Priority mix planning for semiconductor fabrication by fuzzy AHP ranking

With today’s keen competition, semiconductor market has changed from producer-oriented to customer-oriented. To be successful, companies need to consider both customer satisfaction in demand and the ultimate profit goal of companies. Semiconductor fabricators today must face an environment with multi-product types and multi-priority orders. Since semiconductor fabrication has a very complicated production process, the production planning of different products types and priority levels is an even more difficult task to experts. The objective of this study is to construct an analytical approach under a fuzzy subjective judgment environment, in which fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method with entropy weight is utilized to deal with uncertainty, to generate performance ranking of different priority mixes. The results provide guidance to experts in a fab regarding strategies for accepting orders with the consideration of manufacturing efficiency in the aspects of product, equipment efficiency and finance.     

Preparation of ultra-fine polyimide fibers containing silver nanoparticles via in situ technique

Ultra-fine polyimide fibers containing silver nanoparticles were prepared by electrospinning from poly(amic acid)/(trifluoroacetylacetonoto)silver(I) (PAA/AgTFA) solution. Thermal curing of the silver(I)-containing fibers led to cycloimidization of the poly(amic acid) into polyimide with concomitant silver(I) reduction. The polyimide–silver fibers were characterized by FT-IR, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The average diameters of silver nanoparticles and ultra-fine PI fibers electrospun from solutions with different amounts of AgTFA were studied, and the crystal structure of silver nanoparticles was also presented.     

Use of the time constant to detect corrosion speed in reinforced concrete structures

The relatively simple to measure ‘time constant’ is presented as an index for characterizing the level of corrosion experienced by steel in concrete. This communication, largely in the form of a technical note, explicitly illustrates that the time constant determined from electrochemical testing has significant merit for monitoring corrosion of steel in concrete, and appears to be insensitive to the area of electrode being probed. In this work, the time constant, κ, is determined following a galvanostatic excitation signal, revealing a good correlation between the value of κ and corrosion status across specimens of widely varying geometry. Although this notion has been suggested in the past, this work presents both a survey and consolidated review to indicate the utility of the parameter as an index to corrosion rate on-site.     

MMR: A MultiMedia Router architecture to support hybrid workloads

During the past few years, multimedia traffic with quality of service (QoS) requirements has become of widespread use. Media servers are usually built as clusters of workstations connected by a high-performance interconnection network. However, these high-performance networks do not usually offer differentiated support for multimedia traffic. The MultiMedia Router (MMR) is a proposal to address the QoS issue in cluster networks within a compact architecture, while also integrating conventional best-effort traffic. This paper describes the main architectural features of the MMR, such as the use of a hybrid switching technique, credit-based flow control, or small input buffers. Also, the main design parameters are tuned by means of simulation. It can be seen how proper differentiation among the different traffic classes is achieved, while retaining a compact design with small buffers.     

低碳微合金钢中的晶内铁素体及组织控制

回顾和评述了晶内铁素体的发现、发展及其与组织控制的关系.介绍了晶内铁素体的形核机制和影响晶内铁素体形成的因素,讨论了晶内铁素体的三维形态和长大动力学,并从以上几方面分析了晶内铁素体对低碳微合金钢组织细化的重要作用和影响.     

Electrochemical detection of catechol at integrated carbon nanotubes electrodes

The mechanical stability of the electrode plays a very important role in the long-term stability of electrochemical behavior. In this paper, multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) electrodes were prepared in the holes of glass directly by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition and the electrochemical behavior of catechol at the integrated MWCNT electrodes was investigated. The oxygen plasma treated CNTs had excellent electrochemical behavior for the analysis of catechol. The catechol was detected in the linear concentration range of 1.0 × 10^− 6 mol L^− 1–1.0 × 10^− 3 mol L^− 1. And because CNTs were integrated directly on the substrate, the stable response to catechol solution showed that the carbon nanotubes electrodes had long-term stability.     

Detection of acylated homoserine lactones in gram-negative proteolytic psychrotrophic bacteria isolated from cooled raw milk

Through a mechanism called quorum sensing, bacteria are able to express specific genes in response to population density. Cell-to-cell communication in bacteria is mediated by signal molecules such as acylated homoserine lactones (AHLs). This work aimed to detect AHL production in Gram-negative psychrotrophic bacteria isolated from raw milk. A total of 84.9% of the bacteria were identified as AHL producers eliciting a diversity of responses in the AHL-monitor systems. These results demonstrate that AHL-production is common among psychrotrophic bacteria isolated from milk, and indicate that quorum sensing may play an important role in the spoilage of this product.     

Optimal determination of warranty region for 2D policy: A customers' perspective

Warranty is treated by the manufacturer as a marketing strategy that creates better customer satisfaction, which finally helps to get hold of a bigger market share. The cost incurred towards this service is termed as warranty cost, which is a function of warranty policy and region, product quality and reliability, and the customers' usage pattern. Under the 2D warranty policy, there exists numerous iso-cost regions for any specified value of warranty cost. In this article, we propose a methodology to determine the optimal region when customers' utility is measured by the length of warranty coverage time. It is believed that the results will help the manufacturer to provide improved customer service.     

In Situ Formation of a Novel Nanocomposite Structure Based on MCM-41 and Polyethylene

M41S materials are prepared by in situ assembly of inorganic precursors and organic template and can be viewed as nanocomposites of the siliceous phase and organic surfactant. Calcination of these precursors gives the M41S materials that have been used to prepare novel nanocomposite structures, in which the organic phase inside the nano-sized pores is isolated by the nano-sized inorganic pore walls. The nanocomposite structures can be formed by in situ polymerization of monomers inside the channels. Polymerization of ethylene takes place inside the nano-sized pores, producing the desired nanocomposite structure. The resulting polyethylene was found to be a mixture of crystalline and amorphous phases.