US09641452B2
Techniques are disclosed herein for managing network bandwidth in a distributed system having multiple endpoints that upload data to a central server or server cluster. One embodiment provides a computer-implemented method that includes receiving a logical topology of the network that is determined based on network measurements. The method further includes resolving a convex optimization problem over the logical topology to determine a bandwidth allocation scheme for the endpoints uploading data. In addition, the method includes controlling bandwidth consumption by the endpoints based on the determined bandwidth allocation scheme.
US09641448B1
An Island-Based Network Flow Processor (IB-NFP) receives packets of many flows, and classifies them as belonging to an ordering context. These packets are distributed to a set of Worker Processors (WPs), so that each packet of the context is processed by one WP, but multiple WPs operate on packets of the context at a given time. The WPs use an atomic ticket release functionality of a transactional memory to assist in determining when to release packets to another set of Output Processors (OP). The packets are indicated to the set of OPs in the correct order, even though the WPs may complete their processing of the packets in an out-of-order fashion. For a packet that is indicated as to be released, an OP generates a “transmit command” such that the packet (or a descriptor of the packet) is then put into a properly ordered stream for output from the IB-NFP.
US09641447B2
A method is provided for congestion control in a network node (114; 510; 900) of a communication network. The network node handles a plurality of data connections for conveying data packets travelling between a core side and a terminal side of the communication network. The method is performed in the network node and comprises detecting (210) a condition indicative of a congestion for any of the data connections, selecting (220), among the data connections, a data connection (RABdrop) for which a bit-rate reduction is to be caused, and determining (230) a number (Xi) of data packets to be discarded for the selected data connection. The determined number depends on a time-integrated difference between experienced and targeted bit-rates for the selected data connection. Then, the reduction of the bit-rate is initiated (240) for the selected data connection by causing discarding of the determined number of data packets.
US09641442B2
Fixed, differentiated quality of service (QoS) is supplied for packetized traffic (e.g., voice and data) intended for femto cell coverage when transmitted concurrently with external broadband traffic. Quality of Service differentiation is supplied without an external implementation. Femto cell coverage is prioritized over concurrent packetized traffic to deliver a rich user experience for delay and jitter sensitive applications. A passthrough configuration for a femto access point (AP) facilitates supplying hard QoS for data packet streams, or flows, intended for femto cell coverage or non-femto-cell coverage. The femto AP receives a consolidated packet stream through backhaul link(s) and distinguishes flow(s) for femto coverage and flow(s) for auxiliary broadband coverage. The femto AP routes the flow(s) intended for femto with hard QoS according to QoS policy which can be determined by a network operator or a subscriber.
US09641432B2
A medical device communication method that may be implemented within a variety of medical devices including but not limited to infusion pumps. The method may be implemented with a protocol stack for at least intra-device communication. Embodiments provide connection-oriented, connectionless-oriented, broadcast and multicast data exchange with priority handling of data, fragmentation, and reassembly of data, unique static and dynamic address assignment and hot swap capability for connected peripherals or subsystems.
US09641429B2
A method for predicative traffic steering over a software defined network (SDN). The method includes programming network elements in the SDN to forward an incoming traffic flow to an application-layer analysis device; receiving application-layer analysis results from the application-layer analysis device, wherein the application-layer analysis results provide association between at least one network-layer parameter, at least one application-layer parameter, and at least one application-layer service associated with the at least one application-layer parameter; and steering subsequent incoming traffic flows to at least one server configured to provide the at least one application-layer service based on the application-layer analysis results.
US09641427B2
A client interface unit receives a pause frame transmitted from a client device compatible with a relatively low communication rate. A data rate conversion unit generates a plurality of pause frames in accordance with a pause time designated by the received one pause frame and transmits the plurality of pause frames to a frame processing unit compatible with a relatively high communication rate. The frame processing unit stops transmitting a frame destined to the client device in accordance with the plurality of pause frames.
US09641425B2
Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method of routing Diameter requests. The method includes: receiving an initial request from a client, the initial request including a session identifier, an initial destination realm, and request content; determining a Diameter route for the initial request based on the destination realm and the request content; forwarding the initial request according to the Diameter route; receiving a response to the initial request; extracting an origin realm or host from the response; and storing the origin realm or host in association with the session identifier. Various exemplary embodiments relate a Diameter Routing Agent (DRA) configured to perform the above method. Various exemplary embodiments relate to a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium encoded with instructions for performing the method.
US09641422B2
According to an embodiment, a network device coupled to a local base station at a cell site is configured to automatically create a more optimal route for inter-base station traffic between the local base station and a remote base station. The network device automatically discovers a remote Internet Protocol address of the remote base station used for inter-base station traffic based upon traffic transmitted by the local base station to the network device or traffic transmitted between the local and remote base stations. In response, the network device automatically installs the more optimal route entry in a routing table of the network device, which enables the network device to route inter-base station traffic originated from the local base station and destined to the remote base station using a shorter path through the backhaul network instead of routing the traffic through a mobile core network.
US09641407B2
Techniques are presented herein to facilitate the monitoring of occupancy of a buffer in a network device. Packets are received at a network device. Information is captured describing occupancy of the buffer caused by packet flow through the buffer in the network device. Analytics packets are generated containing the information. The analytics packets from the network device for retrieval of the information contained therein for analysis, replay of buffer occupancy, etc.
US09641406B1
Remote computing resource service providers allow customers to execute virtual computer systems in a virtual environment on hardware provided by the computing resource service provider. The virtual computer systems may be suspended for an indeterminate amount of time and saved as images in one or more storage systems of the service provider. Periodically, updates for the virtual computer systems are required. In order to update virtual computer systems that are stored in a suspended state, an offline patch and indirection map is generated and used to update the virtual computer systems.
US09641396B2
Embodiments of the present invention disclose a packet processing method and system. In the method in the embodiment of the present invention, because a root node configures different control VLANs for any two rings that have an adjacent edge in an area, different control VLANs are used to transmit a protocol packet in a ring that has its own control VLAN configured. The method and system may be applied to a ring network of a metro Ethernet to provide multi-path protection and implement rapid convergence of service switchover. In addition, a network topology structure is not limited to a network topology with a single ring or only two intersecting points, and may be applied to all network topology situations.
US09641385B1
An example method of launching a virtual machine in a multi-tenant environment using dynamic configuration may include receiving a customer request to launch a virtual machine in the multi-tenant environment. The multi-tenant environment may include a plurality of host server computers. In response to the customer request, configuration parameters stored in association with an account of the customer may be retrieved in the multi-tenant environment. One or more parameters of a hardware and/or a software resource in the multi-tenant environment may be dynamically configured in accordance with the retrieved configuration parameters. The virtual machine may be launched on one of the plurality of host server computers, using the configured hardware and/or software resource. The configuration parameters may be associated with at least one desired performance characteristic of the virtual machine to be launched.
US09641376B2
A receiver recovers local service data symbols from first Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) symbols in the presence of second OFDM symbols, the second OFDM symbols carry national broadcast data symbols and modulated on to the sub-carriers of the second OFDM symbols using a first modulation scheme, and the first OFDM symbols carry the national broadcast data symbols and the local service data symbols from a local insertion pipe and modulated on to the sub-carriers of the first OFDM symbols using a second modulation scheme. The receiver comprises an OFDM detector which includes an equalizer for recovering local service modulated sub-carriers of the second modulation scheme by generating an estimate of a combined channel ([Hn(z)+Hl(z)]) via which the first and second OFDM symbols have passed using the pilot sub-carrier symbols of the first and second OFDM symbols; generating an estimate of national broadcast modulation symbols from the modulated data bearing sub-carriers of the first modulation scheme from the second OFDM symbols (Ŝ(z)); generating an estimate of a convolution of the combined channel and the national broadcast modulation symbols (Ŝ(z)[Hn(z)+Hl(z)]); generating an estimate of a component of the received base band signal representing the local service modulation symbols of the first OFDM symbol; generating an estimate of a channel via which the first OFDM symbols were received using the local pilot symbols (Ĥl(z)); and generating an estimate of local service data symbols from a combination of the estimate of the component of the received signal representing the modulation symbols carrying the local service data and the estimate of the channel via which the first OFDM symbols were received ( D ~ ( z ) ≈ R ( z ) - S ^ ( z ) [ H n ( z ) + H l ( z ) ] H ^ l ( z ) ) .
US09641372B2
A method for controlling a combined waveform, representing a combination of at least two signals having orthogonal frequency multiplexed signal components, comprising: receiving information defining the at least two signals; transforming the information defining each signal to a representation having orthogonal frequency multiplexed signal components, such that at least one signal has at least two alternate representations of the same information, and combining the transformed information using the at least two alternate representations, in at least two different ways, to define respectively different combinations; analyzing the respectively different combinations with respect to at least one criterion; and outputting a respective combined waveform or information defining the waveform, representing a selected combination of the transformed information from each of the at least two signals selected based on the analysis.
US09641369B2
A digital load side transmission lighting control apparatus has at one least control gear for controlling at least one lighting source. The control gear includes a period timer to establish an inter-transition time period between each transition within each data packet frame. An inter-transition comparator is in communication with the period timer and configured to compare each of the inter-transition periods with valid inter-transition periods between each transition of the bi-phase encoded data for determining if the inter-transition periods represent valid patterns or are an error has occurred. A data extractor is configured to receive valid bi-phase encoded data from the inter-transition comparator for extracting transmitted data from within the data packet frames. A command formatter is configured to receive the extracted frame data from the data extractor for assembling the telegram bit data pattern for transfer for the subsequent processing.
US09641363B2
A system and method effective to trigger precisely timed actions on computing devices. The system may include a transmitting device and a receiving device. The transmitter may modulate binary data into sound waves, and the receiver may demodulate the audio signal into binary data. Signal amplitude across a range of frequencies may be used to demodulate. The received data may be interpreted in order to trigger actions on the computing device. These actions may involve the device's screen, speaker, built-in lights, camera, or vibration function. The actions may change over time based on the time at which the signal was received. More actions may be loaded from the device's storage.
US09641354B2
A method, a system, and an apparatus provide for a cable modem termination system (CMTS). The CMTS may include a virtual machine configured to provide a plurality of virtual CMTSs (vCMTSs). The CMTS may also include a plurality of subscriber groups. Each subscriber group of the plurality of subscriber groups may be assigned to a vCMTS of the plurality of vCMTSs. Additionally, each vCMTS is configured to provide a process.
US09641350B2
A system and method can support a scalable packet forwarding mechanism in a middleware machine environment. The middleware machine environment can comprise one or more network switch instances, wherein each network switch instance is associated with one or more external ports that are adapted to receive data packets from an external network. Furthermore, the middleware machine environment can comprise a plurality of packet dispatching components, each of which is responsible for forwarding a data packet to a virtual machine on a host server that operates to process the data packet. Additionally, a link aggregation component can combine multiple external ports into a logical port, and wherein the bandwidth of the logical port is linearly scaled accordingly to a total number of the multiple external ports.
US09641348B2
Example embodiments are presented herein service session management based on service specific data and a user subscription. Some example embodiments may comprise a user equipment, and corresponding method therein, for monitoring an internet or network access by an identified application. Upon detection, the user equipment may be configured to send service specific data associated with the identified application to an enhanced application server. The enhanced application server may manage a service session based on the service specific data and the user subscription. The management of the service session may allow for a differentiated delivery of service for certain applications.
US09641342B2
Various embodiments include a method of tracking a chain of custody of an item in a supply chain. A computer system implements a computer interface with a distributed consensus network comprised of computing devices configured to verify one or more waiting transaction records for addition into one or more blocks in a block chain representing a cryptographically verifiable ledger. The order of the block chain is cryptographically protected against tampering by the computing devices. The computer system can track provenance of the item by identifying an existing record in the block chain. The existing record can place a first quantity of a first stock keeping unit (SKU) at a first address. The computer system can then unitize the item by publishing a new record to the block chain. The new record indicates the existing record as a source record and associates a new SKU with a destination address.
US09641327B2
Methods and systems are provided for supporting efficient and secure “Machine-to-Machine” (M2M) communications using a module, a server, and an application. A module can communicate with the server by accessing the Internet, and the module can include a sensor and/or an actuator. The module, server, and application can utilize public key infrastructure (PKI) such as public keys and private keys. The module can internally derive pairs of private/public keys using cryptographic algorithms and a first set of parameters. A server can authenticate the submission of derived public keys and an associated module identity. The server can use a first server private key and a second set of parameters to (i) send module data to the application and (ii) receive module instructions from the application. The server can use a second server private key and the first set of parameters to communicate with the module.
US09641321B1
A method and apparatus is provided for the virtualization of cryptographic resources which enables memory speed encryption and decryption that is not bound by the speed at which processor resources can compute the result of a symmetric-key algorithm. This is achieved through a time-memory tradeoff via empty space at provisioning time. When implementing the apparatus, un-initialized memory is filled with the output of a symmetric-key algorithm uniquely keyed for the specific set of data that is going to be written to the provisioned area. Since the provisioning operation stores cryptographically structured data, rather than redundant data, plaintext that is xor'ed into memory is automatically encrypted and ciphertext that xor'ed into memory is automatically decrypted without the need for additional cryptographic computation. This reduced computation requirement enables cryptographic function to be implemented at the ends of communication, rather than the middle, and treated as a virtualized resource.
US09641318B2
Systems and methods for a multiple value packing scheme for homomorphic encryption are described, including at a server, generating a plurality of encrypted payloads, each having a plurality of data values; and at a client, receiving each of the encrypted payloads having the plurality of data values; and multiplying one or more of the data values of one of the encrypted payloads by one or more other data values in one or more of the other encrypted payloads, to generate a product that represents the summation of data values corresponding to the multiplied one or more data values of the encrypted payloads and the one or more of the other data values in the one or more other encrypted payloads.
US09641317B2
A phase rotator corrects the IQ imbalance in a wireless transceiver. The phase rotator is a part of a compensation system that detects and separates reception impairment images from transmission impairment images. The disclosed phase rotator introduces a phase shift between the transmission channel and the reception channel without perturbing the phase mismatch and the gain mismatch in the reception path. The phase rotator includes a first local oscillation (LO) circuit that generates a first LO signal at a first carrier frequency and a second LO circuit that generates a second LO signal at a second carrier frequency that deviates from the first carrier frequency for a phase rotation period. The phase rotation period is sufficiently long such that the frequency deviation can introduce a prescribed phase shift between the first LO signal and the second LO signal.
US09641309B2
The present invention relates to a method for transceiving a signal in a wireless communication system. A method for transceiving a signal in a wireless communication system according to one embodiment of the present invention comprises the steps of: transmitting a downlink signal from a base station to a terminal; receiving an uplink signal transmitted from the terminal; and cancelling a self-interference signal on the basis of the transceived downlink signal or the uplink signal, wherein the transmission periods for the downlink signal and the uplink signal comprise dedicated transmission periods, and in the dedicated transmission period, signal transmission periods of the base station and the terminal are differentiated.
US09641307B2
The present disclosure describes systems and methods for creating and/or deploying access points for a wireless network in a multi-unit building or for a private residential neighborhood. Additionally, described herein are methods for operating a wireless network in a multi-unit building that was either deployed according to the concepts described herein or was pre-existing.
US09641303B2
Embodiments are provided herein for increasing low density signature space for multiplexed transmissions for a plurality of users. The embodiments include generating a virtual signature using a combination operation on a plurality of basic signatures. The generated virtual signatures are provisioned as basic resource units (BRUs) for transmissions for corresponding users. The combination operation is a row-wise or column-wise permutation for combining, in each of the virtual signatures, rows or columns of corresponding basic signatures. The rows or columns represent sequences of frequency bands at one time interval or sequences of allocated time intervals at one frequency band. Alternatively, the combination operation is intra-basic resource unit (BRU) hopping. The embodiments also include generating a plurality of BRU sets comprised of virtual signatures. Each of the BRU sets is provisioned for a corresponding user.
US09641300B2
The present invention provides a method for transmitting and receiving a control channel, a base station, and a user equipment. The method for transmitting a control channel includes: determining m PRB pairs used for transmitting a control channel to be transmitted; when a distributed transmission mode is used for transmission, determining an aggregation level L of the control channel to be transmitted; determining, according to the aggregation level L, a first control channel candidate at the aggregation level L; and placing control information of the control channel to be transmitted, on physical resources to which the first control channel candidate is mapped, and transmitting the control information. The present invention improves multiplexing efficiency of control channels of different modes.
US09641292B2
Disclosed are a load modulation-based beamspace MIMO transmission method and apparatus. The beamspace MIMO transmission apparatus may include a plurality of impedance loading circuits each including a plurality of imaginary impedance devices, a beamspace MIMO control unit calculating loading values of the plurality of imaginary impedance devices, corresponding to a spatial multiplexing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) sample, and an RF chain unit generating a first signal having a predetermined carrier frequency.
US09641289B2
The disclosed is a data transmission method and apparatus configured to establish a frequency hopping-retransmission mechanism in a CFP of a superframe and switch a channel accordingly. The method provided by an embodiment includes: selecting two channels as a prescribed channel and a spare channel; dividing a CFP of a superframe into three SCFPs, where a second SCFP is used to re-transmit data that a node fails to transmit in a first SCFP, a third SCFP is used to re-transmit data that the node fails to transmit in the second SCFP, and a timeslot position of each node in the first SCFP is the same as in the second SCFP; broadcasting a beacon frame on the prescribed channel in a beacon period of the superframe, where the beacon frame includes channel selection information and timeslot division information; receiving data from the node; and transmitting an acknowledgement frame.
US09641287B2
A method for performing high-integrity data transmission is provided. The method obtains a first set of data at a first transmitter and a second set of data at a second transmitter; develops a first key for the obtained first set of data and a second key for the obtained second set of data; and when the first key matches the second key, provides a receiver indication of validity of the first set of data. In certain embodiments, the method stores the first key and the second key within a predetermined window of time. In some embodiments, when the first key matches the second key, the method also synchronizes operation of the first transmitter and the second transmitter.
US09641279B2
We disclose an optical transport system configured to transport data using a PDM-modulation format, in which each of two orthogonal polarizations is independently amplitude-modulated, and the relative phase between the carrier waves of the two polarizations may also be modulated. This modulation format enables the optical receiver to perform direct optical detection using a Stokes-vector detector to fully recover the encoded data. In an example embodiment, the corresponding signal processing at the optical receiver may include: determining a Stokes-space rotation matrix corresponding to the polarization-state rotation encountered by the PDM signal in the optical transport link; applying the determined Stokes-space rotation matrix to the Stokes sub-vector measured by the Stokes-vector detector to estimate the Stokes sub-vector of the PDM signal at the originating optical transmitter; converting the estimated Stokes sub-vector into the corresponding Jones vector; and recovering the data by decoding the polarization components of the Jones vector.
US09641277B2
An optical signal transmission method includes: obtaining a signal identifier of data to be sent; obtaining corresponding optical frequency slot distribution information according to the signal identifier; and determining a corresponding carrier according to the obtained optical frequency slot distribution information, using the determined carrier to carry the data to be sent to generate an optical signal, and sending the generated optical signal. The optical signal transmission method provided in the present invention does not fix the optical frequency slot distribution into a wavelength identifier, the number of optical frequency slots is not limited by the wavelength identifier field length, and the data to be sent can be transmitted in an optical network by being carried on the carrier determined according to multiple optical frequency slots.
US09641258B2
A receiver that may include a receiver front end arranged to receive (a) a received signal, (b) a reference signal generated by a local oscillator laser, and to output a first intermediate signal; a carrier phase estimator that is arranged to receive the first intermediate signal and to generate a phase estimation signal that represents a phase difference between the received signal and the reference signal; wherein the carrier phase estimator comprises a multi-symbol-differential-detection module and a carrier phase demodulator; and an output circuit arranged to receive the phase estimation signal and to apply a slicing operation to provide an output signal of the carrier phase estimator.
US09641231B2
A method and apparatus for modulating a baseband signal in beam space MIMO are provided. The baseband signal modulation apparatus may calculate a load value of a plurality of antenna elements using a baseband signal. The baseband signal modulation apparatus may change a phase or a magnitude of a baseband signal or a first band signal having a higher frequency than that of the baseband signal to correspond to the calculated load value.
US09641229B2
A method and system for reconfiguring over-indexed antenna arrays in mobile devices are provided. For example, the method includes receiving sensor input that indicates an object blocking a first subset of reconfigurable antenna elements but not blocking a second subset of reconfigurable antenna elements of an over-indexed antenna array. The method also includes configuring, based on the sensor input, a number of the antenna elements in the first subset as non-active for radiating energy and a number of the antenna elements in the second subset as active for radiating energy.
US09641227B2
A transceiver for near field communication may include: a resonance circuit coupled between a first node and a second node, the resonance circuit having a resonance frequency and being configured to emit an electromagnetic wave to communicate data with an external device; a first capacitor coupled between the first node and a third node; a second capacitor coupled between the second node and a fourth node; and/or a filter coupled among a first transmission electrode, a second transmission electrode, the third node, and the fourth node in an asymmetrical structure to provide a first frequency response and a second frequency response to the first transmission electrode and the second transmission electrode, respectively, the first frequency response being different from the second frequency response, the filter being configured to receive the data through the first transmission electrode and the second transmission electrode.
US09641224B2
A transmitting method and receiving method for simultaneous information and energy transfer comprises: determining a first pre-allocated parameter set of a first baseband signal based on a first optimized parameter set and according to a first optimized target and a first constraint condition set; determining a second pre-allocated parameter set of a second baseband signal based on a first optimized result and a second optimized parameter set and according to a second optimized target and a second constraint condition set; and processing the baseband signals into corresponding radio-frequency signals according to the first pre-allocated parameter set and the second pre-allocated parameter set and transmitting the radio-frequency signals through an antenna; the first baseband signal and the second baseband signal each being an information baseband signal or an energy baseband signal. Both the energy transfer efficiency and the information transfer rate are improved by optimizing the information signals and energy signals.
US09641219B2
Systems and methods for routing protocols for power line communications (PLC) are described. In some embodiments, a method performed by a PLC device, such as a PLC meter, may include selecting one or more transmit sub-bands on which to transmit frames, where the transmit sub-bands comprise groups of carrier frequencies. The PLC device then generates a frame comprising a tone map that indicates which transmit sub-bands are used to carry data for the frame. The tone map using two bits per transmit sub-band to indicate a status of each transmit sub-band. The PLC device then transmits the frame on the selected transmit sub-bands. A resolution bit and a mode bit may be used to provide additional information about the transmit sub-bands, such as an amount of power adjustment that has been applied to carrier frequencies and whether dummy bits are transmitted on unused carrier frequencies.
US09641215B2
A transceiver arrangement (200) for a fixed point-to-point radio link. The transceiver arrangement (200) comprising a transceiver (215) connected to a first antenna (210) and to a second antenna (220). The transceiver (215) being arranged to transmit a first transmit signal (211) via the first antenna (210) in a first frequency band (f1), the transceiver (215) also being arranged to receive a first receive signal (212) via the first antenna (210) in a second frequency band (f2), the transceiver (215) further being arranged to transmit a second transmit signal (221) via the second antenna (220) in the second frequency band (f2), the transceiver (215) also being arranged to receive a second receive signal (222) via the second antenna (220) in the first frequency band (f1).
US09641214B2
A portable electronic device includes an antenna unit, a processor, a circuit board and a frequency switching circuit. The antenna unit includes a pin. The processor includes a signal control terminal to output a voltage control signal. The frequency switching circuit is disposed on the circuit board and connected to the signal control terminal and the pin, so as to switch the frequency of the antenna unit according to the voltage control signal. The frequency switching circuit includes a switch unit and an anti-noise unit. The switch unit is connected to the pin, and the anti-noise unit is connected to the signal control terminal and the switch unit.
US09641208B2
A portable electric cigarette lighter or mobile device accessory with integrated portable electric cigarette lighter, the mobile device accessory including: (a) a protective accessory for a mobile device; (b) an electric lighter mechanism integrated into the protective accessory, the lighter mechanism including: (i) a heating element, (ii) a power source, (iii) an actuator, adapted to activate the heating element by operationally coupling the heating element to the power source and (d) a slide shutter adapted to reversibly expose the heating element.
US09641205B1
Antenna structures and methods of operating the same are described. One apparatus includes a processing device that executes an active interference cancellation (AIC) algorithm and radio frequency front-end (RFFE) circuitry coupled to the processing device. The RFFE circuitry includes two RF couplers, and a programmable-delay filter and a vector modulator disposed along electrical path. The AIC algorithm is operable to control the programmable-delay filter to match a delay of the electrical path to a propagation delay in an antenna path. The AIC algorithm is operable to control the vector modulator to adjust a phase, an amplitude or both of a copy of a first RF signal transmitted via the first antenna to generate a second RF signal. The second RF signal is added to a third RF signal via the second RF coupler to remove from the third RF signal interference caused by the first RF signal.
US09641201B2
In accordance with an embodiment, a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) includes an adjustable capacitance coupled to an input terminal of the RFIC, and a first single-pole multiple-throw (SPMT) radio frequency (RF) switch having an input coupled to the adjustable capacitance and a plurality of output nodes coupled to a corresponding plurality of second output terminals of the RFIC.
US09641198B2
An apparatus and method for interleaving and puncturing are provided. The apparatus includes: an interleaver formed of a plurality of columns and rows, configured to perform interleaving by writing bits input to the interleaver in the plurality of columns and reading the bits from each row of the plurality of columns in which the bits are written; and a puncturer configured to puncture a predetermined number of bits among the bits read from the interleaver.
US09641195B2
A trellis coded modulator and method for generating an encoded word from an input word. The TCM has a first logic branch configured to generate a data portion of the encoded word; and a second logic branch, coupled in parallel with the first logic branch, and configured to generate a corresponding parity portion of the encoded word sequentially after the generation of the data portion of the encoded word.
US09641194B2
A method for encoding multi-modes of BCH codes and an associated encoder is disclosed. The method has the steps of: building a number of encoding matrices; combining the encoding matrices with one side aligned to form a combined matrix; seeking common sub-expressions (CSEs) in the combined matrix, and encoding a message using the combined matrix.
US09641192B1
Various embodiments of the present technology may comprise a method and device for a delta-sigma ADC. The method and device may comprise receiving an input signal to at least two parallel-connected first-stage integrators and corresponding feedback DACs, and simultaneously integrating the input signal by each of the first-stage integrators. The method and device may further comprise a second stage integrator connected in series with the first-stage integrators, a quantizer, and digital to analog converters, coupled between the output of the quantizer and the inputs of the first-stage integrators.
US09641186B2
Apparatus and associated methods are disclosed for digital-to-analog conversion with improved performance. In one exemplary embodiment, an apparatus includes a DAC to convert a digital input signal to an analog output signal. The DAC includes a decoder to decode the digital input signal and to provide first and second sets of control signals. The DAC also includes a resistor DAC (RDAC) to provide first and second voltages in response to the first set of control signals. The DAC further includes an interpolator coupled to receive the first and second voltages and to provide a first analog signal in response to the second set of control signals.
US09641185B1
A digital to time converter (DTC). The DTC includes a lookup table, a divider, a thermometric array and a switched capacitor array. The lookup table is configured to generate one or more corrections based on thermometric bits of an input signal. The divider is configured to generate a plurality of divider signals from an oscillator signal based on the one or more corrections. The thermometric array is configured to generate a medium approximation signal from the plurality of divider signals based on the one or more corrections. The switched capacitor array is configured to generate a digital delay signal from the medium approximation signal based on the one or more corrections and switched capacitor bits of the input signal.
US09641184B2
Automatic digital sensing and compensation of frequency drift caused by temperature, aging, and/or other effects may be provided by including a compensation capacitor array and a sensing logic. The sensing logic may be configured to detect a drift in a first control signal and to provide the compensation capacitor array with a second control signal. The second control signal is configured to cause an adjustment of capacitance in the compensation capacitor array based on the detected drift in the first control signal.
US09641180B2
There is provided a reconfigurable semiconductor device including a plurality of circuit blocks each including a reconfigurable logic unit, and an analog circuit configured to convert an analog signal from the outside into a digital signal to output the digital signal to the reconfigurable logic unit, and convert a digital signal outputted from the reconfigurable logic unit into an analog signal to output the analog signal to the outside. The circuit block has a rectangular shape, is connected to the two adjacent circuit blocks from one side with a plurality of analog lines, and is connected to the other two adjacent circuit blocks from the other side on a side opposite to the one side with a plurality of analog lines.
US09641165B1
A duty cycle correction circuit has a delay line comprising a plurality of current-starved inverters coupled together in series. An input of a first current-starved inverter receives an input clock signal. A relatively weak inverter is coupled in parallel with each of the current-starved inverters. A low pass filter having an operational amplifier has a differential input coupled to the output of the delay line for receiving an output clock signal. A single-ended output of the operational amplifier is coupled to current source and current sink transistors of each of the current-starved inverters to control the amount of delay provided by the delay line. The low pass filter corrects the duty cycle of the input clock signal so that the output clock signal has a 50 percent duty cycle. The relatively weak parallel-connected inverters insure that no clock pulses are skipped if the current-starved inverters fail to transition.
US09641146B2
Apparatus and methods are disclosed related to radio frequency (RF) power detection. One such apparatus includes a directional coupler, an RF switch, and an RF power detector. The RF switch can selectively change coupling between the directional coupler and the RF power detector. This can enable accurate power detection based on a ratio of power levels, without factory calibration or laser trimming.
US09641129B2
A resistor-less amplifying circuit includes a plurality of resistor-less cells. Each cell includes a plurality of MOS transistors. Each cell generates a differential output equal to ΔVGS of two MOS transistors with a magnitude of the differential output controlled by a control voltage generated by a differential amplifier coupled to a feedback loop around a cell. In one embodiment, the resistor-less amplifying circuit is a part of a bandgap voltage reference circuit. In another embodiment, the resistor-less amplifying circuit is part of a temperature sensor circuit.
US09641117B2
A dynamic linear motor is controlled by determining a relative proximity of a moving rotor of the linear motor to a fixed stator segment of the linear motor using a current location of the moving rotor. A current driving characteristic of the linear motor at the current location of the moving rotor is determined. Settings for the fixed stator segment when the moving rotor reaches the fixed stator segment are identified based on the current driving characteristic. The fixed stator segment is driven based on the settings when the moving rotor reaches the fixed stator segment.
