, Fas ligand, TNF-alpha, and lymphotoxin; however, no DNA fragmentation was detected in target cells incubated with HO-1 by 5-[125I]Iodo-2'-deoxyuridine release assay and agarose gel electrophoresis of DNA. Although it has been suggested that the Fas/Fas ligand system is the main pathway by which CD4(+) CTL-mediated cytotoxicity is exerted in murine systems, HO-1 produced peptide-specific and HLA-restricted cytotoxicity via a Fas-independent and nonapoptotic pathway. The present study thus describes a novel mechanism of cytotoxicity mediated by CD4(+) CTL.