US09641116B2
The invention relates to a method for operating an asynchronous machine (1) comprising a rotor (3) and a stator (2), in which a torque of the asynchronous machine (1) is adjusted by specifying a desired magnetic flux of a surrounding magnetic field of the stator (2) and specifying a desired slip between a rotational speed of the rotor (3) and the rotational speed of the surrounding magnetic field. According to the invention, at least in the load condition and when a rotary frequency of the surrounding magnetic field of the stator is equal to zero, the desired magnetic flux and/or the desired slip with constant torque is changed in such a way that an actual rotary frequency of the surrounding magnetic field is not equal to zero.
US09641108B2
Methods and systems for operating a motor having a rotor rotatable relative to a stator include commutating the motor to cause the rotor to rotate to a known position. While the rotor is at the known position, a position of an encoder magnet configured to rotate with the rotor is measured. Subsequent commutation of the motor is adjusted to take into account a difference between the known position of the rotor and the measured position of the encoder magnet.
US09641103B2
Systems and methods provide actuator control. Actuator control is provided via charge control as opposed to voltage control. A driver for driving an actuator can include a charge pump for injecting charge into one or more capacitive elements of the actuator. The driver can further include a capacitance detection aspect for detecting the capacitance of the capacitive elements of the actuator to determine positioning of the actuator.
US09641101B1
A method for controlling output energy of a power system includes following steps: Using a controlling unit to detect a phase offset between voltage and current of an AC power outputted from the power system. When the power system enters an energy-storage cycle, the controlling unit makes a power conversion unit output the AC power having a first preset power factor and store a partial energy of an AC grid in an energy-storage unit when the AC power is in a reactive power area. When the power system enters an energy-release cycle, the controlling unit makes the power conversion unit output the AC power having a second preset power factor and release the energy stored in the energy-storage unit, wherein an average value of the power factor in the energy-storage cycle and the energy-release cycle is the same as a preset average power factor.
US09641100B2
A system for converting a first voltage into a second voltage includes input terminals and output terminals, switching members disposed between the terminals which can convert voltage, and a device for controlling the switching members. The device includes a cell for controlling a switching member, and a member for managing and supplying the control cell. The member is connected to the control cell by a link allowing the simultaneous transmission of a control signal and electrical energy. The member includes a device for generating a pulse, and which includes at least two different control intervals.
US09641099B2
Provided are single phase and multiple phase DC-AC inverters with soft switching, and related methods and uses. The DC-AC inverters comprise at least one voltage source inverter circuit or at least one current source inverter circuit having a DC input and an AC output including a first component at a fundamental frequency and a ripple component at a frequency higher than the fundamental frequency; wherein the ripple component is of a sufficient magnitude that the voltage source inverter circuit output current reverses polarity and allows the at least one inverter circuit to operate with zero voltage switching; or wherein the ripple component is of a sufficient magnitude that the current source inverter circuit output voltage reverses polarity and allows the at least one inverter circuit to operate with zero current switching. The circuits and methods may be used with grid-connected renewable energy sources.
US09641097B2
A vehicle electrical system includes: an active bridge rectifier which is connected to a generator via multiple phase terminals, and having terminals on the direct voltage side; a unit for recognizing load shedding at the active bridge rectifier and short-circuiting the phase terminals in a clocked manner, as the result of which a pulsed current is fed to the vehicle electrical system; a vehicle electrical system capacitor configured for smoothing the pulsed current; and a voltage limiting unit configured for clipping a voltage between the terminals of the bridge rectifier on the direct voltage side to a predefined maximum voltage.
US09641088B2
A current resonant power source apparatus includes a series circuit (Lr, P, C2) connected between switch elements Q1 and Q2 and a capacitor C1, a full-wave rectifying and smoothing circuit (D1, D2, C3) for providing a DC voltage, a control circuit of Q1 and Q2, a voltage detector 11 of the DC voltage, a current detector of the primary winding P, a soft-start time constant setting unit, and an ON time controller. If a voltage generated to a time constant is smaller than a set voltage, the ON time controller sets an ON time for Q1 and Q2 according to the DC voltage and soft-start signal, and if it is equal to or greater than the set voltage, sets one of the first and second ON times according to the current from the current detector.
US09641087B2
A method and a device for detecting conduction mode is disclosed. The method uses an energy-storing element to connect with a synchronous rectifier and a load, and the load connects with the synchronous rectifier. Firstly, energy is discharged from the energy-storing element and applied to the load through the synchronous rectifier to periodically generate a detected voltage signal across the synchronous rectifier, and the detected voltage signal comprises at least one raising waveform, at least one horizontal waveform and at least one descending waveform. Then, an output is generated according to waveform of the detected voltage signal and either of a reference duration or a reference slope, so as to determine that the energy-storing element operates in CCM or DCM.
US09641077B2
Reliability of a buck power stage may be enhanced by extending the maximum input voltage able to be withstood in the disabled (non-switching) state. During device qualification/testing, a power management unit (PMU) in the disabled state may have its input node subjected to greater than a maximum input voltage permitted for reliability (Vmax). Under such conditions, a force voltage (Vforce) may be selectively applied to the PMU switching node in the disabled state. For a given input voltage (VIN), this reduces voltage across the non-switching transistors of the power stage (and hence the resulting stress) to below Vmax. In certain embodiments, the Vforce applied to the switching node is of a fixed magnitude. In other embodiments, the Vforce applied to the switching node is of a magnitude varying with input voltage. Embodiments may be particularly suited to implement power management for a System-On-Chip (SoC).
US09641073B2
A switch-mode power supply is provided that includes a comparator for producing a pulse-width modulated (PWM) controller clock signal for controlling a power switch in the switch-mode power supply. The switch-mode power supply is configured to superimpose a DC-free version of a ramp voltage with an error voltage to produce a combined voltage. The comparator compares the combined voltage to a reference voltage to produce the PWM controller clock signal.
US09641072B2
Systems, methods, and apparatus to drive reactive loads are disclosed. An example apparatus to drive a reactive load includes a reactive component in circuit with the reactive load, a first switching element in circuit with the reactive load to selectively hold the reactive load in a first energy state and to selectively allow the reactive load to change from the first energy state to a second energy state, a second switching element in circuit with the reactive load to selectively hold the reactive load in the second energy state and to selectively allow the reactive load to change from the second energy state to the first energy state, and a controller to detect a current in the reactive load, and to control the first and second switching elements to hold the reactive load in the first or the second energy state when the current traverses a threshold.
US09641071B2
Disclosed is a Ćuk based current source, a control circuit for a Ćuk based current source, and a method for providing a current.
US09641066B2
A current driver is coupled to an inductor; a digital control for regulation of the current driver turns the current driver on or off coupled to the current driver; a comparator output coupled to the input of the digital control for regulation of the driver with inputs to compare a voltage of the inductor to a target voltage, a digital control for selection of one of a set of peaks and valleys of allowable current levels of the current driver, the digital control for selection of one of a set of peaks and valleys coupled to the output of the comparator and an input of the current driver, the digital control for the peak/valley current to monitor the duration of each high and low output state of the comparator output to determine the selection of one of the set of peak and valley of allowable current levels for the current driver.
US09641057B2
A resin portion of an output shaft has a large diameter section, from which one end portion of a rod outwardly projects, and an intermediate diameter section, which extends from the large diameter section in an axial direction and is rotatably supported by a housing. A gear portion is formed in an outer peripheral surface of the large diameter section and is meshed with a final gear. A recess is recessed in the axial direction in the large diameter section and extends in the circumferential direction along an entire circumferential extent of the rod. The intermediate diameter section is continuously filled with resin in a region, which extends from an outer peripheral surface of the rod to an outer peripheral surface of the intermediate diameter section in the radial direction, along the entire circumferential extent of the rod.
US09641053B2
A connecting element between a motor and a control unit includes a flat base plate having contact elements and an, in particular centered, opening. The base plate further includes a shaft around the opening. A first seal is provided at the edge of the base plate and a second seal is provided at the upper edge of the shaft.
US09641050B2
A wind turbine generator comprising a rotor, a stator and an air gap between a gap-delimiting region of the stator and a gap-delimiting region of the rotor; wherein the rotor and/or the stator are deformable under operational loads and configured in such a way that the air gap resulting from the presence of operational loads is more uniform than the air gap in the absence of operational loads. A method for optimizing an air gap between a gap-delimiting region of a stator and a gap-delimiting region of a rotor of a wind turbine generator, said rotor and/or said stator being deformable under operational loads and said optimization consisting in that the air gap resulting from the presence of the set of operational loads is more uniform than the air gap in the absence of the set of operational loads.
US09641048B1
A leverage generator apparatus for generating electricity from energy transferred from a one or more partially rotating levers each operating on one or more triangular weighted swivel devices that are propelled over a center point on the partially rotating lever by one or more piston switches and actuators and each supported by a triangular support structure operating as a fulcrum at a center-point of the one or more partially rotating levers, such that the energy transferred from the leverage generator turns a crankshaft linked to a generator device. A renewable energy vertical leverage generator apparatus generates electricity from energy transferred by one or more pairs of rotating triangular weight car harness structures travelling on a track system operating as a receptacle to capture weighted car devices such that the triangular weight car harness structures rotate three hundred sixty degrees to produce forces sufficient to turn an axel of a generator device.
US09641040B2
Provided is a rotating electric machine capable of preventing an outer race of a bearing from rotating because of a reduction in force for coupling a bearing housing portion and the outer race of the bearing. A resin case (24) uses thermal expansion to fill a clearance between the bearing housing portion and the outer race of a counter-driving side bearing. A hook (25) projecting inward in a radial direction is formed at least at one position on a circumferential edge portion of the resin case (24) on a side opposite to a rotor. The bearing housing portion includes a concave portion to which the hook (25) is to be locked, which is formed on a flange portion inside of which a shaft passes.
US09641039B2
A drive device having an electric drive. A drive device (1) includes at least one housing (15), at least one electric drive, the electric drive having a rotor arrangement with a rotor shaft (7) which is designed for rotation about a rotational axis (17), and a bearing arrangement (14 a, b) for mounting the rotor arrangement. The bearing arrangement (14 a, b) supports the rotor arrangement in relation to the rotational axis (17) radially inwardly, the bearing arrangement (14a, b) supporting the rotor shaft in relation to a support section (15, 16) that is fixed to the housing.
US09641036B2
A U-phase coil that constitutes an armature winding includes four (first through fourth) small coil groups U101, U102, U201, and U202 that make one round circumferentially, that are formed by connecting in series in order of circumferential arrangement winding bodies that are housed in slot pairs that are separated by 360 electrical degrees. The U-phase coil is configured into a parallel circuit in which the first and fourth small coil groups U101 and U202, which are connected in series, and the second and third small coil groups U102 and U201, which are connected in series, are connected in parallel by linking together winding ends within a radially inner winding end group using crossover wires 711 and 721, and by linking together winding ends within a radially outer winding end group using a crossover wire 821.
US09641034B2
A rotary machine includes two sets of three-phase stator winding wires and two sets of inverters connected to the same direct-current power supply. Alternating-current terminals of the inverters are respectively connected to the three-phase stator winding wires. Stator winding wires are housed in a plurality of slots to form a stator. The two sets of three-phase stator winding wires and the stator winding wires in the same phase of the sets are started to be wound from the slot positions, with phases thereof being different from each other by 180 degrees, among the plurality of slots and are finished being wound in the slot positions, with phases thereof different from each other by 180 degrees. Winding end points of the three-phase stator winding wires are respectively connected in common, and alternating-current voltages having the same magnitude and opposite phases are applied to the two sets of three-phase stator winding wire.
US09641031B2
A rotor (1) comprising a plurality of alternating magnetic poles formed by permanent magnets (3) distributed regularly between a circumferential portion (5) and a central portion (6) of the magnetic body (2) of the rotor and defining circumferential pole sections (7). The circumferential portion comprises axial grooves (15) which are arranged between the pole sections facing the magnets and which form openings in recesses (4) containing the magnets. The openings have a pre-determined first width (a) such as to minimize a leakage magnetic flux (PhiL) flowing through the circumferential portion (5) and to maximize a useful magnetic flux (PhiU) flowing radially through each of the pole sections (7).
US09641026B2
The subject specification comprises enhanced communication infrastructure for a multi-tier hierarchical smart distribution grid (SDG). The SDG comprises a specified number of distribution network node controller (DNNC) components employed to desirably control communications and power distribution between respective tiers of the SDG to facilitate efficient power distribution. When communication between the a DNNC in one tier and another DNNC in another tier, is desired, the DNNC can identify available communication channels and respective communication conditions of the available communication channels, and can dynamically select a subset of available data and preferred communication channel, based at least in part on predefined control criteria, to control data transmission loads in the network and facilitate real time control of the SDG. Data can be communicated via the selected communication channel. Respective DNNCs can desirably control power distribution for respective tiers, minimizing upper tier involvement in lower tier power distribution.
US09641020B2
A receiver is provided, wherein the receiver includes an antenna, a band pass filter and a frequency mixer electrically connected in sequence, and a local oscillator electrically connected with the frequency mixer, and further includes: a diplexer for separating and outputting high and low frequency components in a signal outputted by the frequency mixer; and a rectifying unit for converting the high frequency component outputted by the diplexer into direct current energy and storing the direct current energy in a storage battery. The diplexer introduced in the receiver separates a baseband signal and a carrier signal in the same path losslessly, respectively conducts information decoding and energy capture, implements simultaneous information and energy transfer, and does not need to change the present modulation technology, therefor having strong compatibility, being reasonable and simple in structure, and being easy to implement.
US09641018B2
A power receiving apparatus receives power wirelessly transmitted by a power transmission apparatus, and stores the received power. The power receiving apparatus includes a communication unit configured to transmit and receive a control signal in a wireless power transmission system. The power receiving apparatus switches a supply source of power to the communication unit when a power storage capacity is less than a threshold value.
US09641016B2
A wireless power transmission apparatus for high efficiency energy charging, includes a resonator configured to transmit power, and a power supply unit configured to supply power to the resonator. The apparatus further includes a first switching unit configured to connect the resonator to the power supply unit, and disconnect the resonator from the power supply unit, and a controller configured to control the first switching unit based on an amount of current flowing into the resonator.
US09641004B2
Systems and methods for balancing charge of battery cells of a battery pack are disclosed. In one example, battery cell balancing may be improved by balancing battery cells of a battery cell stack simultaneously. The system and method may be particularly useful battery packs that may be constructed with battery cell stacks that vary in a number of series battery cells.
US09641001B2
An electronic apparatus includes a power receiving means for wirelessly receiving power, a detection means for detecting whether the electronic apparatus is in a predetermined state, a load means supplied with power from the power receiving means, and a control means that performs control so a second power is supplied from the power receiving means to the load means if the detection means detects that the electronic apparatus is in the predetermined state and a first power is supplied from the power receiving means to the load means, wherein the second power is lower than the first power, and the control means further performs control so the first power is supplied from the power receiving means to the load means if the detection means detects the electronic apparatus is in a state different from the predetermined state and the supplied power is reduced to a predetermined power value or less.
US09640999B2
A technique with which a change in power frequency can be suppressed. A power system stabilizer issues a control command to a first storage battery among a plurality of first power generators and the first storage battery that are connected to an isolated island system via a first tie-line. The power system stabilizer includes a parameter determination unit and a control block unit. The parameter determination unit obtains, on the basis of operation information, a rate-of-change limit value that indicates a limit to be imposed on a total value of changes in the overall output of first power generators in operation. The control block unit generates a command value to be given to the first storage battery on the basis of an interconnection point power flow value measured on the first tie-line and the rate-of-change limit value obtained by the parameter determination unit.
US09640996B2
Disclosed is an electric power supply system which has: a common power source which stores and supplies a power via a local power grid; and a distributed power source which supplies a power to buildings and a surplus to the common power source. The electric power supply system further includes a first power meter measuring the amount of power supplied from a commercial power source, a second power meter measuring the amount of power received from and supplied to the common power source via the local power grid, and a distribution control device which distributes a power from the common power source to the area based on the amounts of power as measured by the first power meter and the second power meter.
US09640995B2
An apparatus includes a converter having an AC side and a DC side, a switch adapted to be connected to a transmission line on a first side and connected to a load on a second side connected to the AC side, an energy storage device, connected to the DC side. In a first operating mode, the switch is closed, such that an energy storage current flows to/from the energy storage device to charge/discharge the energy storage device, respectively. In a second operating mode, the switch is open, preventing current from flowing from the transmission line to the converter, and the energy storage device supplies a direct current which is converted to an alternating current by the converter. In the first operating mode, the apparatus is configured such that power transfer on the transmission line corresponds to a surge impedance loading of the transmission line, by affecting the energy storage current.
US09640994B2
Three phase power flow analysis of an unbalanced power distribution system decouples voltage changes resulting from nodal admittance matrix into one contribution from a real part, conductance matrix, and other contribution from an imaginary part, and a susceptance matrix. A first voltage change and second voltage change resulting from conductance and susceptance matrices are determined respectively. The voltages of a node of the power distribution system are determined as a combination of first and second voltages.
US09640986B2
A telecommunications system uses a breakout device to connect a primary power cable to different secondary power cables that connect to different remote radio units (RRUs). For example, the breakout device may include a power distribution terminal that connects −48 VDC and return power lines in the primary power cable to different −48 VDC and return power lines in the secondary power cables. In another example, the breakout device may connect a hybrid cable that includes both power lines and fiber optic lines. A surge protection system may be located in the breakout device to protect the RRUs and other electrical device from power surges. Alternatively, the surge protection system may be located in jumper power cables connected between the breakout device and the RRUs.
US09640978B2
A protective circuit for an inverter is disclosed, the protective circuit comprising a safety element, a switching arrangement, and a control circuit, with the safety element being arranged in a feed line to the power element, and the switching device being switched to the safety element such that the switching arrangement bridges the safety element when the switching arrangement is in a conducting state. The control circuit is embodied such that it, upon receipt of one control pulse or several successive control pulses, emits a switching signal to a switching arrangement for a predetermined period of time, with the switching arrangement being switched through in case of periodic receipt of the control pulses and with the absence of the control pulse opening the switching arrangement after a predetermined period of time, and triggering a protection of the inverter by the safety element.
US09640975B2
A circuit interrupting device having an auto-monitoring circuit for periodically testing various functions and structures of the device. The auto-monitoring circuit initiates an auto-monitoring routine which, among other things, generates a self-test fault condition and determines whether the detection mechanisms within the device properly detect the self-test fault. A test fault circuit is configured to generate one or more test pulses that cause the self-test fault condition and the test pulses are generated to occur outside of an active region of the fault detection circuit.
US09640970B2
The present disclosure relates to an overvoltage-protection device for protecting a high-frequency terminal from overvoltage. Overvoltages can be compensated by a coil arrangement, which includes coils electrically in series with different, increasing inductances. The end of the relatively thinner coil is connected to the high-frequency terminal of a circuit.
US09640962B2
A power control system is provided that includes a receptacle and a module. The receptacle is hard-wired to a power distribution system, such as conventional 120 VAC. The module can be removable inserted into the receptacle and can provide desired functionality, such as power deliver, wireless communication and actuation. By providing a receptacle that accepts multiple modules that each can have different functionality and by allowing a user to readily remove replace modules in the receptacle, a useful and flexible control system can be set up.
US09640961B2
A cable management assembly adapted for first and second slide rail assemblies includes first and second cable management brackets which are connected together, a supporting base, and a supporting member pivotally connected to the supporting base. The first slide rail assembly includes first and second rails. The cable management brackets are connectable to the rails respectively. The supporting base is connectable to the second slide rail assembly. The supporting member has a portion located between the cable management brackets. When the second rail is longitudinally displaced relative to the first rail from a retracted position toward an extended position, the first cable management bracket drives the portion of the supporting member and thereby rotates the supporting member relative to the supporting base.
US09640956B2
An electric wire protective member includes a cylindrical electric wire protection tube, an interior of which being an electric wire insertion space, a protection tube end opening provided in the electric wire protection tube and from which electric wires inserted through the electric wire insertion space are led out, and an electric wire fastening member having an electric wire fastening plate on which the electric wires led out through the protection tube end opening are placed. The electric wire fastening plate is molded integrally with a ring-shaped covering portion covering the electric wire protection tube near the protection tube end opening.
US09640946B2
An improved laser safety shutter is provided for the main supply power to the laser diode to be routed through an electronic shutter that prevents the passing of the supply power to the laser diodes to achieve laser shutdown or in the event of a control power failure. The main power is routed through a rectifier to convert the incoming alternating current (AC) feed to direct current (DC) power. A switching array operates in an alternating cycle so as to provide AC power to be transformed and passed along to the laser diode pump on the load side of the transformer. When shut down of the laser is desired or when power to the controller fails, the switches stop operating and the resultant DC power cannot be passed by the transformer effectively cutting the supply power to the laser diodes.
US09640945B2
Method in which, in order to actuate a wavelength-tunable laser diode in a spectrometer, a power-time function is predetermined instead of a current-time function, wherein the laser diode is tuned periodically over a wavelength range in accordance with the power-time function. For this purpose, a current profile (i) with which the laser diode is actuated is determined from the power-time function and measured values of the voltage (u) present at the laser diode.
US09640943B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, for an external cavity FP laser. In one aspect, an apparatus is provided that includes a FP laser diode; a Faraday rotator (FR) coupled to receive an optical output of the FP laser diode and that rotates a polarization of the optical output; an optical fiber coupled at a first end to receive the output of the FR; a WDM filter coupled to a second end of the optical fiber to receive the optical signal from the optical fiber; and a FRM coupled directly or indirectly to an output of the WDM filter, wherein an optical output of the WDM filter is partially reflected by the FRM such that the polarization of a reflected beam is rotated, and wherein the reflected optical signal then passes through the FR with its polarization being rotated by the FR before it is injected back into the FP laser diode.
US09640940B2
A pulsed laser comprises an oscillator and amplifier. An attenuator and/or pre-compressor may be disposed between the oscillator and amplifier to improve performance and possibly the quality of pulses output from the laser. Such pre-compression may be implemented with spectral filters and/or dispersive elements between the oscillator and amplifier. The pulsed laser may have a modular design comprising modular devices that may have Telcordia-graded quality and reliability. Fiber pigtails extending from the device modules can be spliced together to form laser system. In one embodiment, a laser system operating at approximately 1050 nm comprises an oscillator having a spectral bandwidth of approximately 19 nm. This oscillator signal can be manipulated to generate a pulse having a width below approximately 90 fs. A modelocked linear fiber laser cavity with enhanced pulse-width control includes concatenated sections of both polarization-maintaining and non-polarization-maintaining fibers. Apodized fiber Bragg gratings and integrated fiber polarizers are included in the cavity to assist in linearly polarizing the output of the cavity. Very short pulses with a large optical bandwidth are obtained by matching the dispersion value of the fiber Bragg grating to the inverse of the dispersion of the intra-cavity fiber.
US09640937B2
The invention relates to a laser assembly with a converter designed as a fiber laser for generating a converted output laser beam, and having a pumping source that supplies a pump beam to the converter and includes a plurality of laser diodes that generate the pump beam and are formed by emitters mounted on laser bars, the pumping source including beam forming optics for forming the laser beams supplied by the emitters into the pump beam.
US09640936B1
Rare earth oxides doped multicomponent glass fibers for laser generation and amplification, including a core and a cladding, the core comprising at least 2 weight percent glass network modifier selected from BaO, CaO, MgO, ZnO, PbO, K2O, Na2O, Li2O, Y2O3, or combinations; wherein the mode of the core is guided with step index difference between the core and the cladding, a numerical aperture of the fiber is between 0.01 and 0.04; core diameter is from 60 to 150 micron, and a length of the gain fiber is shorter than 60 cm.
US09640923B2
An electrical receptacle connector includes a receptacle shell, an insulation housing bracket, a receptacle grounding contact, and a grounding member. The insulation housing bracket is disposed inside the receptacle shell. The receptacle grounding contact is held inside the housing base. The grounding member is disposed on a first side of the insulation housing bracket and located between the insulation housing bracket and the receptacle shell. A connecting structure is selectively disposed on the grounding member or on the receptacle grounding contact. The connecting structure penetrates through the insulation housing bracket and mechanically or physically connects the grounding member and the receptacle grounding contact such that the grounding member is electrically connected to the receptacle grounding contact.
US09640917B1
An electrical connector includes an insulating housing, a plurality of terminals located in the insulating housing, a main shielding shell and an auxiliary shell. The insulating housing has a main body, and a tongue portion protruded frontward from a front surface of the main body. The main shielding shell surrounds the main body and the tongue portion of the insulating housing. The main shielding shell has a main plate, a bottom plate and two lateral plates. A middle of the bottom plate defines an avoiding gap. The auxiliary shell has a base plate, and two flanks extended outward from two opposite sides of the base plate. The two flanks are fastened to bottom surfaces of two side walls of the avoiding gap and the base plate is located under the avoiding gap.
US09640911B2
A plug connector includes a plug shell, a housing base and a plug contact. The housing base is combined with the plug shell and includes a main base and a tongue structure. The tongue structure extends from the main base and has a first face and a second face opposite to the first face. The plug contact includes a main body, a foot portion, a first end portion and a second end portion. The main body is mounted in the main base. The foot portion extends from the main body and stretches out of the main base. The first end portion is resiliently connected to the main body and protrudes out of the tongue structure via the first face. The second end portion corresponding to the first end portion is resiliently connected to the main body and protrudes out of the tongue structure via the second face.
US09640908B2
An alignment apparatus is coupled to an accessory module that is rotatably attachable to an electronic device. The alignment apparatus includes a pivot mounting member and a connector retaining member movably coupled to the pivot mounting member. The connector retaining member is rigidly coupled to a connector. The connector retaining member moves the connector with respect to the pivot mounting member to a predetermined angle. The predetermined angle aligns the connector with a connecting mate on the electronic device in an approximately parallel position while the accessory module is rotating for attachment onto the electronic device.
US09640901B2
An electrical connection box (10), including: a relay (20) which has a locking projection (20K); and a connection box main body (30) which has a pressing projection (30K) that is engaged with the locking projection (20K), and which is formed with a storage space (30P) that stores the relay (20), in which a guide wall (30W) which is provided to stand on a boundary of the storage space is formed across the entire circumference of the boundary of the storage space in the connection box main body, and in which the pressing projection (30K) is formed at a narrow linking part (30B) of the guide wall in a direction in which the guide wall is provided to stand.
US09640882B2
A connector including a female pin and a male pin is disclosed, wherein the female pin includes a first elastic sheet seat and an elastic sheet, the first elastic sheet seat is provided with a first seat hole, a pin bar extending-out hole, and a guide transition hole communicated with the first seat hole and the pin bar extending-out hole. The elastic sheet is assembled inside the first seat hole. The male pin includes a base and a pin bar fastened to the base. The pin bar includes a large-diameter part and a small-diameter part, wherein the large-diameter part is used to fit a clamping portion of the elastic sheet, and wherein the small-diameter part is used to fit the pin bar extending-out hole. A guide transition hole and a pin bar extending-out hole of a first elastic sheet seat achieve a guiding function for insertion of a pin bar.
US09640881B2
A contact device for establishing an electrical connection to a contact point of a printed circuit board is insertable into a contact hole arranged at the contact point, so as to establish an electrical connection to the contact point of the printed circuit board. The contact device includes a contact element having a deformation portion and a screw element operable to be screwed into the contact element. The deformation portion is in a longitudinal extension state when in a pre-assembly state and is operable to be deformed out of the longitudinal extension state when in an assembled state by means of the screw element being screwed at least part way into the contact element.
US09640878B2
A terminal block arrangement includes a housing and a plurality of connection terminals, each connection terminal including at least one terminal unit for contacting at least one conductor, which can be received on the connection terminal, and at least one associated actuation unit for actuating the terminal unit in order to selectively transfer the terminal unit between at least two positions. At least one of the positions is an open position and at least one of the positions is a contact position. The terminal block arrangement also includes a blocking device, wherein, in a blocking position, the blocking device is capable of preventing, jointly, the actuation of the actuation units of at least two of the plurality of connection terminals.
US09640872B2
A radar antenna is provided. The radar antenna includes an antenna unit provided with dielectric bodies in a front part thereof in a radio wave radiating direction, a housing unit for supplying a radio wave to the antenna unit, and an antenna supporting unit made of FRP attached between the antenna unit and the housing unit to separate the antenna unit from the housing unit.
US09640867B2
A tunable phase shifter is provided that includes a spatial phase shift element and a conducting sheet. The spatial phase shift element includes a dielectric substrate and a conductive antenna element mounted on the dielectric substrate. The conducting sheet is mounted a distance from the spatial phase shift element and configured to reflect an electromagnetic wave through the spatial phase shift element. The conductive antenna element is configured to radiate a second electromagnetic wave in response to receipt of the reflected electromagnetic wave. The distance between the conducting sheet and the spatial phase shift element can be changed to adjust a phase shift of the reflected electromagnetic wave.
US09640863B2
The disclosure provides a device and a method for antenna impedance matching. The device comprises an application detection module, configured to detect a current state of an antenna of a terminal, and output a matching adjustment signal according to the state; an adaptive control module, configured to perform control over a process of matching adjustment in response to the matching adjustment signal; and a matching adjustable module, configured to, under control of the adaptive control module, perform matching adjustment on impedance of the antenna through an impedance matching network corresponding to the matching adjustment signal. Through the technical solution provided by the disclosure, the problem of single impedance matching mode in the prior art is solved, and further, the effect that differential matching can be performed for various application states of the terminal is achieved.
US09640857B2
A communication module includes a circuit board having electronic components thereon, an insulative molded member encapsulating the electronic components on the circuit board, and an antenna unit on the molded member. The circuit board is electrically connected to the antenna unit through a post terminal. The antenna unit and the molded member define a cavity therebetween.
US09640853B2
Sealing portions of an orthomode transducer or another antenna component is accomplished by forming first and second receptacles or channels in one half or portion of the transducer and inserting first and second type of compressible sealing components into the receptacles. Upon attaching additional portions of the transducer the compressible sealing components may be compressed, but the compression is limited to an amount within a compression range to maintain a seal.
US09640850B2
Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a system for generating first electromagnetic waves and directing instances of the first electromagnetic waves to an interface of a transmission medium to induce propagation of second electromagnetic waves having at least a dominant non-fundamental wave mode. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09640846B2
Implementations and techniques are generally disclosed are generally described for providing a metal air batter comprising, a cathode tube included in the metal air battery, the cathode tube having a conductive outer surface and a hydrophobic inner surface configured to define a tube wall there between, wherein the tube wall includes polymeric material and an anode material that surrounds the cathode tube.
US09640845B2
A temperature-raising device for an in-car battery includes: a battery temperature acquisition unit configured to acquire a temperature of a battery mounted in a vehicle; an environmental temperature acquisition unit configured to acquire an environmental temperature; a heater configured to raise the temperature of the battery; and a controller configured to i) turn ON or OFF the heater based on a result of a comparison between the battery temperature acquired by the battery temperature acquisition unit and a predetermined threshold, and ii) reduce the threshold in accordance with a reduction in the environmental temperature acquired by the environmental temperature acquisition unit.
US09640841B2
A semiconductor device capable of reducing an inter-source electrode resistance RSS(on) and reducing a chip size is provided. A semiconductor device according to the present invention includes a chip partitioned into three areas including a first area, a second area, and a third area, and a common drain electrode provided on a back surface of the chip, in which the second area is formed between the first and third areas, a first MOSFET is formed in the first area and the third area, and a second MOSFET is formed in the second area.
US09640839B2
The present invention relates to an electrolyte composition (A) containing (i) at least one aprotic organic solvent; (ii) at least one conducting salt; (iii) at least one compound of formula (I) and (iv) optionally at least one further additive.
US09640837B2
The present invention is to provide a method for producing such a sulfide solid electrolyte that it has high lithium ion conductivity and the total amount of heat generated by the reaction with the charged anode material that proceeds at around 315° C., is reduced. Disclosed is a method for producing a sulfide solid electrolyte, wherein the method includes: a first step of preparing Li3PS4 having a γ structure, and a second step in which a second step mixture that contains the Li3PS4 having the γ structure obtained in the first step and LiX (where X is halogen) is non-crystallized, and the non-crystallized second step mixture is heated in a temperature range of more than 150° C. and less than 190° C.
US09640835B2
An ion conducting glass-ceramics represented by the general formula (I): Na2S-MxSy—NaSb, wherein M and N are different and selected from P, Si, Ge, B, Al and Ga; x, y, a and b are integers indicating the stoichiometric ratio depending on the species of M and N; and the content of Na2S is more than 60 mol % and less than 80 mol %.
US09640831B2
In the case where a film, which has lower strength than a metal can, is used as an exterior body of a secondary battery, a current collector provided in a region surrounded by the exterior body, an active material layer provided on a surface of the current collector, or the like might be damaged when force is externally applied to the secondary battery. A secondary battery that is durable even when force is externally applied thereto is provided. A region that is easily partly bent and a region that is not easily partly bent owing to a protective material provided in the region are intentionally formed to obtain the durable secondary battery.
US09640829B2
A heater includes a heater housing extending along a heater axis; a fuel cell stack assembly disposed within the heater housing and having a plurality of fuel cells which convert chemical energy from a fuel into heat and electricity through a chemical reaction with an oxidizing agent; an electric resistive heating element disposed within the heater housing and electrically connected to the fuel cell stack assembly; and a first thermal switch located between the fuel cell stack assembly and the electric resistive heating element. The first thermal switch is closed to place the fuel cell stack assembly in electrical communication with the electric resistive heating element when the fuel cell stack assembly is electrochemically active and is open to prevent electrical communication between the fuel cell stack assembly and the electric resistive heating element when the fuel cell stack assembly is not electrochemically active.
US09640825B2
A fuel cell includes an anode, a solid electrolyte layer, a barrier layer, and a cathode. The anode includes a transition metal and an oxygen ion conductive material. In the interface region within 3 micrometers from the interface with the solid electrolyte layer of the anode after reduction, the content rate of silicon is less than or equal to 200 ppm, the content rate of phosphorous is less than or equal to 50 ppm, the content rate of chromium is less than or equal to 100 ppm, the content rate of boron is less than or equal to 100 ppm, and the content rate of sulfur is less than or equal to 100 ppm.
US09640820B2
A power generation system of the present invention includes: a fuel cell unit (101) including a fuel cell (11) and a case (12); a controller (102); a combustion unit (103) provided outside the case (12) and configured to combust a combustible gas to supply heat; and a discharge passage (70) configured to cause the fuel cell unit (101) and the combustion unit (103) to communicate with each other, wherein in a case where an exhaust gas is being discharged to the discharge passage (70) from one of the fuel cell unit (101) and the combustion unit (103) and the controller (102) changes the flow rate of the exhaust gas discharged from the other unit, the controller (102) controls at least the flow rate of the exhaust gas discharged from the other unit such that the flow rate of the exhaust gas discharged from the one unit becomes constant.
US09640819B2
A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell module and a control device. The control device includes a partial oxidation reformer adjuster, a combustion starter, and a power generator. Based on at least any of the reforming state in the partial oxidation reformer, the combustion state in the exhaust gas combustor and the temperature of the fuel cell stack, the partial oxidation reformer adjuster adjusts the temperature of the partial oxidation reformer, the supply amount of raw fuel, and the supply amount of oxygen-containing gas, the combustion starter starts combustion in the exhaust gas combustor, and the power generator starts power generation in the fuel cell stack.
US09640818B2
A method of operating a fuel cell includes the steps of detecting hydrogen peroxide concentration during power generation by a hydrogen peroxide concentration sensor provided directly on a membrane electrode assembly and determining an operating condition of the fuel cell based on the detected hydrogen peroxide concentration.
US09640816B2
Disclosed is a flow battery pack with a monitoring system. The flow battery pack with a monitoring system comprises a battery pack device and a monitoring device. The battery pack device comprises a pole plate, and the pole plate is provided thereon with a measuring port. The monitoring device comprises a measuring probe, and the measuring probe extends to the interior of the battery pack device and is arranged corresponding to the measuring port on the pole plate. The monitoring device is used for monitoring the flow pressure and temperature at the measuring port. According to the technical solution of the present disclosure, a monitoring device is introduced into the interior of a flow battery pack, and the real values of correlative parameters of the interior of the battery pack and the distribution status thereof can be obtained through the monitoring device.
US09640815B2
Provided are air humidification device and method for a fuel cell. The air humidification device and method for the fuel cell may cool an air compressor and air compressed by the air compressor and easily humidify air supplied to the fuel cell by mixing water with air and injecting the mixture into an inlet of the air compressor. In particular, the air humidification device and method may easily humidify air supplied to a cathode of the fuel cell by bypassing a portion of the compressed air from an outlet of an air compressor supplying air to the cathode of the fuel cell and simultaneously by injecting condensed water discharged from a fuel cell system into an inlet of the air compressor using the bypassed compressed air.
US09640814B2
Disclosed is a device for adjusting humidification gas of a membrane humidification device of a fuel cell. In particular, the device is adapted to induce changes in differential pressure and velocity of the wet air for each division module and to improve the humidification efficiency by sequentially mounting the division modules divided into various numbers to the interior of a housing of the membrane humidification device, thereby adjusting the density of the hollow fiber membrane filled in each division module.
US09640795B2
A positive-electrode active material particle for an all-solid battery which includes a sulfide-based solid electrolyte includes an active material core and a reaction-inhibiting layer which contains carbon and with which the active material core is coated.
US09640780B2
An organic electroluminescent element provided with a gas barrier film includes a pair of electrodes and an organic functional layer having at least one light-emitting layer between the electrodes. The gas barrier film includes a base material; a vapor deposition layer that is of a surface-treated silicon compound including at least one element selected from carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and oxygen (O), and has a continuous change in composition from a surface toward a direction of thickness; and a polysilazane modified layer.
US09640775B2
Provided is an organic EL element having a high emission efficiency, a light emission life, and excellent high-temperature preservation stability. This organic electroluminescence element has at least one light-emitting layer between a positive electrode and a negative electrode. The light-emitting layer comprises at least one type of light-emitting dopant and at least three types of non-emitting organic materials represented by general formula (2); of the non-emitting organic materials, the material with the largest molecular weight has a molecular weight of 1,500 or less; and the minimum content of the non-emitting organic materials is 1 mass % or greater.
US09640774B2
A light emitting device is discussed, and includes a first electrode; a hole transporting layer (HTL) on the first electrode; an organic light-emission layer (EML) having a red emission layer (EML) formed in a red sub pixel area Rp, a green emission layer formed in a green sub pixel area Gp, and a blue emission layer formed in a blue sub pixel area Bp; an electron transporting layer (ETL) on the red, green and blue emission layers; and a second electrode on the electron transporting layer, wherein the green emission layer includes a phosphor host material, a second phosphor host material, and a dopant material.
US09640771B2
This invention provides a nanofiber, including: a core, which extends along the axis of the nanofiber, and its main component includes Ag(NH3)2+ or AgNO3; a shell, which extends along the nanofiber and coats the core of the nanofiber, and its main component of the shell structure includes: PVP, TBAP, SDS, grapheme, PMAA or PFBT nanoparticle. Moreover, the invention also provides a photovoltaic device which comprises the patterned nanofibers.
US09640760B2
There is disclosed a slot-die coating method and apparatus, and a substrate having a patterned coating layer. The method comprises controlling an intermittent transfer of the coating fluid from a slot-die coating head onto the substrate surface to provide, by said intermittent transfer, coated areas on the substrate surface separated by uncoated areas. The substrate surface comprises a pre-patterned layer of high surface energy areas and low surface energy areas; wherein a contact angle of the coating fluid on the substrate surface is lower in the high surface energy areas than in the low surface energy areas. Boundaries between the low surface energy areas and high surface energy areas are arranged along a slit direction of the slot die coating head. The method further comprises synchronizing the intermittent transfer with a passage of an outflow opening over the boundaries between the low surface energy areas and high surface energy areas wherein the transfer is enabled when the outflow opening passes over a high surface energy area and wherein the transfer is disabled when the outflow opening passes over a low surface energy area.
US09640758B2
A phase-change memory device and a method of fabricating the same are provided. The phase-change memory device includes a semiconductor substrate in which a word line is arranged, a diode line disposed over the word line and extending parallel to the word line, a phase-change line pattern disposed over the diode line, and a projection disposed between the diode line and the phase-change line pattern and protruding from the diode line. The diode line and the projection are formed of a single layer to be in continuity with each other.
US09640753B2
A sensor and fabrication process are provided for forming reference layers with substantially orthogonal magnetization directions having zero offset with a small compensation angle. An exemplary embodiment includes a sensor layer stack of a magnetoresistive thin-film based magnetic field sensor, the sensor layer stack comprising a pinning layer; a pinned layer including a layer of amorphous material over the pinning layer, and a first layer of crystalline material over the layer of amorphous material; a nonmagnetic coupling layer over the pinned layer; a fixed layer over the nonmagnetic coupling layer; a tunnel barrier over the fixed layer; and a sense layer over the nonmagnetic intermediate layer. Another embodiment includes a sensor layer stack where a pinned layer including two crystalline layers separated by a amorphous layer.
US09640742B2
The present disclosure provides an LED package which includes electrodes, an LED die electrically connected with the electrodes, an encapsulation covering the LED die; and a casing surrounding the encapsulation and the LED die. The casing includes a base, a reflecting cup and a supporting portion. The reflecting cup extends from the base upwards, the reflecting cup surrounds the LED die, and the supporting portion is located inside the reflecting cup and across the electrodes.
US09640731B2
A light-emitting diode structure comprises a first semiconductor layer; a second semiconductor layer under the first semiconductor layer; a light-emitting layer between the first semiconductor layer and the second semiconductor layer for emitting a light; a first electrical pad on the first semiconductor layer for wire bonding; a first extension connecting to the first electrical pad; and a first reflective layer covering the first extension and exposing the first electrical pad, wherein the first electrical pad and the first extension have the same thickness, and the reflectivity of the first reflective layer is higher than that of the first extension.
US09640728B2
An optoelectronic device is provided. The optoelectronic device comprises: an optoelectronic system for emitting light; multiple contact regions on the optoelectronic system and separated from one another; and multiple fingers on the optoelectronic system and opposite to the multiple contact regions; wherein a first contact region in the multiple contact regions is between two adjacent fingers, and a first distance between the first contact region and one of the adjacent fingers is between 5% and 50% of a second distance between the two adjacent fingers.
US09640717B2
An ultraviolet light emitting apparatus may include a chamber, at least one semiconductor light emitting device, an electron beam irradiation source, and first and second connection electrodes configured to apply a voltage from an external power source to the at least one semiconductor light emitting device. The chamber may define an internal space and include a light emission window. The at least one semiconductor light emitting device may be on the light emission window and include a first conductivity type nitride semiconductor layer, an undoped nitride semiconductor layer, and an active layer between the first conductivity type nitride semiconductor layer and the undoped nitride semiconductor layer. The electron beam irradiation source may be in the internal space of the chamber and configured to irradiate an electron beam onto the undoped nitride semiconductor layer.
US09640714B2
A method for manufacturing a light emitting element that includes preparing a wafer having a substrate and a semiconductor structure, the substrate including a plurality of protrusions at positions corresponding to lattice points on a triangular lattice. The method includes forming a plurality of first modified parts in the substrate by irradiating the substrate with a laser beam along first dividing lines, forming a plurality of second modified parts in the substrate by irradiating the substrate with a laser beam along second dividing lines, and dividing the wafer along the first modified parts and the second modified parts to obtain a plurality of light emitting elements.
US09640711B2
A thickness of material may be detached from a substrate along a cleave plane, utilizing a cleaving process controlled by a releasable constraint plate. In some embodiments this constraint plate may comprise a plate that can couple side forces (the “P-plate”) and a thin, softer compliant layer (the “S-layer”) situated between the P-plate and the substrate. In certain embodiments a porous surface within the releasable constraint plate and in contact to the substrate, allows the constraint plate to be secured to the substrate via a first pressure differential. Application of a combination of a second pressure differential within a pre-existing cleaved portion, and a linear force to a side of the releasable constraint plate bound to the substrate, generates loading that results in controlled cleaving along the cleave plane.
US09640704B2
A photodetector including a photoelectric conversion structure made of a semiconductor material and, on a light-receiving surface of the conversion structure, a stack of first and second diffractive elements, the second element being above the first element, wherein: the first element includes at least one pad made of a material having an optical index n1, laterally surrounded with a region made of a material having an optical index n2 different from n1; the second element includes at least one pad made of a material having an optical index n3, laterally surrounded with a region made of a material having an optical index n4 different from n3; the pads of the first and second elements are substantially vertically aligned; and optical index differences n1−n2 and n3−n4 have opposite signs.
US09640699B2
A photovoltaic device includes a crystalline substrate having a first dopant conductivity, an interdigitated back contact and a front surface field structure. The front surface field structure includes a crystalline layer formed on the substrate and a noncrystalline layer formed on the crystalline layer. The crystalline layer and the noncrystalline layer are doped with dopants having a same dopant conductivity as the substrate. Methods are also disclosed.
US09640691B2
A solar module and manufacturing method for the solar module are provided which are able to reduce problems caused by thermal stress. The solar module (1) includes a solar cell (10), a wiring member (11), and an adhesive layer (12). The wiring member (11) is arranged on a surface of the solar cell (10). The adhesive layer (12) is made of resin. The adhesive layer (12) has wide portions (12a) and narrow portions (12b) along the longitudinal direction of the wiring member (11). The solar module (1) has a region at least to the outside of the narrow portions (12b) in which the wiring member (11) and the surface of the solar cell (10) face each other without an interposing adhesive layer (12).
US09640689B2
The invention provides a polyester film for the protection of a back surface of a solar cell which, when applied to a silicon thin film solar cell, exhibits excellent durability even under high-temperature and high-humidity conditions and long term thermal stability. The polyester film (a) contains a polyester, as a main constituent, obtained by polymerization using a polycondensation catalyst containing aluminum and/or its compound as well as a phosphorus compound having an aromatic group in the molecule; (b) has a whiteness degree of 50 or higher; (c) contains 3 to 50% by mass of fine particles with a mean particle diameter of 0.1 to 3 μm; and (d) has an acid value from not lower than 1 (eq/ton) and not higher than 30 (eq/ton).
US09640688B2
A light-absorbing or light-emitting solar cell assembly comprises an electrical insulator disposed on an electrically conductive substrate and that is provided with a metallized surface and at least one solar cell connected to the electrically conductive substrate, wherein the solar cell includes refractive secondary optics and is disposed in a recess in the insulator. The solar cell is connected to the substrate by the side orientated towards the substrate via an electrically conductive connection and the recess is dimensioned such that an interspace is produced laterally between the solar cell and the electrical insulator, the interspace being filled with a coupling medium and the solar cell being connected to the metallized surface by at least one electrical contact.
US09640682B2
A device for emitting electromagnetic radiation includes at least one optical semiconductor element configured to generate electromagnetic radiation, at least one photodiode, and at least one beam splitter. The beam splitter is arranged relative to the optical semiconductor element and the photodiode in such a way that one portion of the electromagnetic radiation generated by the optical semiconductor element passes through the beam splitter and a further portion of the electromagnetic radiation generated by the optical semiconductor element is reflected by the beam splitter and is directed onto the photodiode.
US09640674B2
Disclosed herein is a composition for solar cell electrodes. The composition includes a conductive powder, a glass frit, and an organic vehicle, wherein the glass frit is a bismuth oxide-tellurium oxide-zinc oxide-lithium oxide-based glass frit comprising: 5 wt % to 20 wt % of bismuth oxide; 55 wt % to 80 wt % of tellurium oxide; 0.1 wt % to 15 wt % of zinc oxide; and 0.1 wt % to 10 wt % of lithium oxide. Solar cell electrodes formed of the composition have low serial resistance (Rs) and high open voltage (Voc), thus providing high conversion efficiency and good adhesive strength with respect to a ribbon.
US09640670B2
It is an object to manufacture a highly reliable display device using a thin film transistor having favorable electric characteristics and high reliability as a switching element. In a bottom gate thin film transistor including an amorphous oxide semiconductor, an oxide conductive layer having a crystal region is formed between an oxide semiconductor layer which has been dehydrated or dehydrogenated by heat treatment and each of a source electrode layer and a drain electrode layer which are formed using a metal material. Accordingly, contact resistance between the oxide semiconductor layer and each of the source electrode layer and the drain electrode layer can be reduced; thus, a thin film transistor having favorable electric characteristics and a highly reliable display device using the thin film transistor can be provided.
US09640667B1
Vertical field effect transistor (FET) device with tunable bandgap source/drain regions are provided, as well as methods for fabricating such vertical FET devices. For example, a vertical FET device includes a lower source/drain region formed on a substrate, a vertical semiconductor fin formed on the lower source/drain region, and an upper source/drain region formed on an upper region of the vertical semiconductor fin. The lower source/drain region and vertical semiconductor fin are formed of a first type of III-V semiconductor material. The upper source/drain region is formed of a second type of III-V semiconductor material which comprises the first type of III-V semiconductor material and at least one additional element that increases a bandgap of the second type of III-V semiconductor material of the upper source/drain region relative to a bandgap of the first type of III-V compound semiconductor material of the lower source/drain region and the vertical semiconductor fin.
US09640658B2
A method of fabricating one or more semiconductor devices includes forming a trench in a semiconductor substrate, performing a cycling process to remove contaminants from the trench, and forming an epitaxial layer on the trench. The cycling process includes sequentially supplying a first reaction gas containing germane, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen and a second reaction gas containing hydrogen chloride and hydrogen onto the semiconductor substrate.
US09640657B2
Semiconductor devices and fabrication methods are provided. In an exemplary method, a semiconductor layer including a first opening can be provided. The first opening can be filled with a stress material. The stress material can then be etched to form a second opening having a width less than a width of the first opening to leave a stress material layer in the semiconductor layer and on each sidewall of the second opening. The semiconductor layer can be etched to form a fin structure on a sidewall surface of the stress material layer. A main gate structure can be formed on the sidewall surface of the fin structure. A back gate structure can be formed on the sidewall surface of the stress material layer.
US09640656B2
Some embodiments include a construction having a second semiconductor material over a first semiconductor material. A region of the second semiconductor material proximate the first semiconductor material has strain due to different lattice characteristics of the first and second semiconductor materials. A transistor gate extends downwardly into the second semiconductor material. Gate dielectric material is along sidewalls and a bottom of the transistor gate. Source/drain regions are along the sidewalls of the transistor gate, and the gate dielectric material is between the source/drain regions and the transistor gate. A channel region extends between the source/drain regions and is under the bottom of the transistor gate. At least some of the channel region is within the strained region.
US09640655B2
A semiconductor device is provided with: a first conductivity type contact region; a second conductivity type body region; a first conductivity type drift region of; a trench formed through the contact region and body region from a front surface of the semiconductor substrate, wherein a bottom of the trench is positioned in the drift region; an insulating film covering an inner surface of the trench; a gate electrode accommodated in the trench in a state covered with the insulating film; and a second conductivity type floating region formed at a position deeper than the bottom of the trench, and adjacent to the bottom of the trench. The floating region includes a first layer adjacent to the bottom of the trench and a second layer formed at a position deeper than the first layer, wherein a width of the first layer is broader than a width of the second layer.
US09640645B2
A semiconductor device includes a first type region including a first conductivity type. The semiconductor device includes a second type region including a second conductivity type. The semiconductor device includes a channel region extending between the first type region and the second type region. The semiconductor device includes a first silicide region on a first type surface region of the first type region. The first silicide region is separated at least one of a first distance from a first type diffusion region of the first type region or a second distance from the channel region.
US09640643B2
An insulated gate bipolar transistor having a gate electrode (7) and an emitter electrode (9) is provided in a transistor region. A termination region is arranged around the transistor region. A first N type buffer layer (18) is provided below an N type drift layer (1) in the transistor region. A P type collector layer (19) is provided below the first N type buffer layer (18). A second N type buffer layer (20) is provided below the N type drift layer (1) in the termination region. A collector electrode (21) is directly connected to the P type collector layer (19) and the second N type buffer layer (20). An impurity concentration of the second N type buffer layer (20) decreases as a distance from the collector electrode (21) decreases. The second N type buffer layer (20) does not form any ohmic contact with the collector electrode (21).
US09640642B2
When a transistor having bottom gate bottom contact structure is manufactured, for example, a conductive layer constituting a source and a drain has a three-layer structure and two-step etching is performed. In the first etching process, an etching method in which the etching rates for at least the second film and the third film are high is employed, and the first etching process is performed until at least the first film is exposed. In the second etching process, an etching method in which the etching rate for the first film is higher than that in the first etching process and the etching rate for a “layer provided below and in contact with the first film” is lower than that in the first etching process is employed. The side wall of the second film is slightly etched when a resist mask is removed after the second etching process.
US09640640B1
A method for fabricating a semiconductor device, the method comprises forming a fin on a substrate, forming a dummy gate stack on the fin and the substrate, removing a portion of an exposed portion of the fin, forming a source/drain region on an exposed portion of the fin, forming a conductive contact on the source/drain region, removing the dummy gate stack to expose a channel region of the fin, implanting ions in the channel region of the fin, performing an annealing process, and forming a gate stack on the channel region of the fin.
US09640634B2
Microelectronic structures embodying the present invention include a field effect transistor (FET) having highly conductive source/drain extensions. Formation of such highly conductive source/drain extensions includes forming a passivated recess which is back filled by epitaxial deposition of doped material to form the source/drain junctions. The recesses include a laterally extending region that underlies a portion of the gate structure. Such a lateral extension may underlie a sidewall spacer adjacent to the vertical sidewalls of the gate electrode, or may extend further into the channel portion of a FET such that the lateral recess underlies the gate electrode portion of the gate structure. In one embodiment the recess is back filled by an in-situ epitaxial deposition of a bilayer of oppositely doped material. In this way, a very abrupt junction is achieved that provides a relatively low resistance source/drain extension and further provides good off-state subthreshold leakage characteristics. Alternative embodiments can be implemented with a back filled recess of a single conductivity type.
US09640633B1
A semiconductor device that includes a first fin structure in a first portion of a substrate, and a second fin structure in a second portion of the substrate, wherein the first portion of the substrate is separated from the second portion of the substrate by at least one isolation region. A gate structure present extending from the first fin structure across the isolation region to the second fin structure. The gate structure including a first portion on the first fin structure including a first work function metal having at least one void, an isolation portion that is voidless present overlying the isolation region, and a second portion on the second fin structure including a second work function metal.
US09640632B2
A semiconductor device having improved heat dissipation is disclosed. The semiconductor device includes a semi-insulating substrate and epitaxial layers disposed on the semi-insulating substrate wherein the epitaxial layers include a plurality of heat conductive vias that are disposed through the epitaxial layers with the plurality of heat conductive vias being spaced along a plurality of finger axes that are aligned generally parallel across a surface of the epitaxial layers. The semiconductor device further includes an electrode having a plurality of electrically conductive fingers that are disposed along the plurality of finger axes such that the electrically conductive fingers are in contact with the first plurality of heat conductive vias.
US09640623B2
A transistor device includes a semiconductor body, a spacer layer, and a field plate. The spacer layer is over at least a portion of a surface of the semiconductor body. The field plate is over at least a portion of the spacer layer, and includes a semiconductor layer between a first refractory metal interposer layer and a second refractory metal interposer layer. By including the semiconductor layer between the first refractory metal interposer layer and the second refractory metal interposer layer, the electromigration of metals in the field plate is significantly reduced. Since electromigration of metals in the field plate is a common cause of transistor device failures, reducing the electromigration of metals in the field plate improves the reliability and lifetime of the transistor device.
US09640618B2
A silicon carbide semiconductor device includes a silicon carbide layer 32 of a first conductivity type, a silicon carbide layer 36 of a second conductivity type, a gate trench 20, a gate electrode 79 provided in the gate trench 20, and a protection trench 10 formed to a greater depth than the gate trench 20. A region in the horizontal direction that includes both the gate trench 20 and a protection trench 10 that surrounds only a part of the gate trench 20 in the horizontal direction is a cell region, and a region in the horizontal direction that includes a protection trench 10 and in which a gate pad 89 or a lead electrode connected to the gate pad 89 is disposed is a gate region.
US09640617B2
The present disclosure relates to a power module that has a housing with an interior chamber and a plurality of switch modules interconnected to facilitate switching power to a load. Each of the plurality of switch modules comprises at least one transistor and at least one diode mounted within the interior chamber and both the at least one transistor and the at least one diode are majority carrier devices, are formed of a wide bandgap material system, or both. The switching modules may be arranged in virtually any fashion depending on the application. For example, the switching modules may be arranged in a six-pack, full H-bridge, half H-bridge, single switch or the like.
US09640615B1
The present invention provides a filed effect transistor and the method for preparing such a filed effect transistor. The filed effect transistor comprises a semiconductor, germanium nanowires, a first III-V compound layer surrounding the germanium nanowires, a semiconductor barrier layer, a gate dielectric layer and a gate electrode sequentially formed surrounding the first III-V compound layer, and source/drain electrodes are respectively located at each side of the gate electrode and on the first III-V compound layer. According to the present invention, the band width of the barrier layer is greater than that of the first III-V compound layer, and the band curvatures of the barrier layer and the first III-V compound layer are different, therefore, a two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is formed in the first III-V compound layer near the barrier layer boundary. Since the 2DEG has higher mobility, the performance of the filed effect transistor improved. Besides, the performance of the filed effect transistor also improved due to the structure is a gate-all-around structure.
US09640607B2
According to an embodiment of the invention there may be provided a die that may include a first capacitor layer that comprises (a) a first capacitor conductive plate, and (b) a first capacitor layer dielectric material that partially surrounds the first capacitor conductive plate; a first conductor; an intermediate metal layer that comprises (a) an intermediate metal layer conductor that is made of Copper, and (b) an intermediate metal layer dielectric material that partially surrounds the intermediate metal layer conductor; wherein the first conductor is positioned between a substrate of the die and the intermediate metal layer; a redistribution layer that comprises (a) a redistribution layer conductor that is electrically coupled to an interface pad of the die, (b) a second capacitor conductive plate, and (c) a redistribution layer dielectric material that partially surrounds the redistribution layer conductor and the second capacitor conductive plate; wherein a certain portion of the intermediate metal layer dielectric material is positioned between the first and second capacitor conductive plates; wherein at least the certain portion of the intermediate metal layer dielectric material, the first capacitor conductive plate and the second capacitor conductive plate form a high voltage capacitor; and wherein the intermediate metal layer conductor is configured to supply power to a group of transistors of the die while the first conductor is configured to supply power only to a sub-group of the transistors of the die.
US09640602B2
A semiconductor device includes a first coil that is monolithically integrated in a first portion of a semiconductor body and that includes a first winding wrapping around a first core structure. A second coil is monolithically integrated in a second portion of the semiconductor body and includes a second winding wrapping around the second core structure. The first and second coils are magnetically coupled with each other. An insulator frame in the semiconductor body surrounds the first portion and excludes the second portion. High dielectric strength between the first and the second coils is achieved without patterning a backside metallization for connecting the turns of the windings and without being restricted to thin substrates.
US09640600B2
A manufacturing method of a display device includes forming a pixel in a display area of a panel, forming a transistor circuit in a peripheral area of the panel, the peripheral area being located in the vicinity of the display area, forming a first pad in a part of the peripheral area, forming a second pad in a peripheral area of another panel adjacent to the part of the panel, the second pad being electrically connected to the transistor circuit, performing a driving inspection on the transistor circuit by use of the second pad, and separating the first pad and the second pad from each other after the driving inspection.
US09640591B2
A method of manufacturing an organic light emitting display device. The method according to one embodiment includes forming a first electrode over a substrate in which red, green, and blue pixel areas are defined; forming a first hole transporting layer on the first electrode; forming a second hole transporting layer in a position corresponding to the red pixel area; forming a first emission common layer; forming a third hole transporting layer on the first emission common layer in a position corresponding to the green pixel area; forming a second emission common layer; forming a fourth hole transporting layer on the second emission common layer in a position corresponding to the blue pixel area; forming a third emission common layer; forming an electron transporting layer on the third emission common layer; and forming a second electrode on the electron transporting layer.
US09640587B2
Semiconductor integrated circuit device having vertical channel and method of manufacturing the same
A semiconductor integrated circuit device having a vertical channel and a method of manufacturing the same are provided. A plurality of active lines are formed in a semiconductor substrate. A gate electrode having a lower height than each active line is formed on a sidewall of the active line. A first insulating layer having a height lower than that of the active line and higher than that of the gate electrode is buried between active lines, and a silicide layer is formed on an exposed upper surface and a lateral surface of the active line.
US09640577B2
Example embodiments relate to an image sensor supporting a global shutter for minimizing image distortion. An example image sensor includes a semiconductor layer having a first surface and a second surface that are opposite to each other; a photosensitive device, which is formed in the semiconductor layer near the first surface and accumulates charges based on light incident via the second surface; a charge storage device, which is formed in the semiconductor layer near the first surface and temporarily stores charges accumulated by the photosensitive device; a first transmission transistor, which transmits charges accumulated by the photosensitive device to the charge storage device and includes a first gate formed on the first surface of the semiconductor layer; and a leakage photogenerated charge drain region, which is formed in the semiconductor layer near the second surface, is apart from the charge storage device, and is arranged above the charge storage device.
US09640575B2
A semiconductor package includes a substrate, an image sensor chip mounted on the substrate, a holder disposed on the substrate and surrounding the image sensor chip, and the holder has an inner surface facing the image sensor chip and an outer surface opposite to the inner surface. The semiconductor package further includes a transparent cover combined with the holder, and the transparent cover is spaced apart from and faces the substrate. The holder includes: a hole penetrating the holder from the inner surface to the outer surface. In addition, the semiconductor package further includes a first stopper disposed in the hole and a second stopper disposed at a position corresponding to the hole on the outer surface of the holder.
US09640571B2
Pixel arrays of an image sensor that include a first pixel and a second pixel adjacent the first pixel are provided. The first pixel may include a first photoelectric conversion device, a first charge storage device, a first floating diffusion node and a first transfer gate. The second pixel may include a second photoelectric conversion device, a second charge storage device, a second floating diffusion node and a second transfer gate. The pixel arrays may also include a storage gate on both the first charge storage device and the second charge storage device. The storage gate may have a unitary structure.
US09640564B2
A thin film transistor substrate including a thin film transistor and a capacitor formed of a pair of electrodes, which includes: a first electrode above a substrate; a first insulating film above the first electrode; a second electrode above the first insulating film; a second insulating film above the second electrode; and a semiconductor layer above the second insulating film, in which the capacitor includes the first electrode as one of the pair of electrodes and the second electrode as the other of the pair of electrodes, and the thin film transistor includes the second electrode as a gate electrode, the second insulating film as a gate insulating film, and the semiconductor layer as a channel layer.
US09640560B2
A light-emitting diode (LED) display panel, a manufacturing method thereof and a display device are disclosed. The LED display panel comprises a thin-film transistor (TFT) backplane, a light-emitting structure and an overcoat (OC) layer (10). The OC layer (10) is disposed between the TFT backplane and the light-emitting structure and configured to cover gate lines (21) and data lines (22) in a display area of the LED display panel. The manufacturing process of the LED display panel adds the process of the OC layer (10) and hence can effectively avoid the scratches onto the TFT backplane caused by an evaporation mask plate when the light-emitting structure is formed and prevent the caused electrostatic problem.
US09640559B2
A low temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) array substrate is disclosed. The array substrate includes a first substrate and a stack structure on the first substrate, where the stack structure includes a first conductive layer, and a second conductive layer. The first and second conductive layers are insulated from each other. The array substrate also includes a polysilicon layer above the first and second conductive layers, an interlayer insulating layer above the polysilicon layer, and a source-drain metal layer on the interlayer insulating layer. The source-drain metal layer includes a source and a drain, the source and the drain are electrically connected with the polysilicon layer through a first via, and one of the source and the drain is electrically connected with the first conductive layer through a second via.
US09640556B2
Provided is a thin film transistor that has high mobility and excellent stress resistance and is good typically in adaptability to wet etching process. The thin film transistor includes a substrate, and, disposed on the substrate in the following sequence, a gate electrode, a gate insulator film, oxide semiconductor layers, source-drain electrodes, and a passivation film that protects the source-drain electrodes. The oxide semiconductor layers have a first oxide semiconductor layer including In, Ga, Zn, Sn, and O, and a second oxide semiconductor layer including In, Ga, Sn, and O. The second oxide semiconductor layer is disposed on the gate insulator film. The first oxide semiconductor layer is disposed between the second oxide semiconductor layer and the passivation film. The atomic ratios in contents of the individual metal elements to all the metal elements constituting the first and the second oxide semiconductor layers are controlled to predetermined ratios.
US09640551B2
In embodiments, a radio frequency (RF) module includes an RF switching device, an RF active device, a passive device and a control device formed on a high resistivity substrate. The passive device can include a shallow trench device isolation region having a plate shape and formed at a surface portion of the high resistivity substrate, deep trench device isolation regions extending downward from a lower surface of the shallow trench device isolation region so as to define at least one isolated region therebetween, at least one insulating layer formed on the high resistivity substrate, and at least one passive component formed on the insulating layer.
US09640546B2
A semiconductor memory array includes a first nonvolatile memory cell having a first charge storage layer and a first gate electrode and a second nonvolatile memory cell, adjacent to the first memory cell in a first direction, having a second charge storage layer and a second gate electrode. The first and second electrodes extend in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, the first electrode has a first contact section extending toward the second electrode in the first direction, and the second electrode has a second contact section extending toward the first electrode in the first direction. The first and second contact positions are shifted in the second direction, respectively, and the first electrode and the first contact section are electrically separated from the second electrode and the second contact section.
US09640529B2
Provided is a method of fabricating a semiconductor device. The method includes providing a substrate including a transistor area and a resistor area, forming dummy gate structures on the substrate in the resistor area, and a lower interlayer insulating layer; forming a resistor structure having a buffer insulating pattern, a resistor element and an etch-retard pattern disposed sequentially on the lower interlayer insulating layer; and forming resistor contact structures configured to pass through the etch-retard pattern and to contact with the resistor element.
US09640524B2
An ESD protection semiconductor device includes a substrate, a gate set formed on the substrate, a source region and a drain region formed in the substrate respectively at two sides of the gate set, at least a first doped region formed in the source region, and at least a second doped region formed in the drain region. The source region, the drain region and the second doped region include a first conductivity type, and the first doped region includes a second conductivity type. The first conductivity type and the second conductivity type are complementary to each other. The second doped region is electrically connected to the first doped region.
US09640523B2
A lateral p-n diode in the center of and surrounded by a vertical Silicon-Controlled Rectifier (SCR) forms an Electro-Static-Discharge (ESD) protection structure. The lateral p-n diode has a cross-shaped P+ diode tap with four rectangles of N+ diode regions in each corner of the cross. A P-well under the P+ diode tap is also an anode of a vertical PNPN SCR that has a deep N-well in a P-substrate. The deep N-well surrounds the lateral diode. Triggering MOS transistors are formed just beyond the four ends of the cross shaped P+ diode tap. Each triggering MOS transistor has N+ regions at the edge of the deep N-well and in the P-substrate that act as the cathode terminals. A deep P+ implant region under the N+ region at the edge of the deep N-well decreases a trigger voltage of the vertical SCR.
US09640521B2
A package structure includes a substrate having a first bond pad layer. A silicon bridge layer having one or more redistribution layers therein. The silicon bridge layer has a second bond pad, and the silicon bridge layer is attached to the substrate by an adhesive layer. A first die is coupled to the substrate and the silicon bridge layer. A second die is coupled to the silicon bridge layer, wherein the first die and the second die communicate with one another by way of the one or more redistribution layers. Power and/or ground connectors are coupled to the first bond pad and the second bond pad for enabling grounding and/or transferring power from the semiconductor substrate to the second die.
US09640517B2
A stacked electronic package includes a substrate and conductive straps each having sides, a top, and a bottom opposite the top. Each conductive strap is coupled along the bottom to an upper surface of the substrate and is separate from others of the conductive straps. A length of at least one of the sides is greater than a width of at least another one of the sides. An encapsulant extends over the upper surface and side surfaces of the substrate and the sides of the conductive straps. A passive electronic component is disposed over the conductive straps, and each conductive strap is coupled along the top to a terminal of the passive electronic component.
US09640516B2
A flexible display includes a plurality of pixel chips, chixels, provided on a flexible substrate. The chixels and the light emitters thereon may be shaped, sized and arranged to minimize chixel, pixel, and sub-pixel gaps and to provide a desired bend radius of the display. The flexible substrate may include light manipulators, such as filters, light converters and the like to manipulate the light emitted from light emitters of the chixels. The light manipulators may be arranged to minimize chixel gaps between adjacent chixels.
US09640510B2
A method for bonding of a first, at least partially metallic contact surface of a first substrate to a second, at least partially metallic contact surface of a second substrate, with the following steps, especially the following progression: application of a sacrificial layer which is at least partially, especially predominantly soluble in the material of at least one of the contact surfaces to at least one of the contact surfaces, bonding of the contact surfaces with at least partial solution of the sacrificial layer in at least one of the contact surfaces.
US09640507B2
A bonding method for bonding a semiconductor chip to an underlying structure includes aligning an electrical contact of a lower surface of the semiconductor chip with an electrical connection member of an upper surface of the underlying structure, the electrical contact at least partially encased by a support material. The method further includes first heating the semiconductor chip and the underlying structure, deforming the electrical contact, and curing the support material encasing the deformed electrical contact. The method still further includes second heating the semiconductor chip and the underlying structure to bond the electrical contact of the semiconductor chip to the electrical connection member of the underlying structure while maintaining the support material in a cured state.
US09640506B2
An embodiment for manufacturing electronic devices is proposed. The embodiment includes the following phases: a) forming a plurality of chips in a semiconductor material wafer including a main surface; each chip includes respective integrated electronic components and respective contact pads facing the main surface; said contact pads are electrically coupled to the integrated electronic components; b) attaching at least one conductive ribbon to at least one contact pad of each chip; c) covering the main surface of the semiconductor material wafer and the at least one conductive ribbon with a layer of plastic material; d) lapping an exposed surface of the layer of plastic material to remove a portion of the plastic material layer at least to uncover portions of the at least one conductive ribbon, and e) sectioning the semiconductor material wafer to separate the chips.
US09640504B2
A semiconductor device is made by providing a sacrificial substrate and depositing an adhesive layer over the sacrificial substrate. A first conductive layer is formed over the adhesive layer. A polymer pillar is formed over the first conductive layer. A second conductive layer is formed over the polymer pillar to create a conductive pillar with inner polymer core. A semiconductor die or component is mounted over the substrate. An encapsulant is deposited over the semiconductor die or component and around the conductive pillar. A first interconnect structure is formed over a first side of the encapsulant. The first interconnect structure is electrically connected to the conductive pillar. The sacrificial substrate and adhesive layers are removed. A second interconnect structure is formed over a second side of the encapsulant opposite the first interconnect structure. The second interconnect structure is electrically connected to the conductive pillar.
US09640502B2
A stacked semiconductor device is provided in the present invention. The stacked semiconductor device includes a first substrate and a second substrate. A first conductive pad is disposed on the first substrate. A conductive pillar contacts the first conductive pad. At least one first barrier layer is disposed inside the conductive pillar. The conductive pillar encapsulates the first barrier layer. The elastic modulus of the first barrier layer is different from the elastic modulus of conductive pillar. A second conductive pad is disposed on the second substrate. A solder bump is disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate. The solder bump electrically connects to the conductive pillar. The conductive pillar can optionally include a truncated cone.
US09640499B2
A semiconductor chip may include a semiconductor substrate, a first central pad, a second central pad, a first peripheral pad, a second peripheral pad, a first pad line and a second pad line. The semiconductor substrate may have an active face. The first central pad and the second central pad may be arranged on a central region of the active face. The first peripheral pad and the second peripheral pad may be arranged on an edge region of the active face. The first pad line may be connected between the first central pad and the first peripheral pad. The second pad line may be connected between the second central pad and the second peripheral pad.
US09640493B2
An integrated circuit includes a substrate with several functional blocks formed thereon. At least two identical functional blocks are respectively disposed at two or more different locations on the integrated circuit. Electrically inactive dummy modules in the neighborhoods and/or inside of the functional blocks are provided, wherein at least two different electrically inactive dummy modules are includes in the respective neighborhoods and/or inside of the at least two identical functional blocks.
US09640491B2
A semiconductor device, including: an intermediate plate; a semiconductor element connected to one of surfaces of the intermediate plate by a brazing filler metal; a main plate connected to the other one of the surfaces of the intermediate plate by a brazing filler metal; and a resin layer, the intermediate plate having an external region extending to an outer side with respect to a region in which the intermediate plate is connected to the brazing filler metal, a first through-hole extending through the intermediate plate in the external region, the resin layer covering at least the brazing filler metal, the intermediate plate and a surface of the main plate in which the main plate faces the intermediate plate, the resin layer being also arranged inside the first through-hole.
US09640489B2
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate of a first conductivity type having a chip region enclosed by a seal ring region. An insulating layer is on the semiconductor substrate. A seal ring structure is embedded in the insulating layer corresponding to the seal ring region. And, a plurality of doping regions are located beneath the first seal ring structure.
US09640476B2
A driving circuit and a pin output order arranging method are disclosed. The driving circuit includes (M*N) pins and an arranging module. A first pin˜an N-th pin of the (M*N) pins, a (N+1)-th pin˜an 2N-th pin of the (M*N) pins, . . . , a [(M−1)*N+1]-th pin˜a (M*N)-th pin of the (M*N) pins are arranged along a first direction in a specific distance spaced to form a first row of pins˜an M-th row of pins. The first row of pins˜the M-th row of pins are staggered along a second direction in a staggering way or an aligning way. M and N are integers larger than 1. The arranging module correspondingly arranges the pin output order of the (M*N) pins according to different application modes of the driving circuit.
US09640474B1
A semiconductor package includes an output inductor placed over a support substrate, a power semiconductor die having a bottom surface situated on the support substrate and a top surface having an active region, where the output inductor is coupled to the active region on the top surface of the support substrate, and where the support substrate includes a plurality of bar vias. The output inductor is a packaged component having at least two leads in electrical connection with the active region of the power semiconductor die. The support substrate further includes routing conductors in electrical connection with the active region of the power semiconductor die. The power semiconductor die includes a control transistor and a sync transistor connected in a half-bridge.
US09640471B2
Leadless electronic packages for GaN-based half bridge power conversion circuits have low inductance internal and external connections, high thermal conductivity and a large separation between external connections for use in high voltage power conversion circuits. Some electronic packages employ “L” shaped power paths and internal low impedance die to die connections. Further embodiments employ an insulative substrate disposed within the electronic package for efficient power path routing and increased packaging density.
US09640467B2
An electronic chip is disclosed, including at least one electronic circuit and two or more contact-making pins, wherein the chip additionally has at least one fixing pin. A sensor arrangement is also disclosed for detecting at least one physical or chemical variable relating to a carrier. The sensor arrangement has at least one sensor element which is directly or indirectly coupled to the carrier, and also has an electronic interface arrangement with at least one leadframe, at least one electronic circuit connected to the leadframe, and also at least one electrically insulating housing part which is embodied in such a way that it performs at least one of the functions of (i) at least partly enclosing the at least one electronic circuit, and (ii) mechanically supporting at least parts of the leadframe to one another.
US09640459B1
A semiconductor device includes a leadframe and a semiconductor chip including a contact. The contact faces the leadframe and is electrically coupled to the leadframe via solder. The semiconductor device includes a solder barrier adjacent to the first contact and an edge of the chip.
US09640453B2
This invention is provided with: a circuit board which is placed in a package and in which an electric circuit including a power semiconductor element is formed; and a plurality of press-fit terminals each having a wire-bond portion electrically connected in the package to the electric circuit, a press-fit portion for making electrical connection with an apparatus to be connected, and a body portion whose one end portion continuous to the wire bond portion is internally fastened to the package and whose other end portion supports the press-fit portion so as to place the press-fit portion away from the package; wherein in each of the plurality of press-fit terminals, at a portion in the body portion exposed from the package, there is formed a constriction portion that is constricted from both sides in a direction perpendicular to the center line, so as to leave a portion around the center line.
US09640451B2
A wafer processing method is provided. The method includes providing a to-be-processed wafer having a first surface with a plurality of the device regions and dicing groove regions between adjacent device regions and a second surface; and providing a capping wafer having a first surface and a second surface. The method also includes bonding the first surface of the capping wafer with the first surface of the to-be-processed wafer. Further, the method includes performing an edge trimming process onto the to-be-processed wafer to cause a radius of the to-be-processed wafer to be smaller than a radius of the capping wafer; and grinding the second surface of the capping wafer. Further, the method also includes cleaning the second surface of the capping wafer; and etching a portion of the grinded and cleaned capping wafer to expose the dicing groove regions on the first surface of the to-be-processed wafer.
US09640445B1
A method of fabricating a switched-capacitor converter includes providing a semiconductor layer having a top surface and a bottom surface, forming switching elements on the top surface of the semiconductor layer, forming a first insulation layer and first interconnection patterns on the switching elements, forming a second insulation layer over the first insulation layer and the first interconnection patterns, forming a second interconnection pattern over the second insulation layer, forming a third insulation layer over the second insulation layer and the second interconnection pattern, forming third interconnection patterns and a lower interconnection pattern over the bottom surface of the semiconductor layer, forming a capacitor over the lower interconnection pattern, forming a fourth insulation layer over the bottom surface of the semiconductor layer to expose an upper electrode pattern of the capacitor, forming a fifth insulation layer covering the capacitor, and forming pads in the fifth insulation layer.
US09640444B2
Provided is a method of fabricating a semiconductor device with a field effect transistor. The method may include forming a first gate electrode and a second gate electrode extending substantially parallel to each other and each crossing a PMOSFET region on a substrate and an NMOSFET region on the substrate; forming an interlayered insulating layer covering the first gate electrode and the second gate electrode; patterning the interlayered insulating layer to form a first sub contact hole on the first gate electrode, the first sub contact hole being positioned between the PMOSFET region and the NMOSFET region, when viewed in a plan view; and patterning the interlayered insulating layer to form a first gate contact hole and to expose a top surface of the second gate electrode, wherein the first sub contact hole and the first gate contact hole form a single communication hole.
US09640441B2
An embodiment is an integrated circuit structure including two insulation regions over a substrate with one of the two insulation regions including a void, at least a bottom surface of the void being defined by the one of the two insulation regions. The integrated circuit structure further includes a first semiconductor strip between and adjoining the two insulation regions, where the first semiconductor strip includes a top portion forming a fin over top surfaces of the two insulation regions, a gate dielectric over a top surface and sidewalls of the fin, and a gate electrode over the gate dielectric.
US09640436B1
A semiconductor device includes a source and drain on a substrate; a first and second gate on the source, and the second gate and a third gate on the drain; a source contact over the source and between the first and second gates, the source contact including first and second portions, the first portion in contact with the source and extending between the first and second gates, and the second portion contacting the first portion and extending over the first and second gates; and a drain contact formed over the drain and between the second and third gates, the drain contact including first and second portions, the first portion contacting the drain, extending between second and third gates, and recessed with respect to the first portion of the source contact, and the second portion in contact with the first portion and extending between and over the second and third gates.
US09640434B2
A method for processing an electroplated copper film in copper interconnect process is disclosed by the present invention. Firstly, in the copper back-end-of-line interconnect process, the first annealing process for the electroplated copper film is performed at or below 180° C.; then, after the copper back-end-of-line interconnect process, another annealing process with higher temperature (equal or above 240° C.) to the electroplated copper film is performed to make the copper recrystallize, so as to decrease the resistivity of the electroplated copper film and form an interface state having lower resistivity at the interface of the vias bottom, which decrease the contact resistance between the vias and the underlying copper interconnects and further reduce the RC time delay in the vias. The present invention can be applied in the Cu/Low-k back-end-of-line interconnect process and compatible with the standard Cu/Low-k back-end-of-line process integration.
US09640432B2
The disclosed subject matter provides a memory device structure and a fabricating method thereof. The memory device structure includes a substrate including a device region and a peripheral region; multiple gate structures; a first dielectric layer, a second barrier layer, multiple source interconnecting lines, and multiple drain region plugs; a second dielectric layer in the device region include multiple source line plugs, and multiple second drain region plugs, and multiple controlling gate plugs; a third dielectric layer including multiple first conductive layers; a fourth dielectric layer including multiple interconnecting structures; a fifth dielectric layer including multiple second conductive layers; and a sixth dielectric layer including multiple third conductive layers.
US09640423B2
Integrated circuits and methods for producing the same are provided. In accordance with one embodiment a method of producing an integrated circuit includes forming a trench defined by a first material. The trench is filled with a second material to produce a gap defined within the second material, where the second material is in a solid state. The second material is reflowed within the trench to reduce a volume of the gap, and the second material is then solidified within the trench.
US09640421B2
Examples of the various techniques introduced here include, but not limited to, a mesa height adjustment approach during shallow trench isolation formation, a transistor via first approach, and a multiple absorption layer approach. As described further below, the techniques introduced herein include a variety of aspects that can individually and/or collectively resolve or mitigate one or more traditional limitations involved with manufacturing PDs and transistors on the same substrate, such as above discussed reliability, performance, and process temperature issues.
US09640413B2
Provided is an etching-before-packaging horizontal chip three-dimensional system level metal circuit board structure comprising a metal substrate frame; the metal substrate frame is provided with base islands and pins therein; the front faces of the base islands are provided with chips; the front faces of the chips are connected to the front faces of the pins via metal wires; conductive posts are disposed on the front faces or back faces of the pins; the peripheral areas of the base islands, the areas between the base islands and the pins, the areas between the pins, the areas above the base islands and the pins, the areas below the base islands and the pins, and the exteriors of the chips, the metal wires and the conductive posts are all encapsulated with molding compound.
US09640411B2
Method for manufacturing a transistor device comprising a germanium channel material on a silicon based substrate, the method comprising providing a shallow trench isolation (STI) substrate comprising a silicon protrusion embedded in STI dielectric structures, and partially recessing the silicon protrusion in order to provide a trench in between adjacent STI structures, and to provide a V-shaped groove at an upper surface of the recessed protrusion. The method also includes growing a Si1-xGex SRB layer in the trenches, and growing a germanium based channel layer on the Si1-xGex SRB layer. In this example, the Si1-xGex SRB layer comprises a germanium content x that is within the range of 20% to 99%, and the SRB layer has a thickness less than 400 nm. The present disclosure also relates to an associated transistor device.
US09640410B2
According to one embodiment, a pattern formation method includes forming a resist pattern on an underlying film, slimming the resist pattern, forming a pinning portion having affinity for a first polymer by depositing, on a surface of the slimmed resist pattern, an etching product produced by etching the underlying film, forming a neutral, film having affinity for the first polymer and a second polymer on the underlying film after the etching, forming a block copolymer film containing the first polymer and the second polymer on the pinning portion and the neutral film, forming a microphase separation pattern by applying a predetermined process to the block copolymer film to perform microphase separation.
US09640408B2
A method for etching a layer in a plasma chamber with an inner injection zone gas feed and an outer injection zone gas feed is provided. The layer is placed in the plasma chamber. A pulsed etch gas is provided from the inner injection zone gas feed at a first frequency, wherein flow of pulsed etch gas from the inner injection zone gas feed is ramped down to zero. The pulsed etch gas is provided from the outer injection zone gas feed at the first frequency and simultaneous with and out of phase with the pulsed etch gas from the inner injection zone gas feed. The etch gas is formed into a plasma to etch the layer, simultaneous with the providing the pulsed etch gas from the inner injection zone gas feed and providing the pulsed gas from the outer interjection zone gas feed.
US09640407B2
A polishing composition of the present invention contains a water-soluble polymer having a hydrophilic group, and abrasive grains. A hydrophobic silicon-containing part after being polished with the polishing composition has a water contact angle lower than that of the hydrophobic silicon-containing part after being polished with another composition having the same makeup as the polishing composition except that the water-soluble polymer is not contained therein. Examples of the water-soluble polymer include polysaccharides and alcohol compounds. Another polishing composition of the present invention contains abrasive grains having a silanol group, and a water-soluble polymer. When this polishing composition is left to stand for one day in an environment at a temperature of 25° C., the water-soluble polymer is adsorbed on the abrasive grains at 5,000 or more molecules per 1 μm2 of surface area of the abrasive grains. Examples of this water-soluble polymer include nonionic compounds having a polyoxyalkylene chain.
US09640402B1
Methods for forming a gate structure of a circuit structure are provide. The methods for forming the gate structure may include: forming a first gate pattern in a gate mask layer, the forming including a first etching of rounded corner portions of the first gate pattern; forming a second gate pattern in the gate mask layer, the second gate pattern at least partially overlapping the first gate pattern, the forming including a second etching of rounded corner portions of the second gate pattern; and, etching the gate mask layer using the first gate pattern and second gate pattern to form the gate structure.
US09640398B2
A method of forming an integrated circuit includes forming a patterned mask layer on a material layer, wherein the patterned mask layer has a plurality of first features, and a first distance between adjacent first features of the plurality of first features. The method further includes patterning the material layer to form the first features in the material layer. The method further includes increasing the first distance between adjacent first features of the plurality of first features to a second distance. The method further includes treating portions of the material layer exposed by the patterned mask layer. The method further includes removing the patterned mask layer; and removing non-treated portions of the material layer.
US09640396B2
Novel double- and triple-patterning methods are provided. The methods involve applying a shrinkable composition to a patterned template structure (e.g., a structure having lines) and heating the composition. The shrinkable composition is selected to possess properties that will cause it to shrink during heating, thus forming a conformal layer over the patterned template structure. The layer is then etched to leave behind pre-spacer structures, which comprise the features from the pattern with remnants of the shrinkable composition adjacent the feature sidewalls. The features are removed, leaving behind a doubled pattern. In an alternative embodiment, an extra etch step can be carried out prior to formation of the features on the template structure, thus allowing the pattern to be tripled rather than doubled.
US09640391B2
A method for growing a transition metal dichalcogenide on a substrate, the method including providing a growth substrate having a first side and a second side opposite the first side; providing a source substrate having a first side and a second side opposite the first side; depositing a transition metal oxide on at least a portion of the first side of the source substrate; combining the growth substrate with the source substrate such that the first side of the growth substrate contacts the transition metal oxide, the combining producing a substrate stack; exposing the substrate stack to a chalcogenide gas, whereby the transition metal oxide reacts with the chalcogenide gas to produce a layer of a transition metal dichalcogenide on at least a portion of the first side of the growth substrate; and removing the source substrate from the growth substrate having the layer of the transition metal dichalcogenide thereon.
US09640383B2
A liquid treatment apparatus includes a substrate holding member that holds a substrate horizontally, a rotation mechanism that rotates the substrate holding member; a chemical liquid nozzle that supplies a chemical liquid to the substrate held by the substrate holding member; a top plate that covers the substrate held by the substrate holding member from above the substrate; and at least one LED lamp that heats the substrate during a chemical liquid treatment by irradiating the substrate with light of a predetermined wavelength through the top plate from above the top plate.
US09640382B2
In a substrate processing apparatus, with an internal space of a chamber brought into a reduced pressure atmosphere, a first processing liquid is supplied onto an upper surface of a substrate while the substrate is rotated, and the first processing liquid is thereby quickly spread from a center portion toward a peripheral portion on the upper surface of the substrate. It is thereby possible to coat the upper surface of the substrate with the first processing liquid in a shorter time as compared with under normal pressure. Further, by sucking the first processing liquid from the vicinity of an edge of the substrate, it is possible to coat the upper surface of the substrate with the first processing liquid in a still shorter time. As a result, it is possible to shorten the time required for the processing of the substrate.
US09640375B2
The present invention provides a method for determining low mass ions for diagnosing colorectal cancer by using a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer to biostatistically analyze low mass ions, which are extracted from a biological sample, and a method for providing information for diagnosing colorectal cancer using same. The present inventions can provide a diagnostic method, which requires low cost and a short time for analysis, can analyze large areas, and which can provide superior and credible discriminations.
US09640360B2
Provided is a charged particle beam microscope which has a small mechanical vibration amplitude of a distal end of an emitter tip, is capable of obtaining an ultra-high resolution sample observation image and removing shaking or the like of the sample observation image. A gas field ion source includes: an emitter tip configured to generate ions; an emitter-base mount configured to support the emitter tip; a mechanism configured to heat the emitter tip; an extraction electrode installed to face the emitter tip; and a mechanism configured to supply a gas to the vicinity of the emitter tip, wherein the emitter tip heating mechanism is a mechanism of heating the emitter tip by electrically conducting a filament connecting at least two terminals, the terminals are connected by a V-shaped filament, an angle of the V shape is an obtuse angle, and the emitter tip is connected to a substantial center of the filament.
US09640348B2
A pushbutton switch includes a pushbutton unit and a resilient member. The pushbutton unit includes a mounting seat and a pushbutton covering the mounting seat. The resilient member has a switch contactor, two resilient arms extending respectively from opposite ends of the switch contactor, two abutment segments engaging the limiting seat, and four sustainment segments extending away from the abutment segments and inclined toward the switch contactor. When the pushbutton is pressed to push the sustainment segments, the resilient arms are deformed to have a resilient force for urging the pushbutton away from the limiting seat, and to drive the switch contactor to contact and move an activator of a switch assembly.
US09640346B2
The present invention provides a keyboard. The keyboard includes a circuit board, a key installing board, and a plurality of key switches, the circuit board is disposed opposite the key installing board, the key installing board is provided with a plurality of installation holes corresponding to the key switches, the plurality of key switches are movably clamped on the key installing board through the plurality of installation holes, each of the key switches has a conductor, the conductor extends in the direction of near the circuit board through an installation hole, the circuit board is provided with a plurality of connection terminals working with conductors of the plurality of key switches, the conductors of the plurality of key switches are contacted with the plurality of connected terminals of the circuit board. The key switches of the keyboard of the present invention are moveable, elongating use-life of the keyboard.
US09640332B2
Hybrid electrochemical capacitors, electronic devices using such capacitors, and associated methods are disclosed. In an example, a hybrid electrochemical capacitor can include a first electrode made from Mg, Na, Zn, Al, Sn, or Li, a second electrode made from a porous material such as porous carbon or passivated porous silicon, and an electrolyte. The hybrid electrochemical capacitors can have enhanced voltage and energy density compared to other electrochemical capacitors, and enhanced power density compared to batteries.
US09640324B2
A metallized film capacitor includes: a first dielectric film; a first metal deposition electrode provided to a first surface of the first dielectric film; a second dielectric film; and a second metal deposition electrode that is provided to a first surface of the second dielectric film and that faces the first dielectric film. The metallized film capacitor further includes: a low resistance provided above at least one of a first end of the first metal deposition electrode and a first end of the second metal deposition electrode; and a first film that covers at least a portion of the low resistance and that comprises mainly aluminum oxide.
US09640320B2
In a method of producing a grain-oriented electrical steel sheet by subjecting a coil for grain-oriented electrical steel sheet after cold rolling to a primary recrystallization annealing, applying an annealing separator thereon, and conducting final annealing, rapid heating is conducted at a rate of not less than 80° C./sec from 500° C. to 700° C. in the course of heating for the primary recrystallization annealing, and a temperature keeping treatment is conducted for 2 to 100 hours from 700° C. to 1000° C. in the course of heating for the final annealing, and further, the final annealing is preferably conducted by laying a thermal insulation material on an upper surface of a coil supporting stand in an annealing furnace used for the final annealing concentrically from the outer periphery of the coil supporting stand and over an area of not less than 20% of the radius of the coil supporting stand.
US09640319B2
The anisotropic rare earth magnet powder of the present invention includes powder particles having R2TM14B1-type crystals of a tetragonal compound of a rare earth element (R), boron (B), and a transition element (TM) having an average crystal grain diameter of 0.05 to 1 μm, and enveloping layers containing at least a rare earth element (R′) and copper (Cu) and enveloping surfaces of the crystals. Owing to the presence of the enveloping layers, coercivity of the anisotropic rare earth magnet powder can be remarkably enhanced without using a scarce element such as Ga and Dy.
US09640313B2
A multilayer inductor includes a multilayer body formed by stacking magnetic layers on top of one another. Loop-like line-shaped conductors are respectively formed on the magnetic layers. The loop-like line-shaped conductors are connected to one another by interlayer connection conductors, and thereby a coil conductor having an axis extending in the stacking direction is formed. One end of the line-shaped conductor, which is an uppermost-layer-side end portion of the coil conductor, is connected to a line-shaped conductor, which is for routing and is formed on a higher layer, by a interlayer connection conductor. The line-shaped conductor is connected to an interlayer connection conductor that is formed so as to penetrate through substantially the center inside the loop-like line-shaped conductors. The interlayer connection conductor is connected to an external connection conductor on a bottom surface of the multilayer body via a line-shaped conductor and an interlayer connection conductor.
US09640302B2
A cable with a molded resin includes a cable including an electric wire and a sheath covering the electric wire, the electric wire including a central conductor and an insulation covering the central conductor, and a molded resin covering a part of the electric wire protruding from the sheath in a longitudinal direction thereof, the molded resin being apart from the sheath. The electric wire is bent at not less than one bent part in the molded resin.
US09640289B2
A fuel storage system for storing and drying nuclear fuel rods includes a vertically oriented capsule defining an internal cavity. A plurality of fuel rod storage tubes is disposed in the cavity. In one embodiment, each storage tube has a transverse cross section configured and dimensioned to hold no more than one fuel rod. Intact or damaged fuel rods may be stored in the storage tubes. After the fuel rods are loaded into the capsule, a lid is attached to a previously open top end of the capsule. In one embodiment, the lid may be sealed welded to the capsule for forming a gas tight enclosure. The interior of the capsule and multiple fuel rods contained therein may be dried together simultaneously via flow conduits formed in the lid that can be fluidly connected to a suitable drying process such as a forced gas dehydration system.
US09640281B1
A memory system includes: a memory device including a plurality of blocks each block including a plurality of pages, suitable for performing an operation in response to a command and an address; and a controller suitable for determining whether a block in which a read fail has occurred is an open block including an unprogrammed page, performing a restoration operation for the unprogrammed page of the open block based on at least one of operation temperature information and a read count, when it is determined that the block in which the read fail has occurred is the open block, and generating the command for performing a read retry operation.
US09640274B1
A semiconductor memory device includes word lines, bit lines, and memory cells at intersections of the word lines and the bit lines. A driver is configured to a voltage to a selected word line. A sense amplifier is configured to detect data of the memory cells. A controller is configured to control the driver and the sense amplifier. A writing sequence of writing data to a selected memory cell connected to the selected word line includes a plurality of writing loops including a write operation and a verify operation. The controller is configured to perform the write operation on the selected memory cell a predetermined number of times corresponding to write data to be written to the selected memory cell, without the verify operation, after a threshold voltage of the selected memory cell connected to the selected word line reaches a first level.
US09640273B1
Techniques are provided for preventing program disturb when programming a memory device. Hot electron injection program disturb is prevented or reduced. Voltage boosting of the NAND channel of a program inhibited NAND string may be controlled in a manner to reduce or eliminate a lateral electric field that could possibly accelerate electrons in the NAND channel. If the electrons gain enough energy due to the lateral electric field, they could potentially be injected into the charge storage region of a memory cell, thereby causing program disturb. Thus, the voltage boosting can prevent or reduce injection of hot electrons from the NAND channel to a charge storage region of a NAND memory cell during a programming operation, thereby preventing or reducing program disturb.
US09640269B2
A semiconductor memory device according to an embodiment comprises: a memory cell array, the memory cell array including a memory block, the memory block including a memory cell, the memory cell including a semiconductor layer, a conductive layer, and a charge accumulation layer, the charge accumulation layer being disposed between the semiconductor layer and the conductive layer; and a control circuit that executes an access operation on the memory cell, the control circuit, triggered by the access operation, detecting a leak current of the conductive layer, and when the leak current is a certain value or more, executing a faulty memory block processing that registers as an access-prohibited region the memory block including the conductive layer.
US09640253B2
A non-volatile memory system including multi-level storage optimized for ramp sensing and soft decoding is provided. Sensing is performed at a higher bit resolution than an original user data encoding to improve the accuracy of reading state information from non-volatile storage elements. Higher resolution state information is used for decoding the original user data to improve read performance through improved error handling. Ramp sensing is utilized to determine state information by applying a continuous input scanning sense voltage that spans a range of read compare points. Full sequence programming is enabled as is interleaved coding of the user data over all of the data bit sets associated with the storage elements.
US09640244B1
A method and apparatus for pre-calibration of various system performance states is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes, for each of a number of different performance states (or operating points), performing initial calibrations of various parameters associated with transfers of data between a memory and a memory controller. After completing the initial calibrations, the calibrated values are stored. Thereafter, during normal operation and following a change to a new performance state, the values of the various parameters are set to the values to which they were calibrated during the initial calibration for that state.
US09640228B2
Methods and devices for providing unclonable chip identification are provided. An integrated circuit device includes: a first transistor having a first gate oxide thickness; a second transistor having a second gate oxide thickness different than the first gate oxide thickness; and a reading circuit connected to the first transistor and the second transistor, wherein the reading circuit reads a difference in threshold voltage between the first transistor and the second transistor.
US09640225B2
Provided are an image processing apparatus and method for processing images. The image processing apparatus is connected to at least one camera and includes: a performance calculating unit configured to calculate a decoding performance of the at least one camera based on information about at least one of a codec, a resolution and a frame rate of image frames which are received from the at least one camera, and a filtering unit configured to filter the received image frames to select image frames for decoding, based on a result of the calculation of the decoding performance of the at least one camera.
US09640223B2
Methods, apparatus, and systems for time-based and geographic navigation of video content are provided. Video content and associated metadata information are recorded and encoded using a video capture and encoding module. The associated metadata information includes at least one of date and time information of the recording and geographic position information indicative of a recording location. The recorded video content and the associated metadata information are communicated to a remote storage and web server device. A graphical user interface enables the display of an interactive map showing a route and current location of the video capture and encoding module. The video content may be searched using at least one of the graphical user interface and the interactive map by the date and/or time information and the geographic position information. Selected video content can be streamed or downloaded to a select location for display or storage.
US09640222B2
A multivariant video segmentation system and method including accepting video segments that make up a video, accepting video segment variants for the video segments, and selecting a particular video segment variant to provide as a video segment at a particular sequential time order. The video segments are provided to a user at each relative sequential time order via a video player on a first webpage, user inputs associated with the video player and at least one webpage are accepted, and engagements and conversions from the user inputs are determined and stored. The engagements include at least a viewing time of the user viewing the video, and conversions include completion of a predefined task by the user that differs from the user viewing the video. The video segment path with the highest engagement or conversion value associated with information related to the user viewing the video is provided to the user.
US09640204B2
Implementations disclosed herein provide an apparatus comprising a write pole, and a two-layer front shield formed on the write pole, the front shield comprising, a first dielectric material formed on the first layer of the front shield, an active shield control (ASC) device formed between the two layers of the front shield on the first dielectric material configured to synchronize the response to a magnetomotive force (MMF) of a write pole and the front shield, and a second dielectric material formed on the ASC device, wherein the second layer of the front shield is formed only on top of the second dielectric material and the first layer of the front shield.
US09640203B1
An apparatus comprises a recording transducer configured for microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) and a magnetic recording medium. The recording transducer comprises a write pole configured to generate a write magnetic field and a write-assist arrangement proximate the write pole. The write-assist arrangement is configured to generate a radio frequency assist magnetic field at a plurality of different frequencies. The magnetic recording medium comprises a plurality of tracks, wherein adjacent tracks of the medium have different ferromagnetic resonant frequencies.
US09640195B2
Embodiments of the invention include a device for reducing noise. The device may include a storage configured to store noise data; a processor configured to: classify a segment of noise utilizing noise data which was accumulated prior to initiation of a communication session; estimate the segment of noise, utilizing information received from the noise classification; and select a noise profile which accounts for a user's current context based on a context defined by the data which was accumulated prior to initiation of the communication session.
US09640190B2
In a speech coding scheme based on a speech production model, such as a CELP-based scheme, an object of the present invention is to provide a decoding method that can reproduce natural sound even if the input signal is a noise-superimposed speech. The decoding method includes a speech decoding step of obtaining a decoded speech signal from an input code, a noise generating step of generating a noise signal that is a random signal, and a noise adding step of outputting a noise-added signal, the noise-added signal being obtained by summing the decoded speech signal and a signal obtained by performing, on the noise signal, a signal processing that is based on at least one of a power corresponding to a decoded speech signal for a previous frame and a spectrum envelope corresponding to the decoded speech signal for the current frame.
US09640182B2
Systems and vehicles that provide speech recognition system status notifications are described herein. Systems described herein include one or more processors, one or more memory modules, and machine readable instructions. In some embodiments described herein, when executed by the one or more processors, the machine readable instructions cause the speech recognition system to transform the acoustic vibrations received by a microphone into a speech input signal, determine to remotely process the speech input signal with a remote computing system, and provide a remote processing notification. In some embodiments described herein, when executed by the one or more processors, the machine readable instructions cause the speech recognition system to output an audible sequence with a speaker and provide a barge-in availability notification on a display.
US09640178B2
A speech recognition method and system enables user-configurable speech commands. For a given speech command, the speech recognition engine provides a mechanism for the end-user to select speech command terms to use in substitution for the given speech command. The speech recognition engine, or module thereof, forms a replacement command for the given speech command from the user-selected speech command terms. The speech recognition engine thereafter is synonymously responsive to user utterance of the replacement command as though the user issued/voiced the associated counterpart given speech command.
US09640176B2
An apparatus and a method are provided for building a spoken language understanding model. Labeled data may be obtained for a target application. A new classification model may be formed for use with the target application by using the labeled data for adaptation of an existing classification model. In some implementations, the existing classification model may be used to determine the most informative examples to label.
US09640169B2
A method and system for a noise cancellation comprises an amplifier in communication with the three or more speakers disposed in an area. A system controller produces a driver signal for each of the speakers in response to a signal from at least one microphone detecting sound in the area and communicates the driver signals to the amplifier. The amplifier drives each speaker with the driver signal produced for that speaker. In response to the driver signals, the speakers emit sound that combined produces a substantially uniform sound pressure field for a particular zone within the area. The substantially uniform sound pressure field produced by the speakers has a magnitude and phase adapted to attenuate a noise field in the area corresponding to the sound detected by the at least one microphone.
US09640167B2
A smart pillow unit and processes for providing active noise cancellation and biofeedback.
US09640165B2
An active vibration noise control apparatus is provided. When a vehicle speed changes thereby to change frequency characteristics (peak-amplitude frequency) of vibration noise, the active vibration noise control apparatus refers to a vehicle speed versus frequency correspondence table representing a correspondence relation between a vehicle speed of a vehicle and a frequency of a reference signal, and changes the frequency of the reference signal that is used by an adaptive notch filter.
US09640148B2
A data processing system comprises a host processor and a graphics processor that renders frames to be output and writes those frames to a frame buffer.When a new frame is to be generated and written to the frame buffer, the host processor determines, for a set of plural sub-regions that the frame has been divided into, which of those sub-regions could have changed from the frame previously used for the frame buffer 30 and generates information indicating which sub-regions should be rendered to generate the new frame on the basis of the determination 31. The information indicating which sub-regions should be rendered to generate the frame is provided to the graphics processor 32 and the graphics processor uses the provided sub-region information to render only the indicated sub-regions 33.
US09640146B2
A self refresh method with dithering has at least the following steps: generating a plurality of original frames; performing a dithering process upon the plurality of original frames to generate a plurality of dithering frames to a timing controller; checking if the plurality of original frames is unaltered; and when it is detected that the plurality of original frames is unaltered, requesting the timing controller to enter a self refresh mode, and stopping transmission of dithering frames after transmitting a specific frame and dithering information associated with the specific frame to the timing controller for further dithering processing.
US09640145B2
A display apparatus is provided. The display apparatus includes: a detector configured to detect one or more user viewing positions; a display configured to have a changeable curvature; and a controller receiving information of the one or more user viewing positions from the detector, the controller configured to determine deviations between right-side viewing angles and left-side viewing angles at each of the one or more detected user viewing positions for a first curvature and a second curvature of the display; and the controller configured to set the changeable curvature of the display based on the deviation determinations between the right-side viewing angle and the left-side viewing angle.
US09640142B2
A method for detecting a region of interest (ROI) is provided, which includes acquiring a plurality of photographed images by photographing a display apparatus sequentially displaying thereon a plurality of different mono-color images, comparing gray levels of the plurality of photographed images and detecting a target region, and detecting a plurality of corner points of the target region, and detecting the region of interest (ROI) corresponding to a display screen of the display apparatus based on the plurality of corner points.
US09640140B2
A color management system is provided that includes a color transformation unit that uses a profile connection space to perform a color transformation process on input image data based on an input side color transformation parameter associated with the input image data for translating an input device-dependent color value that describes the input image data into a device-independent color value of the profile connection space and an output side color transformation parameter for matching the device-independent color value to an output device-dependent color value. The color management system further includes an output device selection unit that enables a user to select at least two output devices from plural output devices that are available for selection, and a profile connection space generation unit that automatically generates the profile connection space according to a predetermined profile connection space generation method based on the gamuts of the output devices selected by the user.
US09640137B2
An electronic apparatus includes a locking unit to selectively lock a physical connection with an external apparatus and a control unit to control an operation mode of the electronic apparatus, according to a connection state with the external apparatus, in which the control unit controls the locking unit to lock the connection with the external apparatus, when the electronic apparatus is in an operation mode of using a graphic processing unit of the external apparatus.
US09640130B2
A display driver is connectable with and serves to activate an active matrix type display panel having a plurality of source lines wired to run in an up-and-down direction and a plurality of gate lines wired to run in left and right directions when viewed from a direction perpendicular to a substrate, and a plurality of pixels respectively arranged at intersections where the source and gate lines intersect with one another; electric charges corresponding to display data are transmitted from the source lines to the pixels selected by the driven gate line. The display driver includes a circuit capable of adjusting, in amplitude, first gate drive circuits operable to drive, of the plurality of gate lines, gate lines wired from the left, and second gate drive circuits operable to drive gate lines wired from the right independently of one another.
US09640119B2
The present invention provides driving methods for color displays using electrophoretic fluids comprises four types of particles to display four colors at each pixel. Methods are also provided for displaying mixtures of certain pairs of colors at each pixel.
US09640116B2
The present invention provides an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display apparatus displaying a grayscale of one frame with N number of subfields. The OLED display apparatus includes a display panel where pixels are defined by an intersection of data lines and gate lines, a gate driving unit that provides a scan signal to the gate line, and a data driving unit that controls a data voltage in an analog manner. Here, the data voltage is provided to the data line in at least one subfield.
US09640114B2
A device includes a matrix of active pixels. Each active pixel includes an OLED and a control circuit configured to refresh the active pixel and including at least one transistor having a first conduction terminal coupled to a supply line and a second conduction terminal coupled to the OLED. Supply circuitry is configured to apply a supply voltage to the supply line of each active pixel during the refreshing of the active pixel and for a time period less than a duration of the refreshing of the active pixel.
US09640110B2
A light-emitting device comprising an emitting unit including at least two emitting elements, a driving unit configured to control the emitting unit, and a capacitor unit formed over the driving unit. A shield layer may be located between the two emitting elements. In one example, the capacitor unit is formed at a level higher than a level of the driving unit, and a shield layer that is located between the two emitting elements is formed at a level that is higher than the level of the driving unit and equal to or lower than the level of the capacitor unit.
US09640105B2
A signal processing method includes: inputting a first image signal and a second image signal, the first image signal containing gradation levels of respective pixels of a first frame, the second image signal containing gradation levels of respective pixels of a second frame that is continuous from the first frame; storing at least one predetermined gradation level as a correction-free gradation level that needs no correction; determining whether or not the gradation level of the first frame for every pixel is the stored correction-free gradation level, based on the input first image signal; and outputting a gradation level in the input second image signal by using, as a correction-free pixel that needs no correction, a pixel for which the gradation level of the first frame is determined as the correction-free gradation level.
US09640104B2
To reduce power consumption of a display device. A sequence of supply of video signals to a plurality of pixels included in an active matrix display device is controlled. For example, a supply sequence is controlled so that the potentials of the video signals supplied to a plurality of pixels are in ascending order or in descending order. This enables a reduction in the amount of charge and discharge of electric charge of signal lines which supply video signals to a plurality of pixels. Consequently, power consumption of the display device can be reduced.
US09640099B2
The present disclosure relates to the field of display technique. Disclosed are a display control circuit, a display control method and a display apparatus. The circuit comprises: a signal supplying unit for outputting an image data signal; a timing control unit for processing the image data signal into an signal recognizable for a driving circuit unit; a storage unit for storing and transmitting the signal recognizable to the driving circuit unit; a sample storing unit connected with the signal supplying unit, for acquiring and storing the image data signal; and a sample comparing unit for comparing a current frame signal outputted from the signal supplying unit with a previous frame signal stored in the sample storing unit and controlling the timing control unit to be turned on or off and controlling whether the signal stored in the storage unit needs to be updated according to a comparison result. In the embodiments of the present disclosure, part of modules in the timing control unit are turned off and the image data signal to be displayed is provided to the driving circuit unit by the storage unit when the signal outputted from the signal supplying unit is unchanged, so that intermittent operations of part of the modules are realized to reduce the power consumption in the circuit.
US09640095B2
The present invention provides a photography light panel reflector clamp for mounting a photography light panel reflector with a rod member. The photography light panel reflector clamp of the present invention includes a central member, a groove and a turning clamp set. A rod member clamping seat is disposed on the central member, and a mounting portion is disposed at an opening of the rod member clamping seat. The groove is formed across a mounting face on a side of the central member, and the turning clamp set is disposed on the central member next to the groove. A flange of the photography light panel reflector has a segment fitted in the groove, and the turning clamp set is utilized to fix the segment of the flange of the photography light panel reflector in the groove with the photography light panel reflector clamp.
US09640094B2
A sign holder includes a sign sleeve having a width and being defined by a viewing flange, a base flange and a first joint that couples the viewing flange to the base flange. At least one protruding member has a width and is coupled to and extends from the base flange at an at least one second joint. Each protruding member includes a leg portion and at least two hook portions coupled to the leg portion at an at least one third joint. The leg portion is oriented relative to the base flange by a first angle and each hook portion is oriented relative to the leg portion by a second angle. The width of the sign sleeve is greater than the width of the at least one protruding member.
US09640093B1
A new and innovative way to display images at a gravesite. This by using the monument mounted flower vase or vase mounting as the placement point for the display. The display can be introduced to an existing vase or mounting through the use of an adapter. A mounting point could also be incorporated into the vase or mounting at the time of manufacture, this to support the image display.
US09640091B2
An article such as a greeting card (10) comprising a sheet (11) defining at least one central portion (16) and at least one versatile portion (18) connected together via at least one fold (20). The central portion (16) has two opposing edges (26, 28) adapted to be drawn together to create a three-dimensional form. The fold (20) is located at a junction of the central portion (16) and versatile portion (18). These portions (16, 18) are foldably connected together whereby the versatile portion (18) can be folded and adapted for location adjacent to or at an angle to the three-dimensional form, and may be secured at that location. The greeting card (10) may further comprise numerous engagement means (30, 32), apertures (38) and cords (39). The greeting card (10) can be delivered in a collapsed condition and can be readily assembled into a three-dimensional form revealing the ingenuity of the card.
US09640086B2
A method of radio simulation is provided. The method includes a first computer executing a communication manager, the communication manager configured to provide a radio simulation environment comprising a virtual radio network. The method also includes the first computer executing a communication management controller, wherein the communication management controller receives radio control input for the virtual radio network. The method also includes the first computer executing a tactical and environment cue controller, the tactical and environment cue controller configured to provide simulated audible sounds for the radio simulation environment. The method also includes the first computer executing a configuration controller, the configuration controller coupled to the communication manager and configured to receive at least one radio simulator configuration that designates at least a number of radios and frequencies.
US09640083B1
A method for providing electronic content for a learning appliance is disclosed. The method includes selecting a learning appliance from a set of different learning appliances on a host site. The set of learning appliances is previously selected from a group of learning appliances. The electronic content package is received and is loaded into the learning appliance.
US09640074B2
Systems and methods for tracking a vehicle may use a mobile device associated with a tracking account, a server, and one or more client devices associated with one or more users. The mobile device may be configured to receive a location update from a location service and transmit data associated with the location update over a network. The server may be configured to receive the data associated with the location update from the mobile device, map the location update to a predefined route comprising one or more predefined stops to generate a route update, and transmit data associated with the route update over a network. The one or more client devices may be configured to receive the data associated with the route update from the sever. Access to the route update may be limited to a pre-authorized set of the one or more users associated with the tracking account.
US09640073B2
Disclosed herein is a traveler information monitoring and dissemination system. The system disclosed herein provides real time information to a traveler, wherein the real time information may be pre-selected by the traveler. The system ensures consistent and quality data are produced and issued to the traveler.
US09640068B2
What is provided is recording capability for each of the modules utilized by the first responders and other personnel within the area of the incident, with the stored information at each of the first responders' modules being read out through the ad hoc network, where it can be uploaded to storage. The stored information can be displayed at an incident commander work station in real time to give the incident commander a realistic view of the timeline and the severity of the incident, as well as the response. The use of the ad hoc network permits offloading stored information from each of the first responders' modules so as to free up storage within the modules. By providing storage at every node of the ad hoc network, one has access to a timeline of the actions at the incident as well as redundancy, which enhances the memories and observational skills of the first responders. Incident reporting is made complete due to the fact of all recordings being made available at one node on the temporary ad hoc network from which information reports and analysis can proceed, as well as subsequent training.
US09640067B1
Described herein are systems and methods for a media controller configured to associate data from a media device received using a media device interface with actions on the media devices. The associated data and actions may be used to build a media device interface command map. The media device interface command map may be used by the media controller to control the media device. A user interface provided by the media controller may thus be used to control disparate devices, allowing for a coordinated and consistent user experience across multiple media devices, even when they are from different manufacturers.
US09640060B2
A system, method, and computer-readable storage medium configured to track the location of lost payment cards.
US09640054B2
An item tracking system includes a plurality of items for storage and removal from a compartment. The system includes tags affixed to the items and configured to store identifiers for the items. A tag reader receives data from the tags in response to the items being removed from and returned to the compartment. A sensor in the compartment identifies a state change associated with the compartment. A processor identifies removal of an item with data received by the tag reader, identifies the state change with the sensor after the item is removed and before it is returned, and generates an output with an output device including the identifier corresponding to the item in response to the state change in the compartment.
US09640043B1
A remote display device for displaying real time measurement values is configured to operate as a device in a metrology personal area network (“MPAN”) which also includes a dimensional metrology user interface device and one or more dimensional metrology measurement devices (e.g., calipers, etc.). In various implementations, the remote display device is configured to be operable in either a first mode (e.g., a slave mode) or a second mode (e.g., an independent mode). In a slave mode, the remote display device is responsive to control instructions that are received from the dimensional metrology user interface device to configure a display of real time measurement values from one or more of the measurement devices. In an independent mode, the remote display device is configurable to display real time measurement values from one or more of the measurement devices without receiving control instructions from the dimensional metrology user interface device.
US09640041B2
In an example embodiment, an automated banking machine that allows a customer to employ a mobile wireless device for performing banking transactions. The customer may request assistance from a teller or other bank personnel at a remote location. An audio, and optionally video, communication may be initiated between the remote location and the customer. The customer may use either the automated banking machine, mobile wireless device, or both for communicating with the remote location.
US09640036B2
A gaming machine comprises a display and a game control to control images of symbols to be displayed on the display. Symbols are stored for positioning in an array. The symbols include game-specific standard symbols and bonus symbols and are organized in a predetermined mix and number to define a bonusing scheme for filling positions of the array. The game control randomly selects portions of the array for displaying images of the symbols in a matrix format on the display during a play of the game, and associates symbols within paylines of the matrix to provide play outcomes in accordance with the bonusing scheme and a paytable prescribed for the particular game. The game control is configured to provide play options individually selectable by a player before a play. Each play option has a prescribed set of symbols and each set is designed with a predetermined bonusing scheme.
US09640026B2
In a gaming machine including a symbol region where reels having symbols are arranged in predetermined arrangement. The symbols are displayed in an arranged manner in longitudinal and transverse directions. A reel control unit that independently controls movement of the reels. A winning determination unit determines whether the symbols appearing on a valid line set to span the reels form a predetermined winning pattern. The symbol region includes layer. At least one reel is disposed in each layer. A symbol group is provided in at least one reel or in a specific layer in such a manner that symbols capable of forming at least portion of the winning pattern are arranged in the symbol group.
US09640011B2
A memory card reader unit, which has a generally rectangular parallelepiped shape. The unit includes a memory card insertion face having an insertion recess and an insertion slot for a memory card, which has a lower lip and an upper lip. The lower lip extends longitudinally and parallel to an insertion plane of a memory card in the reader unit, forming an extended insertion lip extending beyond an insertion plane.
US09640007B2
The precision of detection of abnormal media is increased using a unique identification number. A banknote deposit/withdrawal mechanism of an automated teller machine confirms whether a banknote having the same serial number is among transaction banknotes by comparing each transaction serial number obtained by reading the serial number for each transaction banknote with other transaction serial numbers. Thereby, when counterfeit notes having the same serial number are included among the transaction banknotes, the banknote deposit/withdrawal mechanism cannot determine a banknote as counterfeit in a process of collating the serial numbers with a counterfeit note serial number list, but can determine that a banknote is counterfeit in a collation process between the transaction serial numbers. In this case, the banknote deposit/withdrawal mechanism can prevent counterfeit notes from being transferred to a user by transporting a relevant transaction banknote together with all other transaction banknotes to a reject compartment.
US09640006B2
A method for detecting the actuation of a handle (10) of a motor vehicle door (20), the handle (10) including at least a locking electrode (60), having a capacitance across its terminals, and an unlocking request detection device (50) generating an unlocking request signal, the method including continuously measuring a variation of the unlocking request signal and a variation of the capacitance (ΔCV) of the locking electrode, determining an unlocking request, and then comparing the variation of the capacitance (ΔCV) with a threshold (S2) during consecutive first and second predetermined periods (t1, t2), respectively, in order to detect whether the handle (10) has been actuated.
US09640004B2
A method of operating a lock from a portable remote device includes sending a radio frequency identification signal from the portable remote device to a controller for the lock, and receiving the radio frequency identification signal at the lock controller and identifying the remote device as an authorized user of the lock. The method then includes sending a sound frequency identification signal from the portable remote device to the lock controller, receiving the sound frequency identification signal at the lock controller and identifying the remote device as an authorized user of the lock. The method further includes authorizing operation of the lock in accordance with the radio or sound frequency identification signal from the portable remote device. A system for practicing the method includes a lock controller capable of receiving a radio frequency identification signal and a sound frequency identification signal from the portable remote device.
US09640001B1
Obtaining and/or validating time-varying representations for user credentials at client devices is described.
US09639995B2
Systems and methods pertaining to generating a test drive script (TDS) based on vehicle data values (VDV) from a vehicle and driving circumstance parameters (DCP) that correspond to use of the vehicle when the VDV are captured are described herein. The TDS can include a baseline path that includes the paths taken by the vehicle while the VDV are captured. The TDS can include an alternate path that includes paths that approximate one or more paths taken by the vehicle while the VDV are captured. The VDV can include, but are not limited to, DTC and PID values from the vehicle. The DCP can include, but are not limited to, traffic condition parameters, meteorological parameters, location parameters, and motion parameters. The TDS can include notifications to alert a user to a location where certain VDV were captured to assist the user in recreating a symptom in a vehicle.
US09639986B2
The present specification relates to a head mounted display (HMD) and a method of controlling therefor. More specifically, the present specification provides a method for a user wearing an HMD to recognize at least one object positioned at the front via a virtual map. The HMD includes a display unit configured to display visual information, a position sensing unit configured to sense a position of the HMD, a camera unit configured to sense at least one object positioned at the front of the HMD, and a processor configured to control the display unit, the position sensing unit, and the camera unit. The processor is further configured to obtain position information of the HMD, generate a first virtual map indicating a virtual object corresponding to the at least one object positioned at the front of the HMD, based on the position information of the HMD, and display the first virtual map.
US09639984B2
A system and method for data manipulation based on real world object manipulation is described. A device captures an image of a physical object. The image is communicated via a network to a remote server. The remote server includes virtual object data associated with the image and a communication notification for a user of the computing device. The device receives the virtual object data and displays the virtual image in a virtual landscape using the virtual object data. In response to relative movement between the computing device and the physical object caused by the user, the virtual image is modified.
US09639977B2
A method of processing model data representing a body section with bilateral symmetry of a biological organism is proposed that comprises the steps of providing object imaging data representing the body section having one or more defect portions; calculating a longitudinal axis and a lateral axis of the body section based on mathematical analysis of the object imaging data; and determining a mirror plane based on the calculated longitudinal and lateral axes. Said mirror plane allows for reconstructing the one or more defect portions by mirroring one or more corresponding portions having no defects at the mirror plane.
US09639976B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for displaying shadows of circular light sources. A computing device can determine a light source and an occluding polygon that is between the light source and a receiver surface, where the occluding polygon includes vertices connected by edges. The computing device can determine a shadow of the occluding polygon on the receiver surface by at least: determining, for a particular vertex, a projection vertex on the receiver surface by projecting a ray from the center point through the particular vertex; determining an outline polygon based on the projection vertex; determining a projection circle around the projection vertex; determining a penumbra of the shadow based on exterior tangents outside of the outline polygon; and determining an umbra of the shadow based on interior tangents inside the outline polygon. The computing device can display at least part of the shadow.
US09639975B1
A computer-implemented method for generating a shadow in a graphics scene. The method includes casting a ray having a finite length associated with a point on a surface of an object in the graphics scene towards a light source; determining whether the ray intersects any other objects in the graphics scene; and generating a shadow value associated with the point on the surface of the object based on a combination of geometric scene information obtained as a result of determining whether the ray intersects any other objects in the graphics scene and an image-based shadow map value.
US09639972B2
A display control program executed by a computer of a display control apparatus displaying a virtual space on a display apparatus capable of stereoscopic display, the display control program causing the computer to function as: object placement means for placing an object in the virtual space; transparency degree setting means for calculating a distance specified between the object displayed in the virtual space, and a viewpoint position based on the position of a virtual camera for virtually shooting the virtual space, and setting the degree of transparency of the object such that the longer the distance is, the higher the degree of transparency is; image generation means for generating right-eye and left-eye images by shooting the virtual space with right and left virtual cameras, respectively; and display control means for displaying the right-eye and left-eye images generated by the image generation means, on the display apparatus.
US09639967B2
A circuit diagram supplying apparatus 10, for supplying a user with whole contents of an device system circuit diagram, then requests a server 30 for first-of-all transmission of part-connection-drawing overall circuit diagram data in which connection diagrams LSd are added to a part placement diagram included in the circuit diagram and having electrical component parts PSd arranged therein. Then, after displaying a part-connection-drawing overall circuit diagram based on the transmitted and received part-connection-drawing overall circuit diagram data, the circuit diagram supplying apparatus 10 requests the server 30 for sequential transmission of circuit-element-drawing divisional circuit diagram data (a)-(e).
US09639961B2
A method of selecting a homography model from point correspondences of an associated image pair; a method of filtering point correspondences from a pair of associated images; a method of calculating a homography transformation; and a method of image differencing; including implementing one or more sampling constraints, e.g. partition zones and an exclusion zone, that provide a more even spread of point selection over the image, and/or that provide for selected points to be spread further apart, than would be the case if the one or more sampling constraints were not implemented. Repeated selections of combinations of points may be selected in a deterministic manner, and the deterministic manner may be tailored to an escape condition.
US09639959B2
A particular method includes determining, based on data received from at least one motion sensor, a movement of a mobile device from a first position to a second position. The method also includes computing a three-dimensional (3D) model of an object based on a first image of the object corresponding to a first view of the object from the first position of the mobile device, a second image of the object corresponding to a second view of the object from the second position of the mobile device, and the movement of the mobile device.
US09639956B2
Implementations relate to adjusting images using a texture mask. In some implementations, a method includes detecting one or more texture regions having detected texture in an image, and generating a mask from the image based on the detected texture regions. The detected texture regions are distinguished in the mask from other regions of the image that do not have detected texture. The method applies one or more adjustment operations to the image in amounts based on values of the mask.
US09639953B2
A surgical mechanism control system including an acceleration or orientation detection unit to output a control signal in response to detecting an acceleration or orientation of the unit, the unit being attachable to a surgeon. The unit includes an acceleration sensor and the acceleration sensor has an associated threshold acceleration, such that an acceleration below the associated threshold acceleration does not cause actuation of an associated switch unit and an acceleration above the associated threshold acceleration does cause the associated switch unit to actuate. A control signal is output on actuation of the switch unit and foot pedal, and the control signal is used to control a surgical mechanism.
US09639948B2
Methods, apparatuses, and computer readable storage media are provided for determining a depth measurement of a scene using an optical blur difference between two images of the scene. Each image is captured using an image capture device with different image capture device parameters. A corresponding image patch is identified from each of the captured images, motion blur being present in each of the image patches. A kernel of the motion blur in each of the image patches is determined. The kernel of the motion blur in at least one images patch is used to generate a difference convolution kernel. A selected first image patch is convolved with the generated difference convolution kernel to generate a modified image patch. A depth measurement of the scene is determined from an optical blur difference between the modified image patch and the remaining image patch.
US09639935B1
Generating a calibrated camera alignment model for image capture devices having overlapping fields-of-view may include identifying a camera alignment model describing a first candidate alignment path for a defined location in a first input frame and a second candidate alignment path for the defined location in a second input frame, identifying a third candidate alignment path spatially adjacent to the first candidate alignment path, identifying a fourth candidate alignment path spatially adjacent to the second candidate alignment path, identifying a first point along the first candidate alignment path or the second candidate alignment path corresponding to a second point along the third candidate alignment path or the fourth candidate alignment path, and updating the camera alignment model based on the first point, the second point, or both.
US09639933B2
Provided are an apparatus and method for fast and adaptive computer-aided detection of pulmonary nodules and differentiation of malignancy from benignancy in thoracic CT images using a hierarchical vector quantization scheme. Anomalous pulmonary nodules are detected by obtaining a two-dimensional (2D) feature model of a pulmonary nodule, segmenting the pulmonary nodule by performing vector quantification to expand the 2D feature model to a three-dimensional (3D) model, and displaying image information representing whether the pulmonary nodule is benign, based upon the 3D model expanded from the 2D feature model, with duplicate information eliminated by performing feature reduction performed using a principal component analysis and a receiver operating characteristics area under the curve merit analysis. A textural feature analysis detects an anomalous pulmonary nodule, and 2D texture features are calculated from 3D volumetric data to provide improved gain compared to calculation from a single slice of 3D data.
US09639932B2
An epidermis pattern detection unit detects epidermis patterns in an epidermis image captured from the epidermis of skin by an epidermis image capturing unit. An acquired element analysis unit analyzes uniformity of shapes of the epidermis patterns in the epidermis image. A texture evaluation unit evaluates a texture state of the skin based on the uniformity of shapes of the epidermis patterns. The present technology, for example, may be applied to systems that evaluate the texture state of the skin.
US09639927B2
An image processing apparatus includes an abnormal portion candidate region detection unit configured to detect a candidate region of an abnormal portion based on color information of each pixel constituting an image obtained by capturing an image of an inside of a lumen of a subject, a border neighboring pixel identifying unit configured to identify a border neighboring pixel which is a pixel existing in proximity to a border of the candidate region, a feature data calculation unit configured to calculate feature data based on a pixel value of the border neighboring pixel, and an abnormal portion region distinguishing unit configured to distinguish an abnormal portion region based on the feature data.
US09639918B2
A method for image edge anti-aliasing with super-resolution is provided and used to achieve enlargement conversion from low resolution to high resolution, by applying the steps of: detecting a received image data and saving as an original edge pixel frame; enlarging the original edge pixel frame in double size along the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively; retaining the original edge pixel information; replacing pixels to be interpolated with a zero grayscale; and compensating the pixels to be interpolated which are temporarily replaced by the zero grayscale along edge directions of the original edge pixel, such that the jagged phenomenon of output picture is output picture is significantly decreased, such that the jagged phenomena of an output picture is significantly decreased, with a detailed image information is well-maintained. The method is simple, with fewer calculations and faster operating speed, the cost can be effectively reduced.
US09639917B2
According to some examples, a method for Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) image modification includes receiving an OCT image of a region of interest of patient tissue from an OCT imaging system configured to direct an OCT beam at the region of interest and determining that an OCT transparent instrument is within the OCT image. The method further includes detecting an artifact in the OCT image, the artifact resulting from the OCT transparent instrument being within a path of the OCT beam. In response to detecting the artifact, the method further includes creating an image modification plan to remove the artifact from the OCT image. The method further includes executing the image modification plan to remove the artifact from the OCT image.
US09639905B2
A power control apparatus includes a processor configured to collect first information related to operation of a performing unit configured to perform data processing and information related to operation of a bus configured to transfer data; determine an operating frequency and an operating voltage for the performing unit, based on the collected information; estimate based on the collected information, a period elapsing until the performing unit suspends operation and a period elapsing until the bus suspends operation; derive a discriminant that obtains a difference of total power consumption and power consumption pre-switching; and execute a switching of an operating frequency and an operating voltage of the performing unit, based on a value of the discriminant.
US09639900B2
A computer-implemented method of acquiring tax data for use in tax preparation application includes acquiring an image of at least one document containing tax data therein with an imaging device. A computer extracts one or more features from the acquired image of the at least one document and compares the extracted one or more features to a database containing a plurality of different tax forms. The database may include a textual database and/or geometric database. The computer identifies a tax form corresponding to the at least one document from the plurality of different tax forms based at least in part on a confidence level associated with the comparison of the extracted one or more features to the database. At least a portion of the tax data from the acquired image is transferred into corresponding fields of the tax preparation application.
US09639895B2
Networks, systems and methods for dynamically filtering market data are disclosed. Streams of market data may be buffered or stored in a queue when inbound rates exceed distribution or publication limitations. Inclusive messages in the queue may be removed, replaced or aggregated, reducing the number of messages to be published when distribution limitations are no longer exceeded.
US09639893B2
Embodiments of the invention comprise systems, computer program products, and methods for a financial and social management system that provides improved tracking and management related to how, where, when, and with whom a user enters into activities. The financial and social management system captures activity information and images from various sources of information, including but not limited to social networking accounts, e-receipts, location determination devices, and the like, and associates the activity information and images with the activities. The financial and social management system aggregates the activity information for a number of activities based on the location, user, entity, category, cost, time period, or the like and displays the aggregated activity information in an activity review interface. The financial and social management system may supplement the aggregated activity information with educational data.
US09639881B2
A method is provided for personalized video recommendation based on user interests modeling. The method includes detecting a viewing activity of at least one user of a content-presentation device capable of presenting multiple programs in one or more channels, and representing user interests of the at least one user by using a topic model. The method also includes discovering the user interests from user viewing histories, and generating a personalized video list of personalized video contents. Further, the method includes recommending the personalized video contents to the at least one user; and delivering the recommended personalized video to the at least one user such that the personalized video contents are presented on the content-presentation device.
US09639878B2
Computer-aided extraction of semantics from keywords to confirm match of buyer offers to seller bids
One embodiment involves a method and apparatus for mapping lexical keywords into entity description semantics in order to create unambiguous buyer-confirmed descriptions of entities. The method described herein relies on a computer program and some mechanism for computer data storage.
US09639876B1
An ecommerce outsourcing system and method provides hosts with transparent, context-sensitive e-commerce supported pages. The look and feel of a target host is captured for future use. The host is provided with one or more links for inclusion within a page on the host website that correlates with a selected commerce object, which may be contextually related to material in the page. The commerce object can be a product, a product category, or a dynamic selection indicator. Upon activation of the provided link, a visitor computer is served with a page with the look and feel of the host website and with content based upon the associated commerce object. Where the commerce object is a dynamic selection indicator, the content is selected at the time of activation based upon an analysis of the page containing the activated link.
US09639872B2
A sales management system may include a pricing data store operable to store a manufacturer price for a sales item; a retail input device adapted to receive a margin applicable to the sales item from a retailer and operable to store the margin; a retail display device residing at a retail location and configured to display a retail price for the sales item; and a product information provider located remotely from the retail display device and in communication with the manufacturer pricing data store, the product information provider configured to receive a request for product information from the retail display device and operable to compute the retail price for the sales item based in part on the manufacturer price for the sales item and the margin associated with the retailer and to provide the retail price to the retail display device for display in relation to the sales item.
US09639859B2
Disclosed is a method for providing an advertisement on a display of a mobile communication terminal, the method including: receiving an user input when the mobile communication terminal is capable of communication while the display of the mobile communication terminal is being off; and activating the display upon receiving the user input. The activated display provides an advertisement, an unlock interface, and an additional input interface thereon. The unlock interface is capable of receiving an additional user input whereby unlocks the mobile communication terminal upon receiving the additional user input thereof, and the additional input interface is capable of receiving an additional user input whereby the display displays an additional information related to the advertisement upon receiving the additional user input thereof.
US09639857B2
An approach is provided for presenting a user interface and associating one or more commenting information with on one or more content items detected in one or more media items. Further, a user may associate one or more commenting information related to a point of interest/object wherein one or more content items associated with the point of interest/object may be retrieved and aggregated with the one or more commenting information.
US09639854B2
A system with an associated method for preloading advertisements by a server to a user's device is disclosed. In response to inquiries made by members of a user group, the system presents advertisements to the members and keeps a record of these presentations. Next, the system identifies those advertisements which have been frequently presented to the members, and preloads the identified advertisements on the device of a user who belongs to the user group. Subsequently, upon receiving a specific inquiry from the user's device, the system determines a response to the specific inquiry. When the determined response contains one of the preloaded advertisements, the system sends an instruction to the user's device to present the preloaded advertisement to the user.
US09639851B2
Multiple copies of the same coupon are delivered to a consumer simultaneously via different delivery channels. After one copy of the coupon has been presented in connection with a transaction and used, the coupon is marked as used with respect to all delivery channels for that consumer. Different copies of the coupon can have different coupon identifiers, for example when delivered through different channels. Consumers also can access such multichannel coupons without having to login each time they wish to access their coupons from multiple channels. In one implementation, each consumer has a user profile. A promotion is associated with that consumer's user profile. Each user profile also is associated with different channel identifiers representing communication channels to deliver instances of the promotion to the consumer. Each delivered instance of the promotion includes a coupon identifier associated with the promotion.
US09639848B1
Based on historical data describing product sales or other types of transactions, indicator scores may be calculated for users who have purchased, reviewed, or otherwise consumed products, the indicator scores based on subsequent diffusion of the products. Measured, current activities of the scored users with regard to another product may then be employed to develop a diffusion model that predicts the future sales of the other product over time. The diffusion model may be employed to determine product pricing, marketing, distribution, or acquisition.
US09639843B1
A mobile computerized apparatus for use with a roadside assistance program to assist in identifying a service provider, such as a tow truck, is disclosed. The apparatus transmits relevant information to a remote server. The server in turn provides information about a plurality of service providers available to service the vehicle.
US09639837B2
Systems, methods, apparatus, processes, computer program code and means for conducting transactions are described which allow a first party to a transaction to identify a second party to a transaction.
US09639830B2
Embodiments of systems, methods and devices for electronic bill presentment and payment are disclosed. Such embodiments include receiving one or more instructions from a biller at a remote computer server. Further, the remote computer server implements an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) workflow configuration module and provisions, using the EBPP workflow configuration module, one or more configuration parameters for the biller based on the one or more received instructions. In addition, embodiments include configuring, dynamically an EBPP workflow based on the one or more received instructions and provisioned configuration parameters using the EBPP workflow configuration module. The configuring of the EBPP workflow includes generating a state machine implementing the EBPP workflow. Moreover, embodiments include configuring one or more business logic scripts by the EBPP workflow configuration module to implement the EBPP workflow as well as configuring one or more view templates by the EBPP workflow configuration module to implement the EBPP workflow.
US09639826B2
A method of controlling a mobile terminal including executing, via a controller of the mobile terminal, an application; displaying, via a display unit of the mobile terminal, a display screen including information output by the executing application; displaying, via the display unit, a memo writing window on the display screen including the information output by the executing application; receiving, via the controller, a memo written in the memo writing window; linking, via the controller, the written memo to the information displayed in the display screen when the memo was written in the memo writing window; storing, via a memory of the mobile terminal, the linked memo and information; and re-displaying the memo linked with the information on the display screen if the application is re-executed.
US09639822B2
A method and system of processing a mailing label through a postal service are provided. The method includes causing, by a computer system associated with a postage provider, a mailing label for mailing a mail piece to be generated, the mailing label including a tracking mark; receiving, by the computer system associated with the postage provider an indication that the tracking mark is detected when the mail piece is inducted in the mail stream or during transit of the mail piece in the mail stream; and creating, by the computer system associated with the postage provider, a record of a transaction for an amount of postage based on the received indication that the tracking mark is detected.
US09639810B2
An information processing device performs data communication with a server through a predetermined network, and transmits a result of reviewing a review target to the server. The information processing device executes, in accordance with an operation of a user, execution processing of any review target which is selected from a plurality of review targets, and updates and stores an execution history of the review target. The information processing device extracts a reviewable review target from the plurality of review targets based on the stored execution history of each review target. The information processing device generates review information reviewing at least one extracted review target in accordance with an operation of the user, and transmits the review information to the server.
US09639799B2
According to at least one exemplary embodiment, a system, method and apparatus for a matrix-less inlay design may be described. The system, method and apparatus can include the formation of an inlay with a pattern, such as a starburst pattern, surrounding an antenna that can be formed during laser ablation process. The starburst pattern may be utilized to provide for the efficient generation of inlays of varying sizes.
US09639790B2
An image processing apparatus includes a dither processing unit configured to perform dither processing on image data having a first resolution M by using a dither threshold value matrix and a resolution conversion unit configured to perform resolution conversion to convert the image data that is generated by the dither processing unit and which has the first resolution M into image data having a second resolution N lower than the first resolution M by using a filter, and the pixel of a growth center of the dither threshold value matrix and the center pixel of the processing using the filter coincide with each other.
US09639789B2
An image processing system includes a process execution control apparatus to control an execution of processes, and an image generation-output control apparatus to control an execution of an image generation-output operation. The process execution control apparatus includes a control-side drawing information generator to generate drawing information, and a process allocator to allocate a plurality of text information adding processes to the process execution control apparatus and the image generation-output control apparatus when generating the drawing information. The image generation-output control apparatus includes an output-side drawing information generator corresponding to the control-side drawing information generator.
US09639787B2
This is directed to defining the orientation in which a document is printed from the orientation of the device on which the document is displayed. In particular, some electronic devices can have limited user interfaces that do not provide for a simple or elegant interface for defining print settings. To overcome limitations in a displayed user interface, the orientation of an electronic device can be used to define the print orientation of a displayed document. In particular, a motion-sensing component of an electronic device can determine whether the electronic device display is in a portrait or landscape orientation, and define the page orientation of the displayed document to match the determined device orientation. The electronic device can then transmit the document, in the defined page orientation, to a printer system for printing in the desired page orientation.
US09639777B1
Systems and methods are provided for image classification using histograms of oriented gradients (HoG) in conjunction with a trainer. The efficiency of the process is greatly increased by first establishing a bitmap which identifies a subset of the pixels in the HoG window as including relevant foreground information, and limiting the HoG calculation and comparison process to only the pixels included in the bitmap.
US09639772B2
Methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture for video comparison using color histograms are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein to compare video sequences include determining a color histogram corresponding to an input video sequence based on color values of pixels sampled from a plurality of video frames of the input video sequence. Such disclosed example methods also include adjusting the color histogram corresponding to the input video sequence based on a first reference color histogram corresponding to a first reference video sequence different from the input video sequence to determine an adjusted color histogram corresponding to the input video sequence. Such disclosed example methods further include comparing the adjusted color histogram and the first reference color histogram to determine whether the first reference video sequence matches the input video sequence.
US09639771B2
An image processing device (1000) includes a luminance variation detection unit (1), an angular variation detection unit (2), an image region detection unit (3), and an image processing unit (4). The luminance variation detection unit (1) detects a degree of variation of pixel value in a pixel reference region including a pixel of interest and pixels around the pixel of interest. The angular variation detection unit (2) acquires a contour direction where the pixel value is constant in the pixel reference region for each pixel and detects a degree of variation of the acquired contour direction. The image region detection unit (3) acquires an image region detection signal representing characteristics of the image region including the pixel of interest based on the degree of variation of the pixel value and the degree of variation of the contour direction. The image processing unit (4) performs a predetermined image process on the pixel of interest based on the image region detection signal.
US09639763B2
An image processing apparatus 10 according to an embodiment includes a detection unit 11 and an identification unit 12. The detection unit 11 included in the image processing apparatus 10 detects a region in which a pixel value is changed between frames included in moving image data. The detection unit 11 outputs a detected result to the identification unit 12. The identification unit 12 sets a circumscribed rectangle to the region detected by the detection unit 11. The identification unit 12 specifies a frame including a detection target based on a filling ratio of the region to the circumscribed rectangle.
US09639760B2
In some embodiments, a method of monitoring a secure location is provided that includes (1) providing one or more sensors that monitor the secure location, each sensor generating sensor data; (2) establishing a policy region for the secure location employing world coordinates, the policy region establishing one or more alarm criterion for at least one of objects entering the policy region and objects exiting the policy region; (3) tracking an object within the secure location using the sensor data from the one or more sensors; and (4) determining if the sensor data indicates that the object has violated one or more alarm criterion of the policy region. Numerous other embodiments are provided.
US09639759B2
A video processing apparatus tracks an object in a video and performs detection processing for detecting that an object in the video is a specific object such that a number of times the detection processing is performed within a predetermined period on a tracking object not detected to be the specific object is more than a number of times the detection processing is performed within the predetermined period on a tracking object detected to be the specific object.
US09639756B2
A pair of images is obtained having pixel intensities substantially proportional to wave height for a majority of pixels. The images are aligned, orthorectified, and adjusted for relative reflectance in their respective spectral bands. The images are Fourier transformed, and then one image is propagated to the time of the other image. A deglinted image is calculated by taking the difference in wavenumber space, then inverse Fourier transforming. Alternatively, an equivalent formula can be obtained using convolutions. The propagation uses a gravity wave propagation function, which, in general, can be a function of depth, surface current, and wave direction which can be obtained from external data, assumed constant, or calculated from wave images depending on the particular circumstances.
US09639751B2
A data verification system is configured to verify machine-recognized data elements acquired during a machine-implemented data acquisition process. The system includes a data verification workstation, an image server, and a data entry server. The data verification workstation is configured to obtain document images from the image server, present portions of document images to an operator, wherein the document images include text, and receive input from the operator based on the text. The input includes data elements. The data verification workstation is also configured to acquire machine-recognized data elements from the data entry server. The machine-recognized data elements were acquired from the document image during a machine-implemented data acquisition process based on the text. The data verification workstation is also configured to compare the data elements received from the operator to the machine-recognized data elements and selectively prompt the operator to re-input the data elements based on the comparison.
US09639749B2
A method of processing an image is provided. The method includes identifying edge components of a background image by a unit of a predetermined size, identifying input coordinate points of a touch input which is input on a touch screen, determining distorted coordinate points by applying the edge components to the input coordinate points, and displaying a drawing image formed by connecting the distorted coordinate points, on the background image.
US09639745B2
The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for evaluating results of gaze detection, wherein these results are present or are obtained in the form of information which defines, for each of a multiplicity of successive times, a viewing direction detected at this time and a focal point identified thereby in a scene image assigned to this time. For this purpose, the invention provides for the following steps to be carried out: —a temporal change in the viewing direction and/or the focal point is evaluated in order to identify different viewing events which differ from one another by different speeds of an eye movement, wherein saccades and fixations and/or pursuit movements are detected as different types of viewing events and the identified viewing events are classified according to the type thereof, —a period of time spanned by the times is divided into intervals in such a manner that an interval corresponding to a duration of the particular viewing event is assigned to each of the identified viewing events, wherein at least some of these intervals each contain a sequence of a plurality of times, —precisely one of the times or a true subset of the times is selected in each case from each of the intervals assigned to a fixation or a pursuit movement, —and, for each of these selected times, the focal point identified in the scene image assigned to the particular time is mapped to a position corresponding to this focal point in a reference image.
US09639744B2
The invention provides a robust method to control interactive media using gestures. A method to retrieve metadata information from a multimedia outlet device, wherein the method follows the steps: (1) extracting image hot spot areas in a current captured image using face detection, (2) detecting a human gesture directive in at least one image hot spot area using gesture recognition, (3) determining if the gesture directive matches a pre-assigned command to a rich interaction module, (4) sending a signal to a rich interaction module corresponding to the pre-assigned command detected, (5) extracting a media image hot spot area from electrical signals sent from the multimedia, (6) matching any detected human gestures in at least one image hot spot area using gesture recognition with a specific pixel on a device screen, and (7) retrieving information from metadata assigned to an area of pixels on the screen.
US09639742B2
Technologies for analyzing various features detected in a face detected in an image. Such features may include at least the eyes, eyebrows, node, and mouth of a face. Such analyzing may include scoring aspects of these features. Such scores may be weighted. The analysis may be used to determine expressions and/or poses of the face, as well as indicate if the face is smiling, frowning, or neutral. An overall quality score for the face may also be determined and provided based on the aforementioned analysis as well as whether or not the face is near an edge of the image or cut-off in the image. Finally, a face signature may be determined that uniquely identifies the face, at least within the scope of the analyzed features. Such face signatures may be used to detect a similar face in other images.
US09639733B2
Techniques for fully-differential multi-phase scanning in capacitive fingerprint applications are described herein. In an example embodiment, a system comprises a capacitive fingerprint sensor array and a processing device coupled to the capacitive fingerprint sensor array. The processing device is configured at least to: scan the capacitive fingerprint sensor array in a fully-differential multi-phase mode; receive a plurality of measurements that represents a portion of finger on the capacitive fingerprint sensor array; and generate a fingerprint image for the portion of the finger based on the plurality of measurements. In some embodiments, a capacitive fingerprint sensor array may include receive (RX) electrodes and one or more reference electrodes configured to detect noise, where the one or more reference electrodes have width that is substantially equal to the width of the RX electrodes, but the one or more reference electrodes are disposed at a smaller pitch than the RX electrodes.
US09639732B2
An apparatus and system for operating a handheld barcode scanner in a presentation mode are provided. The apparatus includes an upright stand having a lower end for placement adjacent to a work surface, and an opposing upper end. The apparatus includes a lower mirror, an upper mirror and a dock all supported by the stand. The dock holds the handheld barcode scanner between the lower mirror and a scan volume above the work surface to define a first beam path segment between the handheld barcode scanner and the lower mirror. The upper mirror defines a second beam path segment between the upper mirror and the lower mirror, and a third beam path segment between the upper mirror and the scan volume. The first, the second and the third beam path segments define a beam path between the handheld scanner and the scan volume.
US09639726B2
A code symbol reading system is provided. The code symbol reading system has an object detection subsystem that can be configured to detect only those objects that are positioned at a specified distance from the system. The object-detection subsystem thereby initiates the scanning process only when an object is detected at substantially the specified distance from the system.
US09639725B1
A tracking associate system that comprises a rotatable platform; an optically retroreflective label reader attached to the platform; a control unit attached to the rotatable platform; a scene recording camera; and a data network configured to process data produced by the label reader and/or the camera. Another tracking system comprises one, or more, label tracking pairs that each have a recording camera associated with a light source emitter; a platform configured to allow the label tracking pair to track a plurality of optically retroreflective labels that are affixed to objects; and a data network in communication with the label tracking pair that is configured to process data received from the label tracking pair.
US09639720B2
Signal interference is automatically avoided between product proximity subsystems that emit signals through mutually facing presentation windows of different workstations. A magnetometer in each workstation determines a direction faced by a respective presentation window. A controller in each workstation controls a respective product proximity subsystem to emit and receive a signal with a first signal characteristic when the respective magnetometer determines that the respective presentation window faces a first direction, and controls a respective product proximity subsystem to emit and receive a signal with a different second signal characteristic when the respective magnetometer determines that the respective presentation window faces a different second direction.
US09639713B2
Embodiments for preventing data loss in a business environment are provided. In some embodiments, a secure endpoint file export application assigns users to different classes having different permissions for accessing and writing data. In an embodiment, the system and method are configured to identify a plurality of users in a business environment; classify the plurality of users according to business needs; assign the users to one of at least two classes based on the classification; determine that the first user is permitted to access the data; transmit the secure file to a second user who is permitted to write the data in the secure file to removable media; write the data in the secure file to the removable media; and track a location of the removable media.
US09639709B2
Priority-based content retrieval mechanisms for digital entertainment devices are provided. In various embodiments, the download prioritizations may be interrupt-based, sequence-based, or a combination of the two. In interrupt-based prioritizations, a higher priority download request will interrupt a lower-priority download that is already in progress. In sequence-based prioritizations, a plurality of file download requests may be ordered in a download queue depending on the priority of the request, with higher priority requests being positioned towards the top of the queue and lower priority requests being positioned towards the bottom of the queue.
US09639702B1
A method for calculating a partial risk score for a data object may include identifying a request to calculate a partial risk score for a data object, the request including a partial risk score filter, and the data object being associated with one or more policies. The method may further include for each policy associated with the data object, determining whether characteristics associated with the policy match a parameter in the partial risk score filter, and when the characteristics associated with the policy match information in the partial risk score filter, including a data object risk score associated with the policy in the partial risk score for the data object.
US09639695B2
A system and method uses any or all of information of a user and/or user's activity at a second web site, information of the user's friends or other connections at the second web site, or registration information of the user, to determine whether to allow the user to communicate with other users of a first web site, prevent the user from communicating with other users of the first web site, or monitor the user's communications and allow or prevent the user from further communication based on the monitored communications at the first web site.
US09639693B2
Techniques for detecting security vulnerabilities are disclosed. In one particular embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a method for detecting security vulnerabilities including assigning a reputation to an application, distributing the reputation to a client, receiving monitored system behavior from the client related to the client executing the application, determining whether to change the reputation of the application based on the monitored system behavior, distributing the changed reputation to the client, receiving further monitored system behavior from the client, and determining whether to generate a rule for the application based on the monitored system behavior received from the client.
US09639691B2
A system for managing credentials for authenticating and securely communicating with trusted hosts, for example, in a cloud computing environment. The system dynamically updates credentials stored in a database and injects the updated credentials back into a runtime environment without restarting the runtime environment or applications running on the runtime environment. Embodiments of the present invention further enable credentials to be tracked and managed on a per-tenant basis, allowing each tenant that is running an application on a runtime environment to customize which hosts should be trusted.
US09639687B2
A server receives a piece of data for encryption. The server encrypts the piece of data such that no single key can decrypt the encrypted piece of data and any combination of a first multiple of unique keys taken a second multiple at a time are capable of decrypting the encrypted piece of data. Each of the first multiple of unique keys is tied to account credentials of a different user. The second multiple is less than or equal to the first multiple. The encrypted piece of data is returned.
US09639686B2
Provided is an operation limiting device which makes it possible to achieve more robust security and safety in processing of a workpiece by a processing apparatus. The operation limiting device limits operations relating to processing of a workpiece by a processing apparatus, and is provided with: an authentication unit for authenticating each of a plurality of users; a receiving unit for receiving an operation request or permission for said operation, from a plurality of authenticated users; an operation enabling unit for enabling an operation if an operation request or permission has been received from the plurality of authenticated users; and a releasing unit for releasing the operation enabled state set by the operation enabling unit if processing relating to the operation has terminated or if a predetermined period of time corresponding to the operation has elapsed.
US09639684B2
A remote control method with identity verification mechanism is suited for a wearable device. The remote control method includes the following steps. Detecting whether the wearable device is close to a target device within a specific distance is performed. If the wearable device is close to the target device within the specific distance, a fingerprint data inputted by the user is obtained from the wearable device and determined whether the fingerprint data matches a predetermined fingerprint data. If yes, a control command is sent to the target device.
US09639668B2
A system comprising a holding area, a manual section, a distribution section, and at least one conveyor. The manual section may include a handling area enabled for pill counting, pharmacist verification, exception handling, or combinations thereof. The distribution section may be disposed proximate the handling area and the manual section, and may include a robot and a scanner. The at least one conveyor may enable transportation of a container between said distribution section and said manual section. The robot may be adapted to pick a container from the holding area and move the container to the scanner for scanning. The robot may also be further adapted to place the container onto the conveyor to direct the container to a handling area which is enabled for an action based on the scan.
US09639664B2
Computer-implemented methods for executing transactions between parties seeking services and parties offering services.
US09639661B2
A system simulating the reviewing process of breast imaging examination (i.e. mammographic) information provides a data file of breast imaging information including mammographic (and other breast imaging examinations) images that may be scored by a trainee on computerized worksheet and expert assessments of those images. Quantitative data in the expert assessment may be compared to trainee-entered data recovered from the worksheet to provide an assessment of trainee proficiency in interpreting breast imaging studies. The data file of breast imaging information may be derived from actual clinical data anonymized and selected to provide for realistic yet demanding simulation.
US09639650B2
At least one method, apparatus and system disclosed involves circuit layout for an integrated circuit device comprising an asymmetrically placed metal formation. A design for an integrated circuit device is received. The design comprises at least one functional cell. A first metal formation is placed asymmetrically about a first cell boundary of the functional cell for providing additional space for routing.
US09639648B2
Systems and techniques are provided to correctly handle obstacles during cell partitioning, thereby preventing electronic design automation (EDA) tools from being subject to performance penalties during subsequent operations that are performed by the EDA tools on the cell partitions.
US09639642B2
A method of forecasting a resource load for consumption at a site, e.g., an electrical load of a site. The method includes receiving historical load data and historical ambient condition data that are time series data pertaining to a site and generating additional data from the received data. The method includes building a best sub-model for each of multiple forecast intervals. The building includes clustering in parallel training portions of the historical load data and the additional data, training possible sub-models using the clustered training portions, verifying forecasted loads output from the possible sub-models against verification portions of the historical load data and the additional data, and determining a first subset of parameters for the best sub-model based upon accuracy of the forecasted loads. The method includes forecasting a resource load at the site for each of the forecast intervals using an ensemble of the best sub-models.
US09639640B1
An approach for generating delay values for circuit elements in a clock network of a programmable IC includes determining for each clock resource in the clock network, different possible contexts of the clock resource. Each context specifies a combination of possible types of circuit elements in the context. Circuit elements of the possible types are selected from the different contexts, and configuration data is generated for implementation of respective ring oscillator circuits that include the selected circuit elements. The programmable IC is configured with the configuration data, and the programmable IC as configured with the respective ring oscillator circuits is operated. Respective delay values of the selected circuit elements are determined from output of the ring oscillator circuits. The delay values are stored in association with identifiers of the selected circuit elements in a memory arrangement.
US09639637B2
A method for predicting fatigue crack growth in materials includes providing a prior distribution obtained using response measures from one or more target components using a fatigue crack growth model as a constraint function, receiving new crack length measurements, providing a posterior distribution obtained using the new crack length measurements, and sampling the posterior distribution to obtain crack length measurement predictions.
US09639626B2
A method includes associating a state identifier with a page of a user interface; associating an element identifier with an element of the page of the user interface; and tracking a state of the element based on the state identifier and the element identifier throughout a user session of the user interface.
US09639623B2
Administration of a Web page is contemplated. The contemplated administration may be used to facilitate identifying state of a Web page at a first device from a remotely located second device, optionally independently of a Web server that downloads the Web page to the device. The contemplated administration may be used to facilitate changing state of Web page as provided through the first device from the remotely located second device, optionally independent of the Web server that downloads the Web page to the device.
US09639622B2
A web site determination unit determines web sites associated with any one of a plurality of users of interest. A web site association unit associates, among the determined web sites, a plurality of the web sites with each other, each of the plurality of the web sites satisfying at least one of a condition on a feature amount of the each of the plurality of the web sites and a condition on at least one of the users of interest associated with the each of the plurality of the web sites. Accordingly, web site groups possibly having a commonality may be determined among web site groups associated with users of interest.
US09639621B2
Computer-implemented methods and systems for creating and managing website content involve, for example, providing a user at a computer terminal a data capture template for a user-selected content type, providing the user at the computer terminal presentation pages using content management tags, allowing the user at the computer terminal to author content using the data capture template, and allowing the user at the computer terminal to deploy the content to a server. Other aspects of the methods and systems for creating and managing website content include, for example, allowing the user to personalize content, allowing the user to embed dynamic content in the middle of static content, allowing the user to refresh the deployed content in real-time without impacting current existing user sessions on the server where content is being deployed.
US09639612B2
A system, method, and apparatus are provided for distributing a content item toward target recipients solely via first degree connections (e.g., in a professional network, in a social network). For a selected content item and identified target recipients of the item, when a user initiates a message to forward or otherwise convey the content item, one or more schemes are applied to select and automatically populate the message with suitable addressees. In one scheme, values are computed for each neighbor of the sender, to indicate the value of delivering the item to that neighbor; the message is automatically addressed to the highest-value neighbors. In another scheme, user communities that encompass the target recipients are identified and the message is automatically addressed to neighbors that are best able to disseminate the item throughout a community. In another scheme a minimal set of neighbors having connections to all target recipients is identified.
US09639610B1
Described is system and method for gauging public interest in a topic using network analysis of online discussions. A message from an online discussion related to a specific topic is received as input. The message is analyzed for information related to the message, and a graph comprised of nodes is generated where each node represents information related to the message, such as user name, location, hyperlinks, and annotations. The graph is updated over time as additional messages from the online discussion are received. Additional nodes are generated and linked with at least one of the existing nodes in the graph to form at least one connected component. A normalized diameter of the largest connected component in the graph is determined, and a level of collective focus in the online discussion related to the topic based on the normalized diameter is output to a user.
US09639603B2
An electronic device includes a receiving unit, a searching unit, a storing unit, and a displaying unit. The receiving unit receives a search character string. The searching unit searches a dictionary database according to the received search character string. The storing unit stores headwords which are obtained by the searching unit in a memory as search history data. The displaying unit displays a search history graph based on the search history data. Marks are arranged in the search history graph. The marks show positions of headwords searched for in past times, within a range of headwords collected in the dictionary data.
US09639598B2
A system and method for dynamic, semi-supervised clustering comprises receiving data attributes, generating a set of ensemble partitions using the data attributes, forming a convex hull using the set of ensemble partitions, generating a simplex vector by performing ensemble clustering on the convex hull, receiving dynamic links, deriving an optimal simplex vector using the simplex vector and the dynamic links, computing a current optimal clustering result using the optimal simplex vector, and outputting the current optimal clustering result.
US09639593B2
According to one aspect, embodiments of the invention provide a sequence engine comprising a local queue configured to receive captured data in a first sequence, the captured data including a plurality of individual messages, each message including sequence information representative of a chronological order in which the messages was captured, a coupling facility in communication with the local queue, the coupling facility comprising a plurality of data tables wherein a first one of the plurality of data tables is configured to store the captured data in the first sequence, and a dispatcher in communication with the plurality of data tables and configured to resequence, based on the sequence information, the captured data into a second sequence, wherein the second sequence corresponds to the chronological order in which the plurality of individual messages were captured, and to forward the captured data to a destination database in the second sequence.
US09639591B2
A CAS data storage method and apparatus comprising: receiving input data including a succession of data items with corresponding logical addresses at a source CAS data storage space for storage therein and for replication at a destination CAS data storage space, generating a hash key for each data item at the source storage space, comparing respective hash keys with hash keys stored at a hash key storage table, to determine whether respective further data items are already present at the destination storage device; transferring respective data items to the destination storage space if no match is made to a hash key stored at the hash key storage table, but not transferring respective further data items if a match is made to a hash key stored at the hash key storage table, thereby transferring to the destination storage space only unique data items.
US09639590B2
A plurality of servers are each coupled to a different one of a plurality of databases that are synchronized with each other. A search request specifying a search range is sent from a search-requesting device to the servers. Each server calculates a search subrange from the search range specified in the search request received from the search-requesting device, performs a data search operation only within the calculated search subrange of the database coupled thereto, and sends a search result back to the search-requesting device.
US09639587B2
A system and method are described herein that provide for visualizing business objects stored in a backend system in database model views for display as nodes in a user interface. Business objects are retrieved from the backend system, with metadata from the business objects being customized and sorted into a plurality of node types. Each business object may be displayed in a user interface as a node along with other nodes generated from the database model views. The nodes represented by the business objects may be connected by edges that provide for an interconnection between each of the nodes. The edges may be customized by providing directional components to the edges to demonstrate the relationship between the displayed nodes.
US09639571B2
A distributed shared-nothing database provides serializable isolation for transactions and includes a mechanism for adding storage and processing capacity to the database without stopping the database from processing transactions.
US09639568B2
A system and method for storing, reading, and updating data structures in a database. The system and method can include storing an entry in a structure table for each data structure, where each data structure is associated with a unique identifier. The system and method can also include storing an entry for each field of a data structure in n field table corresponding to a data type of the field, where the entry for each field is associated with the unique identifier of the data structure. A field for a data structure can be accessed by searching the appropriate field table for the unique identifier of the data structure. Additionally, the data structure can be updated by adding a new entry in the structure table and new entries in the field tables.
US09639567B2
A system includes determination of a value identifier for each value of a first table, based on a data dictionary of a second table, generation of a hash function, the hash function mapping, for each row of the first table, one or more value identifiers of one or more columns of the row to a pointer to the row, application of the hash function to one or more value identifiers of a row of a second table, determination of whether the output of the hash function is a valid hash, and, if it is determined that the output of the hash function is a valid hash, determination that the row of the second table is associated with the first table.
US09639554B2
An extensible file system format for portable storage media is provided. The extensible file system format includes the specification of primary and secondary directory entry types that may be custom defined. The primary and secondary directory entry types can be further classified as critical and benign directory entries.
US09639546B1
An object-backed block-based storage system may store data blocks in a block cache in a non-relational database and data block objects in an object data store. Access requests for a particular data block may be received at a storage protocol target that are formatted according to a network-based storage protocol. Translated access requests formatted according to respective programmatic interfaces may be generated and sent to the non-relational database or to the object data store in order to access the particular data block. A response indicating success or failure of the access request may be sent.
US09639541B2
A computerized method and apparatus for distinguishing between false positive read events and true positive events of reading a file, comprising determining an amount of date read from the file, in case the amount of data exceeds a threshold generating a true positive read event, otherwise generating a false positive read event in case a decision condition is met, and an apparatus to carry out the same.
US09639533B2
A computer-implemented method is disclosed to assist a user to view image product designs at a graphic user interface. The method includes displaying an image representation in a page view at a graphic user interface, allowing a user to select the image representation in the page view, displaying a navigation panel in association with the image representation in the same page view, allowing the user to make a first selection in the navigation panel in the page view, displaying a first product design in the same page view according to the first selection, allowing the user to make a second selection in the navigation panel in the page view, displaying a second product design in the same page view according to the second selection, and removing the display of the navigation panel in the same page view when the product designs are deselected by the user.
US09639527B2
A system and method for a website administrator to order the translation of the strings within a website from the original language to “supported” language(s) by injecting computer code one time from a translation service website into the administrator's website template. The code subsequently analyzes, collects, and electronically transmits un-translated character strings via the Internet to the service's computer server for human or machine translations. When a user-visitor-of the administrator's website selects the supported language to view the website in, then the translated text immediately appears on the administrator's website. When the user visits the website in the future, the system automatedly displays the text in the supported language, and it will determine if new un-translated strings appear on the website, and automatedly translate and store them, and/or store the identity of the supported language, on the user's device.
US09639515B2
Methods, systems, computer-readable media, and apparatuses for transfer of customer information between a first user interface and a third user interface by way of a second user interface are provided. In some embodiments, customer information may be imported into an intermediate user interface from a text-based user interface based on a first mapping associating portions of the text-based user interface with portions of an intermediate user interface. In some embodiments, the intermediate user interface is associated with a spreadsheet. The imported customer information may be reviewed by a user and accepted. The accepted customer information is used to populate a graphical user interface according to a second mapping associating one or more fields of the graphical user interface with portions of the intermediate user interface. In some embodiments, the graphical user interface is a browser-based user interface.
US09639511B2
Systems and methods are disclosed herein for editing documents with non-native applications using an application engine. A request to open a document file using a non-native application is received from a user. An engine of the non-native application is selected, the engine being configured to edit the format of the file. Modifications to the document are received by the non-native application engine, and the document is saved to the file using the format of the file, without converting the document to a different format.
US09639498B2
An Ethernet/Fibre Channel conversion system includes a chassis having a first end and a second end that is located opposite the chassis from the first end. An Ethernet interface is located on the first end and is configured to directly mate with an Ethernet port on an Ethernet device. A Fibre Channel interface is located on the second end. An Ethernet/Fibre Channel conversion engine is housed in the chassis and configured to receive Ethernet protocol signals through the Ethernet interface, convert the Ethernet protocol signals to Fibre Channel protocol signals, and send the Fibre Channel protocol signals through the Fibre Channel interface. The Ethernet/Fibre Channel conversion engine is also configured to receive Fibre channel protocol signals from the Fibre Channel IHS through the Fibre Channel interface, convert the Fibre channel protocol signals to Ethernet protocol signals, and send the Ethernet protocol signals through the Ethernet interface.
US09639497B2
A physical layer network interface module (PHY-NIM) adaptation system provides a PHY-NIM device and an attachable media access control (MAC) device. The PHY-NIM device interconnects with the attachable MAC device and the attachable MAC device interconnects to a network appliance where the network appliance does not have at least one of an internal network switch and a MAC device in a southbridge input/output (I/O) interface chip of the network appliance. The PHY-NIM device interconnects directly to the network appliance without the attachable MAC device where the network appliance has at least one of the internal network switch and the MAC device in the southbridge I/O interface chip of the network appliance.
US09639490B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus for implementing low latency interconnect switches between CPU's and associated protocols. CPU's are configured to be installed on a main board including multiple CPU sockets linked in communication via CPU socket-to-socket interconnect links forming a CPU socket-to-socket ring interconnect. The CPU's are also configured to transfer data between one another by sending data via the CPU socket-to-socket interconnects. Data may be transferred using a packetized protocol, such as QPI, and the CPU's may also be configured to support coherent memory transactions across CPU's.
US09639489B2
An I/O device sharing system characterized by comprising: an I/O device (50) shared by a plurality of hosts (20-1 to 20-N); a system manager (10) which sets the I/O device (50); a virtual bridge (40) which virtualizes the I/O device (50); and a network (3) which connects the I/O device (50), the system manager (10), the plurality of hosts (20-1 to 20-N) and the virtual bridge (40) to each other, wherein the virtual bridge (40) includes a connection virtualization unit (41) by which it is detected that an address setting of a plurality of virtual functions provided in the I/O device (50) that is set by the system manager (10) is performed, the virtual function is enabled, or both of them are performed and each host is permitted to access each virtual function.
US09639486B2
A computer, having: a first OS to which a first processor core group is allocated; and a virtualization module to which a second processor core group is allocated, wherein a virtualization module registers interrupt handler processing for resetting the second processor core group, wherein a first OS has: a monitoring module for monitoring the virtualization module; and an interrupt control module for obtaining identifiers of the second processor core group at a time of booting of the virtualization module, and, when the monitoring module determines to reboot the virtualization module, issuing resetting interrupt to the processor cores of the second processor core group that are associated with the kept identifiers, wherein the second processor core group receives the resetting interrupt and executes the interrupt handler processing to reset its own processor cores, wherein the interrupt control module issues startup interrupt to the second processor core group.
US09639485B2
A method and apparatus for transmitting data in an Android platform based terminal device are provided. In the method, when the terminal device establishes a connection for data transmission with another device over a USB, the terminal device transmits data in an internal storage of the terminal device to the another device based upon a file transfer protocol and receives and writes into the internal storage data transmitted from the another device based upon the file transfer protocol; and the terminal device transmits data in an external storage of the terminal device to the another device in a UMS mode and receives and writes into the external storage data transmitted from the another device in the UMS mode.
US09639483B1
A method, system, and computer program product are provided for protecting state data of computer system code. The computer system code may be operating system code, subsystem code or application code and the item of state data is not expected to change within the execution of the computer system code. The method includes: creating or modifying an item of state data having a field value and being stored in memory for access by computer system code; registering an item of state data for protection; preserving the field value of the item of state data in a form inaccessible to third party software; validating the field value of the item of state data by comparing a current field value with the preserved field value to determine if the field value has been modified; and, if the field value has been modified, taking appropriate action.
US09639477B2
In some embodiments, a memory corruption prevention process includes detecting a memory instruction of a program, where the memory instruction specifies a virtual memory address of data. The memory corruption prevention process further includes accessing, in response to the memory instruction, a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) using at least a portion of the virtual memory address. The memory corruption prevention process further includes, in response to accessing the TLB, obtaining a physical memory address corresponding to the virtual memory address, where the physical memory address corresponds to the data. The memory corruption prevention process further includes, in response to accessing the TLB, obtaining an authentication value corresponding to the physical memory address. The memory corruption prevention process further includes determining, using the authentication value, whether the memory instruction is authorized to proceed.
US09639474B2
Techniques are provided by which memory pages may be migrated among PPU memories in a multi-PPU system. According to the techniques, a UVM driver determines that a particular memory page should change ownership state and/or be migrated between one PPU memory and another PPU memory. In response to this determination, the UVM driver initiates a peer transition sequence to cause the ownership state and/or location of the memory page to change. Various peer transition sequences involve modifying mappings for one or more PPU, and copying a memory page from one PPU memory to another PPU memory. Several steps in peer transition sequences may be performed in parallel for increased processing speed.
US09639473B1
Described herein are systems and methods to prevent a controller in a DDIO (data direct input output) system from shifting currently-required data out of a cache memory. In one embodiment, a compute element disables caching of some specific addresses in a non-cache memory, but still enables caching of other addresses in the non-cache memory, thereby practically disabling the DDIO system, so that data sets not currently needed are placed in the addresses in the non-cache memory which are not cached. As a result, currently-required data are not shifted out of cache memory. The compute element then determines that the data sets, which formerly avoided being cached, are now required. The system therefore copies the data sets that are now required from addresses in non-cache memory not accessible to cache memory, to addresses in non-cache memory accessible to cache memory, thereby allowing the caching and processing of such data sets.
US09639471B2
Attributes of access requests can be used to distinguish one set of access requests from another set of access requests. The prefetcher can determine a pattern for each set of access requests and then prefetch cache lines accordingly. In an embodiment in which there are multiple caches, a prefetcher can determine a destination for prefetched cache lines associated with a respective set of access requests. For example, the prefetcher can prefetch one set of cache lines into one cache, and another set of cache lines into another cache. Also, the prefetcher can determine a prefetch distance for each set of access requests. For example, the prefetch distances for the sets of access requests can be different.
US09639470B2
An interconnect has coherency control circuitry for performing coherency control operations and a snoop filter for identifying which devices coupled to the interconnect have cached data from a given address. When an address is looked up in the snoop filter and misses, and there is no spare snoop filter entry available, then the snoop filter selects a victim entry corresponding to a victim address, and issues an invalidate transaction for invalidating locally cached copies of the data identified by the victim. The coherency control circuitry for performing coherency checking operations for data access transactions is reused for performing coherency control operations for the invalidate transaction issued by the snoop filter. This greatly reduces the circuitry complexity of the snoop filter.
US09639462B2
Device for selecting a level for at least one read voltage for reading data stored in a multi-level memory device. The multi-level memory device includes a plurality of memory blocks, in which each of the memory blocks includes a plurality of word lines, each of the word lines being allocated to a plurality of memory pages and being indexed by a word line index. The device includes a first mapping unit for mapping each of the word line indices to one bin label, in which the number of bin labels is smaller than the number of word lines, and a second mapping unit for mapping each of the bin labels to a voltage information being indicative for at least one read voltage, in which the level for the at least one read voltage for reading data is selectable for each word line based on the respective word line index.
US09639460B1
A system and method for providing a print formatted string wherein a format object is created for a format string a format string having a set of format specifiers, an amount of memory to allocate to a string buffer for the format object is determined, and the determined amount of memory is allocated to the string buffer. For each set of parameter values received with the format object, where each parameter value corresponds to a format specifier in the format string, a determination is made whether the determined amount of memory for the string buffer is sufficient to hold the set of input parameter values in accordance with the format string. If the determined amount of memory is insufficient, an amount of memory sufficient for the set of input parameter values in accordance with the format string is re-determined, and the string buffer is reallocated to the re-determined amount of memory.
US09639453B2
Techniques are disclosed for automatically determining tests to run on source code based on code coverage. In one embodiment, an extensible system takes as input a configuration file having pointers to an IP address of a server where tests are being run and a type of code coverage instrumentation. An agent configured to instrument source code and collect code coverage information is copied to the server at the IP address. During a training phase, the agent intercepts tests being run on source code and provides a dump of the interception results after each test is executed. Using such results, mappings of the tests to the source code is created and stored. During an execution phase, when new or modified source code file is being checked in, a testing application retrieves for execution tests which map to the source code file and to code dependent on the source code file.
US09639452B2
Systems and methods for testing and deploying an update are provided. A first server can execute a current version of an application in a production environment. A client communication from a client to the first server can be identified. The client communication can be transmitted to a second server in the production environment. The second server can be executing an updated version of the application. A first response to the client communication from the first server and a second response to the client communication from the second server can be received. The first response from the first server can be compared with the second response from the second server to determine whether the updated version of the application is compatible with the production environment.
US09639444B2
One or more computers is configured to run an end-to-end test including at least a plurality of independent tests of multiple stages of an asynchronous multi-stage data processing system. One of the set of independent tests is configured to send a request for test input data from a test data repository service for a particular stage. A converted version of the test input data is obtained. A comparison of the converted version to the output of the particular stage to verify operation of the particular stage is obtained. The output of the particular stage is transmitted to the test data repository service. One or more computers is configured to provide the test data repository service. The test data repository service is configured to store in the test data storage the output of the particular stage as test input data for a next stage of the asynchronous multi-stage data processing system.
US09639443B2
Systems and methods may include receiving real-time data from real components operating in a real-world environment. The systems and methods may further include generating a virtual representation of the real components based on the real-time data received from the real components and historical data associated with the real components. In addition, the systems and methods may include determining whether the real-time data from a component of the real components indicates an anomaly. The systems and methods also may include, in response to determining that the real-time data from the component indicates the anomaly, determining whether the anomaly indicated by the real-time data from the component is consistent with the virtual representation of the real components. Moreover, the systems and methods may include, in response to determining that the anomaly indicated by the real-time data from the component is not consistent with the virtual representation of the real components, determining that the component is a malfunctioning component.
US09639440B2
An apparatus configured to operate as a Backup system in a Data Layered Architecture Public Land Mobile Network. The apparatus comprises an interface for enabling a data exchange between the apparatus and a plurality of Authentication Centre Front Ends, and a memory for storing subscriber authentication data. The apparatus further comprises a processor for detecting a failure of a Data Back End and for receiving a redirected authentication data set request from an Authentication Centre Front End via the interface. The processor is further configured, in the event of a detected failure of Data Back End, to generate one or more authentication data sets in response to the request using the data stored in the memory, and send the generated data set(s) to the Authentication Centre Front End via the interface.
US09639431B2
One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for multicast transport configuration, for multicast transport, and/or for fault policy implementation. In an example, a multicast component may receive a data copy request from an application to copy data to multiple destinations. A scheduler component may create a transport schedule specifying an order with which to facilitate data copy operations across transports, such as heterogeneous transports, to the destinations. A dispatcher component may apply application specified transport modifiers to the data copy operations (e.g., a modification to a quality of service for a transport). The dispatcher component may facilitate the data copy operations and provide operation result information to a policy agent. The policy agent may provide notifications of data copy operation statuses from the operation result information and/or may implement a fault policy (e.g., a retry on a different transport) for a data copy operation that experienced a fault.
US09639430B2
Machines, systems and methods for performing intermediate data backups, the method comprising monitoring data updates to one or more data blocks in at least a target data storage medium, wherein the target data storage medium is subject to an incremental data backup routine at prescheduled time intervals; in response to determining that said at least one or more data blocks is updated prior to a prescheduled time interval for the incremental data backup routine, performing one or more intermediate data backups to store data from the updated data blocks to at least one backup data storage medium; and in response to determining that said at least one or more data blocks is updated prior to the prescheduled time interval for the incremental data backup routine but after the last of the intermediate data backups, copying data on one or more updated data blocks after the last of the intermediate data backups to the backup data storage medium.
US09639429B2
Virtual databases are provisioned using point-in-time copies of a source database. Transaction logs received from the source database are applied to a point-in-time copy of the source database to create recovery milestones comprising database blocks that can be used to provision virtual databases. The recovery milestones are created in advance of receiving a request to provision a virtual database. Each recovery milestone is validated to determine that a consistent database snapshot can be created using the recovery milestone. If a problem is identified that prevents creation of a consistent database snapshot, the problem is fixed before creating the next recovery milestone. In response to receiving a request to provision a virtual database corresponding to a point in time, a recovery milestone is identified and transaction logs applied to the recovery milestone to create a database snapshot corresponding to the requested point in time.
US09639423B2
A system including first and second memory and a control module. The first memory stores a first lookup table with first metadata that includes a first mapping between logical and physical addresses and is lost due to an unexpected power down event. The second memory stores a second lookup table with second metadata and an event log. The second metadata includes a second mapping between the logical and physical addresses. The event log includes entries indicating updated associations between respective ones of the logical addresses and one of the physical addresses as included in the first metadata prior to the power down event. The control module: prior to the power down event, performs segmented flushes each including updating a segment of the second metadata with a corresponding segment of the first metadata; and walks the event log to recover a full flush cycle of segments of the first metadata.
US09639417B2
A storage control apparatus controls a storage device. The storage device includes a first storage area and a second storage area different from the first storage area. An error detection information storage unit generates an ECC for each of data blocks in data to be written, as error detection information. The error detection information storage unit stores generated ECC 1 to ECC 4 in the first storage area. A data storage unit stores data blocks DB1 to DB4 in the second storage area. A detection unit performs error detection on each of the data blocks according to the error detection information read from the first storage area and the data to be written read from the second storage area.
US09639411B2
Methods for notifying, in the event of a power outage, planned maintenance activity, a plurality of stakeholders of an enterprise infrastructure. The enterprise infrastructure may include components and relationships between components. The components may include data centers, data center components, applications, application components, and any other suitable components. The relationships may include relationships between data centers and data center components, relationships between data center components and applications, relationships between applications and application components, relationships between applications and stakeholders. Methods may receive power outage information at an impact notification center. Methods may determine the effect of the power outage on remaining components of the enterprise infrastructure and based on the determination, identify affected components. Methods may notify stakeholders of the power outage, identify service components which might get impacted and perform impact analysis and capacity planning in case of any disaster event where a data center and/or location is impacted.
US09639409B2
A device and method for communicating between cores are provided. The device comprises: a postbox component, configured to store a message sent from a message sending core to a message receiving core and notify the message receiving core to read the message; and a bus adapter component, connected between the postbox component and the message receiving core and the message sending core which communicate with each other and configured to provide read/write interfaces of the postbox component and the message receiving core and the message sending core. By means of the disclosure, the problems that the device and method for communicating between cores with high complexity, poor timeliness and poor expandability during multi-core application in the related art are solved, thereby achieving the effects of reducing the communication between cores complexity significantly, reducing communication time delay and having excellent expandability and scalability.
US09639408B1
In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, an information handling system may include a processor and a management controller communicatively coupled to the processor for out-of-band management of the information handling system. The management controller may be configured to receive an event relating to an information handling resource of the information handling system and communicate a command to the information handling resource for applying a customized indicator code behavior to a visual indicator associated with the information handling resource.
US09639405B2
A method for providing settlement information in which a device provides settlement information to an application which is installed on the device includes executing a first application which is installed on the device, receiving settlement information from an external device via the executed first application, converting at least a part of the received settlement information, and providing the converted settlement information to a second application which is installed on the device in order to allow the second application to use the received settlement information.
US09639392B2
A processing device implementing unbounded transactional memory with forward progress guarantees using a hardware global lock is disclosed. A processing device of the disclosure includes a hardware transactional memory (HTM) hardware contention manager to cause a bounded transaction to be translated to an unbounded transaction, the unbounded transaction to acquire a global hardware lock for the unbounded transaction, the global hardware lock read by bounded transactions that abort when the global hardware lock is taken. The processing device further includes an execution unit communicably coupled to the HTM hardware contention manager to execute instructions of the unbounded transaction without speculation, the unbounded transaction to release the global hardware lock upon completion of execution of the instructions.
US09639391B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide efficient systems and methods for scaling past the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) thread limit in a Java Virtual Machine. Embodiments of the present invention can be used to ensure that a received workload is executed, even if the workload is greater than a JVM thread limit of the system, by spawning a reduced number of threads from a main process, in order to provide enough resources for the effective execution of a received workload.
US09639390B2
A cloud manager monitors available resources on host computer systems, including a number of hardware threads supported by CPUs on the host computer systems. The cloud manager receives a request to provision a virtual machine (VM) that includes a hardware multithreading parameter that specifies the amount of hardware multithreading required on the host computer system. The cloud manager then selects a host computer system for the VM taking the hardware multithreading parameter into consideration.
US09639389B1
For managing a pool of virtual computer systems, master status and a rebasing task are assigned to at least one virtual computer system of the pool. A non-reserved status is assigned to virtual computer systems of the pool that are not assigned tasks. A virtual computer system of the pool is selected to respond to a rebasing request. The selecting includes selecting one of the at least one virtual computer system that currently has a master status and that currently has a processing load less than a predetermined threshold and, when no virtual computer system of the pool currently has a master status and a processing load less than the predetermined threshold, selecting a non-reserved one of the virtual computer systems to perform rebasing for the request and changing the non-reserved status of the selected, non-reserved one of the virtual computer systems to master status.
US09639373B2
An information processing apparatus providing a specific function includes a non-volatile function program memory that stores a function program for providing the specific function, a main memory, and an arithmetic device that reads and stores the function program from the function program memory into the main memory at startup of the information processing apparatus and performs an arithmetic operation based on the function program to execute the function program. The arithmetic device operates at a start frequency set for startup as a clock frequency for accessing the function program memory when reading and storing the function program from the function program memory into the main memory at the startup, and operates at a frequency lower than the start frequency as the clock frequency for accessing the function program memory after reading and storing the function program into the main memory.
US09639372B2
A heterogeneous processor architecture is described. For example, a processor according to one embodiment of the invention comprises: a set of large physical processor cores; a set of small physical processor cores having relatively lower performance processing capabilities and relatively lower power usage relative to the large physical processor cores; virtual-to-physical (V-P) mapping logic to expose the set of large physical processor cores to software through a corresponding set of virtual cores and to hide the set of small physical processor core from the software.
US09639368B2
Branch prediction using a correlating event, such as an unconditional branch that calls a routine including the branch, instead of the branch itself, to predict the behavior of the branch. The circumstances in which the branch is employed, and not the actual branch itself, is used to predict how strongly taken or not taken the branch is to behave. An anchor point associated with the branch (e.g., an address of the instruction calling a routine that includes the branch), an address of the branch, and a value that represents the number of selected branch instructions between the anchor point and the branch are used to select information to be used to predict the direction of the branch.
US09639355B2
A semiconductor chip is described having a functional unit that can execute a first instruction and execute a second instruction. The first instruction is an instruction that multiplies two operands. The second instruction is an instruction that approximates a function according to C0+C1X2+C2X22. The functional unit has a multiplier circuit. The multiplier circuit has: i) a first input to receive bits of a first operand of the first instruction and receive bits of a C1 term of the second instruction; ii) a second input to receive bits of a second operand of the first instruction and receive bits of a X2 term of the second instruction.
US09639354B2
A method of an aspect includes receiving an instruction indicating a destination storage location. A result is stored in the destination storage location in response to the instruction. The result includes the result including a sequence of at least four non-negative integers. In an aspect, values of the at least four non-negative integers are not calculated using a result of a preceding instruction. Other methods, apparatus, systems, and instructions are disclosed.
US09639351B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for matching and attributing code violations. One of the methods includes receiving a plurality of snapshots of a code base, including data representing a revision graph of the snapshots of the code base and data representing respective violations in each of the plurality of snapshots. A plurality of transitively matched violations in the code base are generated, wherein each transitively matched violation represents a respective sequence of matching violations from a first violation of a first snapshot to a second violation of a second snapshot, wherein each transitively matched violation identifies a respective first violation representing an initial occurrence of a coding defect in the code base and a respective second violation representing a last occurrence of the coding defect in the code base.
US09639342B2
The present disclosure includes some examples of methods, systems, and machine readable media which deliver firmware updates to a computing device of a hearing professional while requiring little or no user interaction. For example, the firmware patches may be delivered in a way that does not require administrator access on the computer. In various embodiments, the updates may only require periodic access to a network (e.g., the Internet), the updates may not require the fitting software to be running, and/or the updates may not even require a user to be logged in to the computing device.
US09639320B2
Embodiments are described for handling situations when a window or application is repositioned and clipped in a multi-screen device. In embodiments, if the window is repositioned such that it cannot be displayed entirely on one display, but would otherwise spillover or spill onto another display, the window or application is clipped. Such clipping is performed based on the size and location of the window and the size and location of the display.
US09639316B2
Print control of access information for which a valid period is set is performed properly. A printing apparatus acquires access information which is to be used for accessing a server and which has a valid period set for the access. If an elapsed time from the acquisition of the access information exceeds a predetermined time, the printing apparatus does not print the access information even if the valid period has not expired. If the elapsed time does not exceed the predetermined time, the printing apparatus prints the access information.
US09639314B2
An information processing apparatus for creating drawing data based on a printing job, comprises a plurality of drawing data creating units configured to create respective drawing data based on the printing job, a printing job receiving unit configured to receive the printing job designating a drawing data creating unit of the drawing data creating units, a printing job outputting unit configured to output the printing job received by the printing job receiving unit to the designated drawing data creating unit.
US09639310B2
Methods and systems evaluate the most recent print job processed with different printing sites to calculate the current residual capacity for each of the different printing sites. The current residual capacity is determined and maintained by a computerized server. These methods and systems can then calculate the turnaround time of a print job for each of the different printing sites based on the current residual capacity, can calculate the cost of the print job for each of the different printing sites based on historical cost information maintained by the computerized server, and can calculate a weighted sum of the turnaround time and cost of the print job for each of the different printing sites. This allows these methods and systems to select one of the different printing sites based on the relatively lowest weighted sum for the print job, and to assign the print job to the selected printing site.
US09639306B1
A method of generating a cell design of print production devices for a print production environment includes receiving a print job list, and identifying a plurality of print production devices located in the production environment. The system identifies a list of functions associated with the print jobs, and generates a graph. The system determines a threshold value, and partitions the graph into a number of groups equal to the threshold value such that a number of edges extending between groups is minimized. The system generates an initial cell design for the print production environment, and causes a hardware setting of each of the plurality of production devices to be updated to reflect the cell to which the production device was assigned and to enable the production device to perform one or more functions associated with the cell to which the production device was assigned.
US09639305B1
Method and apparatus of processing information in an environment with multiple devices and resources
A method and apparatus are disclosed that provide processing data associated with a job request. In one example, the job request may be a printer job to print a particular document based on predefined settings. The data processing operation may include determining at least one job specific resource available to fulfill the job request, and performing at least one of a prioritization computation, a job specific requirement computation, and a geographical determination computation. Additional operations may include selecting at least one appropriate device to fulfill the job request based on the at least one computation operation and the at least one available job specific resource, and processing and completing the job using the at least one appropriate device based on the at least one computation.
US09639298B2
A method begins by a dispersed storage (DS) processing obtaining estimated future availability information for storage units and organizing a plurality of sets of encoded data slices into a plurality of group-sets of encoded data slices. For each of the plurality of group-sets of encoded data slices, the method continues with the DS processing module estimating an approximate storage completion time to produce a plurality of approximate storage completion times. The method continues with the DS processing module establishing a time-availability pattern for writing the plurality of group-sets of encoded data slices to the storage units based on the estimated future availability information and the plurality of approximate storage completion times. The method continues with the DS processing module sending the plurality of group-sets of encoded data slices to at least some of the storage units for storage therein in accordance with the time-availability pattern.
US09639284B2
The present invention includes embodiments of systems and methods for increasing the operational efficiency and extending the estimated operational lifetime of a flash memory storage device (and its component flash memory chips, LUNs and blocks of flash memory) by monitoring the health of the device and its components and, in response, adaptively tuning the operating parameters of flash memory chips during their operational lifetime, as well as employing other less extreme preventive measures in the interim, via an interface that avoids the need for direct access to the test modes of the flash memory chips. In an offline characterization phase, “test chips” from a batch of recently manufactured flash memory chips are used to simulate various usage scenarios and measure the performance effects of writing and attempting to recover (read) test patterns written with different sets of operating parameters over time (simulating desired retention periods).
US09639277B2
A virtual LU astride a plurality of storage devices is a virtual volume composed of a plurality of partial volumes. Functions of the storage system, Zoning information of a SAN and a host group information of the virtual volume are inherited to a partial volume created for each physical device. When a page granularity data migration is executed, volume or data are migrated to other storage devices without depending on the relationship between a physical port and the physical device. When a host IO request is received when migration is on-going, response processing is performed by synchronizing storage devices within the range of migration data. The host IO request related to the page being migrated sends a partial complete response including information for re-routing the request to a path of the appropriate data migration destination device capable of issuing the IO.
US09639257B2
A system and method are disclosed. A user input device may be configured to receive an input from a user. A visual display may be configured to display interface elements in a frame configured to scroll along a first axis based on the input as received by the user input device being substantially along the first axis and to switch display of interface elements of a subset of the interface elements between an unselected configuration and a selected configuration in response to a first input as received by the user input device being substantially along a second axis orthogonal to the first axis. The visual display may not switch display of the interface elements between the unselected configuration and the selected configuration based on the input along the first axis without first receiving the first input along the second axis.
US09639256B2
Some embodiments of the application provide a method for starting an Activity of a mobile terminal and the mobile terminal. The method may comprise: determining a display mode of a new Activity after determining that the new Activity is required to be started; and setting a window flag for starting the Activity according to the determined display mode so as to start the Activity in the display mode indicated by the window flag; where the display mode comprises a window mode and a full-screen mode.
US09639250B2
The present disclosure includes displaying a matrix. In one embodiment, a computing device is configured to display an N×M matrix comprising N rows and M columns of matrix cells. A selection is received by the computing device of a first matrix cell of the N×M matrix. The first matrix cell has a particular display area. The computing device is reconfigured to display the N×M matrix, wherein a first display area of the first matrix cell is increased, and wherein display areas of a plurality of other matrix cells are decreased.
US09639248B2
Methods are described for maximizing the size of a video displayed in a display area of a video player. The maximum height of the video is determined using its aspect ratio and the dimensions of the display area in the video player. The control panel is removed from the display in the video player if this allows the video to be shown at its maximum height while preserving the video's resolution. The control panel is displayed in the video player if the video can be shown at its maximum height without removing the control panel from the display.
US09639246B2
A streaming composition system is described herein that provides easy workflow and playback capabilities for content producers to create composite media assets from existing and on-going media content and for streaming clients to seamlessly playback composite multimedia streams provided from different sources. These assets provide broadcasters an option to quickly turn around highlights for an on-going event. The streaming composition system allows a producer to identify clips within existing media assets and compose the clips into a new unified streaming presentation. For producers that already have smooth streaming media assets, the system leverages these assets to provide seamless playback across clip boundaries including advanced playback support for advertisement insertion, fast forward, rewind, and so on.
US09639240B2
A computer-implemented method for launching an installed application comprising the steps of: providing a web browser; displaying in the web browser a first list of at least one three-dimensional object; selecting at least one three-dimensional object among said first list; determining a second list of at least one installed application(s) able to use the selected object(s) of the first list; displaying in the web browser said second list; selecting an application in said second list; and launching said selected application of said second list together with the opening of the selected object(s) of the first list.
US09639210B2
A device implements a data processing method for an optical FTIR-based touch system. The touch system defines detection lines across a surface portion of a panel by propagating light inside the panel from a plurality of incoupling points to a plurality of outcoupling points, such that each location on the surface portion is illuminated by incident light rays. At least one light detector is coupled to the outcoupling points to generate an output signal. The device obtains signal values for the detection lines from the output signal and processes the signal values to at least partly compensate for variations in the apparent interaction among the subset of detection lines that interact with an object on the surface portion.
US09639208B2
A touch panel system (1) includes a touch panel (3) and a touch position detecting section (5) for detecting a touch position on the touch panel (3). The touch position detecting section (5) includes a touch start determining section (56) for (i) setting a determining region based on a touch start position candidate which is a touch position that has been detected relatively earliest and (ii) determining that touches have been started from the touch start position candidate in a case where the touches whose starting point is at the touch start position candidate have been successively detected within the determining region a predetermined number of times or more.
US09639200B2
A touch detection circuit includes: a map generation section configured to compare a touch signal corresponding to a proximity state of an external proximity object with each of a plurality of thresholds to generate a plurality of pieces of map data each showing touch regions; a labeling section configured to selectively perform labeling on the touch regions in the plurality of pieces of map data, based on inclusive relationship of the touch regions between the plurality of pieces of map data; and a detection section configured to perform touch detection based on processing results by the labeling section.
US09639198B2
A semiconductor device connected to the display panel including the in-cell type touch sensor is configured as follows. The semiconductor device includes a driving circuit of the display panel, a touch sensing circuit of the touch sensor, a power supply circuit that supplies a power source to these circuits, and a bias control circuit that controls a bias current flowing through these circuits. The semiconductor device is able to perform a time-division operation in which one frame period of display is divided into a plurality of display driving periods and sensing periods. In the display driving periods, the supply of power to the touch sensing circuit is suppressed, and/or a bias current is reduced. In the sensing periods, the supply of power to the driving circuit is suppressed, and/or a bias current is reduced.
US09639196B2
The present invention presents a mobile electronic device comprising dynamic hardware controls and a method for controlling dynamic hardware controls. The mobile electronic device comprises a pressure sensing film arranged to detect a pressure applied on at least one portion of at least one side of the mobile electronic device and electroactive polymer film with a conductive coating arranged overlaying the pressure sensing film. The electroactive polymer film comprises at least one deformable segment that may be deformed temporarily by the application of a voltage over the at least one deformable segment in the electroactive polymer film, the mobile electronic device further comprises a control unit arranged to control the dynamic hardware controls.
US09639195B2
A method for controlling an input from a user to a computerized system including a touchpad is presented. The method includes obtaining data from the touchpad. The data is associated with the location and force of a finger and/or a hand of the user upon the touchpad and not associated with an image of the finger from an image sensor, when the user operates the computerized system using the touchpad. The method further includes communicating the data from the touchpad to the computerized system and analyzing the data in accordance with a model of a human hand. The method further includes determining, using the model, that at least one finger of the user is touching a first control region of the touchpad using a first force.
US09639194B2
An in-cell touch display structure includes: an upper substrate, a lower substrate, a display material layer configured between the upper and lower substrates, and a thin film transistor and sensing electrode layer. The thin film transistor and sensing electrode layer includes a gate line sub-layer having a plurality of gate lines and a plurality of connection segments separated by the gate lines, and a source line sub-layer having a plurality of source lines, a plurality of sensing conductor lines, and a plurality of sensing conductor segments separated by the source lines and the sensing conductor lines, wherein part of the sensing conductor segments and part of the connection segments are electrically connected together to form a plurality of sensing conductor blocks.
US09639192B2
A multi-touch system for controlling liquid crystal capacitors to reduce touch sensing interferences includes K gate driving lines, which are divided into N groups each corresponding to a common voltage conductive line. When a display driving signal is applied to an i-th group of gate driving lines for performing a display driving, the liquid crystal capacitor corresponding to the i-th group is set to a predetermined voltage, where i=1 to N. Finally, a touch driving signal is applied to an i-th common voltage conductive line corresponding to the i-th group for sensing touch points, so as to reduce touch sensing affections caused by noises of the liquid crystal display.
US09639180B2
A computer system that includes a data-processing unit, a touch-sensitive, position-resolving input surface in data communication with the data-processing unit, and a freely movable input device, by which the input surface is to be touched for the purpose of inputting into the data-processing unit. The freely movable input device is a computer mouse, which is in data communication with the data-processing unit. With comparatively low sensor complexity, inter alia, both the absolute position of the computer mouse and also subtle position changes of the computer mouse can therefore be very easily detected by the data-processing unit.
US09639177B2
A mobile terminal is provided that is capable of effectively displaying information to users by utilizing characteristics of a flexible display unit. The mobile terminal includes a flexible display unit configured to display image information on an entire screen; a sensing unit configured to sense a folded state of the flexible display unit; and a control unit configured to divide an entire screen of the flexible display unit into a plurality of screens based on a folded position, rearrange image information according to the plurality of divided screens, and display the rearranged image information on at least one of the plurality of divided screens.
US09639162B2
Embodiments of vehicle gesture recognition systems and methods are disclosed. An example vehicle gesture recognition system comprises a data interface configured for receiving 2d image data from a 2d sensor and/or from a portable device camera via a portable device interface. Additionally or alternatively, the data interface is configured for receiving gesture data indicating a gesture. A vehicle processing unit is configured for controlling user interfacing with a user interface based on the gestures recognized from the 2d image data and/or as indicated by the gesture data.
US09639160B2
A tactile sensation providing device can provide a user with an appropriate tactile sensation by efficiently vibrating a panel and is waterproof or dustproof. The tactile sensation providing device includes a panel; a tactile sensation provider, which provides a tactile sensation by vibrating the panel; a housing; and silicon rubber with a general U-shaped cross-section, disposed between the panel and the housing, for suppressing intrusion of dust or water from outside the housing to inside the housing.
US09639152B2
For display alignment based on eye tracking, a method is disclosed that includes displaying, by use of a processor, a graphical object on a display screen, detecting an aspect of a user relative to the display screen, and moving the graphical object to reduce a viewing angle between the graphical object and the aspect of a user.
US09639145B2
In one example in accordance with the present disclosure, a computing device is provided. The computing device includes an interface module and a power management module. The interface module is to provide a user interface that facilitates enabling and disabling of an always on feature, and further facilitates configuration of a permissible advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI) S3 state period. The power management module to receive a request to enter an ACPI S3 state, determine whether the always on feature is enabled, and in response to determining that the always on feature is enabled, determine whether the computing device is within a user-defined permissible ACPI S3 state period. In response to determining that the computing device is within the user-defined permissible ACPI S3 state period, the power management module is to set a wake event and cause the computing device to enter the ACPI S3 state.
US09639134B2
In an embodiment, a processor includes a plurality of cores including a first core. The first core includes a first plurality of accumulator logics, each accumulator logic of the first plurality of accumulator logics to store corresponding first core telemetry data. The processor also includes a power management unit (PMU) to request telemetry data from the first core and in response to receive the first core telemetry data stored in at least one accumulator logic of the first plurality of accumulator logics. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US09639131B2
A variety of data storage devices, methods and systems are implemented for control of memory associated with backup functionality. One such data storage device includes a power circuit that provides main power. The data storage device has a first solid-state memory circuit that maintains data in the absence of electrical power. A second memory circuit is subject to data loss in the absence of electrical power. A storage circuit stores energy and provides the stored energy to the second memory circuit in response to a loss of main power. A test circuit discharges a portion of the stored energy to provide output data indicative of power-providing capabilities of the storage circuit. A memory controller controls data transfers to the data storage device by temporarily storing data destined for the first solid-state memory circuit and setting the amount of memory available for temporary storage in response to the output data.
US09639129B2
The economical load distribution adjusting device 10 acquires an optimal hydroelectric output, optimal demand, and optimal power price from the supply-demand planning device 23, acquires the planned hydroelectric output planned by the water level planning devices 21, and acquires a planned demand planned by the hot water tank temperature control devices 22. The economical load distribution adjusting device 10 reduces the power price of the time at which the planned hydroelectric output exceeds the optimal output and makes the water level planning devices 21 replan the hydroelectric output, and raises the power price of the time at which the planned demand exceeds the optimal demand and makes the hot water tank temperature control devices 22 replan the amount of demand.
US09639123B2
An electronic device is provided. The electronic device includes a housing having a base plate and a sidewall, the sidewall having a shape bent and extended from an end of the base plate, a duct in the base plate that is parallel to a surface of the base plate and having an external end open to the sidewall of the housing, an electronic part placed on an internal surface of the base plate to cover at least a portion of the duct, and a waterproof sheet disposed between the duct and the electronic part to protect the electronic part.
US09639118B2
A housing includes a main portion and at least one insulating portion. The main portion includes two portions, an inner surface and an outer surface opposite to the inner surface. The inner surface defines at least one groove. The outer surface defines at least one gap that is coupled to the at least one groove. The at least one insulating portion is corresponding to the at least one groove and each insulating portion is filled in one groove. The two portions of the main portion are positioned at two sides of the at least one gap and the two portions are insulated by the at least one gap and the at least one insulating portion.
US09639114B2
A spread spectrum clock generation circuit includes a generation unit configured to generate and output a spread spectrum clock based on an input reference clock, a monitoring unit configured to monitor a difference between the number of pulses of a reference clock input to the generation unit after a reference time and the number of pulses of a spread spectrum clock output from the generation unit after the reference time, and a control unit configured to control a frequency of a spread spectrum clock to be generated by the generation unit so as to make the difference fall within a predetermined range.
US09639113B2
The present invention relates to communication technology and provides a display method and an electronic device capable of solving the problem associated with limited operation space due to a small screen of an electronic device. In particular, the method comprises: detecting a trigger event when the first display unit displays a first content and the second display unit is in a first power consumption state; determining whether the trigger event satisfies a predetermined condition to obtain a determination result; generating a switching instruction when the determination result indicates that the trigger event satisfies the predetermined condition; and switching the second display unit from the first power consumption state to a second power consumption state and displaying the first content on the second display unit in response to the switching instruction. The first power consumption state has a lower power consumption than the second power consumption state. The present invention can be applied in a display of an electronic device.
US09639105B2
One aspect is a method that includes applying a plurality of incrementally varying voltage targets to a plurality of power phase converters operating in parallel between a source voltage rail and a load voltage rail. A phase temperature of each of the power phase converters is monitored. The phase temperature of each of the power phase converters is compared to a thermal adjustment limit. One or more of the power phase converters are adjusted to reduce an associated output current based on determining that at least one of the power phase converters exceeds the thermal adjustment limit. Power phase converter adjustments can be performed in a balanced manner such that a net sum voltage at the load voltage rail is substantially unchanged after the adjustments.
US09639101B2
To provide a voltage regulator capable of maintaining the accuracy of an output voltage even if it is set to an arbitrary output voltage. A voltage regulator includes an output transistor comprised of an NMOS transistor having a backgate grounded, an error amplifier circuit configured to amplify and output a difference between a divided voltage obtained by dividing an output voltage outputted from the output transistor and a reference voltage and thereby to control a gate of the output transistor, a constant voltage circuit, and a transistor having a gate inputted with a voltage of the constant voltage circuit, a drain connected to the gate of the output transistor, and a source connected to a source of the output transistor.
US09639099B2
The present disclosure provides methods and systems for regulating the room temperature in a room or in a plurality of rooms, the room temperature can be regulated by regulating the mass flow of a heat-carrying fluid flowing through a heat exchanger according to a determined current room temperature. In accordance with some embodiments, a temperature sensor in the room can be dispensed that can determine the current room temperature, in each case the mass flow of the heat carrying fluid through the heat exchanger and the flow temperature prevailing at the input to the heat exchanger and the return temperature prevailing at the output of the heat exchanger are measured, and that a temperature assigned to the determined values of the mass flow, the flow temperature and the return temperature is output as the current room temperature and used for regulation.
US09639095B2
In the case of a sanitary fixture (1), it is provided that at least one covering surface (7), by way of which at least one flow opening (4) of a flow element (3) is openable and at least partially closable in a temperature-dependent manner, is formed on a covering element (6) made of a temperature-sensitive material (cf. FIG. 1).
US09639093B2
A valve poppet (54) is provided for use in a regulator valve assembly (200) for regulating the pressure of a flowing gas through a gas flow pressure regulator (300). The valve poppet is includes a valve disc (54) having a flexible portion (60a) so as to permit upward and downward movement of a valve stem (52) in an axial direction. The valve disc may have an edge portion (60b) that provides a preloading force to self-align the valve disc within a valve seat (70), and axially constrain the motion of valve stem. The valve stem (52) may extend perpendicularly relative to the valve disc from a sealing portion (58). The movement of the valve stem is axially constrained and results in upward and downward movement of the flexible portion when the valve is opened and closed. The flexible and end portions of the valve disc may be formed of a plurality of spiral arms for self-aligning and axially constraining the valve disc.
US09639091B2
A system for collecting a fluid sample from a machine having a fluid module is provided. The system includes a docking station disposed on the machine. The system also includes a pump selectively disposed in fluid communication with the fluid module of the machine. The pump is configured to draw a fluid from the fluid module. The system further includes an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The UAV is configured to detachably dock onto the docking station. The UAV is also configured to collect the fluid sample from the pump.
US09639089B2
A gust compensation system is configured to adaptively reduce gust loads exerted into an aircraft. The gust compensation system may include a first sensor proximate to a front of the aircraft. The first sensor is configured to output a first signal. A second sensor may be distally located from the front of the aircraft. The second sensor is configured to output a second signal. A gust signal sub-system is configured to receive the first and second signals and generate a gust signal based on analysis of the first and second signals. The gust signal sub-system outputs the gust signal and may modify a load parameter signal in response to the gust signal exceeding a load alleviation threshold.
US09639077B2
A control device efficiently performs priority-dependent data transmission through a communication line and a control method aimed at the priority-dependent data transmission. The control device includes a transmitter that transmits data as a frame to another unit through the communication line and a generator that generates the data to be transmitted to another unit. When the higher-priority data to be transmitted is generated in a receiver or a controller while the transmitter transmits a first frame, the transmitter transmits a second frame including the higher-priority data to be transmitted after transmitting a first frame up to a predetermined block.
US09639076B2
A switch apparatus for connecting an arithmetic processing apparatus and a control apparatus that controls the processing apparatus to an I/O apparatus is disclosed, the switch apparatus includes: a switch unit that connects either the processing apparatus or the control apparatus to the I/O; a first input/output control unit that outputs a first command that is received from the processing apparatus to the I/O through the switch unit, receives a response from the I/O that is operated based on the first command, through the switch unit, and outputs the received response to the processing apparatus; and a second input/output control unit that outputs a second command that is received from the control apparatus, to the I/O through the switch unit, receives a test result of the I/O that is tested based on the second command, through the switch unit, and outputs the received test result to the control apparatus.
US09639072B2
A system is provided for reducing temperature gradients within a building. For example, temperature gradients between the air temperature measured at a thermostat controlling an HVAC system and the air temperature in one or more rooms of the building can be reduced. A model of the building is created by measuring the temperature gradient between the thermostat and one or more rooms of the building. This model is used to determine the operation of the HVAC system so as to reduce one or more of such temperature gradients.
US09639069B2
The invention relates to a method for optimizing the supply of energy, over a time interval I of duration D, to an installation equipped with N energy distribution devices operating in all-or-nothing mode and by duration modulation, an operation duration Ai being allocated to each of the N energy distribution devices over the time interval I by a command/control system of the installation. According to the method: a schedule is defined over the time interval I by means of the time division of the set of operating sequences of the N energy distribution devices (B1, B2 . . . BN), and the schedule is calculated before the start of the time interval I by taking account of the desired operation durations Ai of each energy distribution device and, for the distribution device of order number 1, by searching for the optimal position(s) over the time interval of the operating sequence(s) of this distribution device which make it possible to minimize a function U representative of the fluctuations of the energy throughput over the time interval, the sequences of the other devices retaining the positions of the initial schedule, so as to obtain a resulting optimal schedule; and the above is repeated on the basis of the optimal schedule, using successively the distribution devices of higher order number up to the distribution device of order number N, and that which minimizes function U is adopted.
US09639067B2
Time adjustment device, timekeeping device with a time adjustment device, and time adjustment method
A timepiece can acquire time information in a short time, reduce power consumption, and display the correct time. A timepiece comprises a receiver to receive a satellite signal, and a time information generator to generate internal time information. The receiver runs a first reception process that acquires first information including week information from the satellite signal, a second reception process that acquires second information including leap second information from the satellite signal, or a third reception process that acquires third information including hour, minute and second information from the satellite signal. In the first reception timing, after the internal time information is initialized, the receiver runs the first reception process and runs the second reception process after running the first. In a next reception timing, after the first reception timing, the receiver runs the third reception process if the first and second information are acquired in the first reception timing.
US09639066B2
A display device and an electronic apparatus using the display device include a display component configured to output initial light corresponding to a first image; and a light path converting component configured to receive the initial light corresponding to the first image from the display component and to perform light path conversion on the initial light corresponding to the first image to form a virtual image corresponding to the first image, wherein the virtual image corresponding to the first image is perceived at a particular position and a size of the virtual image perceived being greater than a display size of the display component, wherein the light path converting component comprises a visible area, the particular position and the display component are located separately at two sides of a plane on which the visible area is located.
US09639057B2
A watch type mobile terminal includes: a body having a power supply unit, a printed circuit board, and a display unit formed to implement a touch input thereon; a band unit formed to be wearable on a user's wrist by being connected to the body, and formed such that at least part thereof is wound or unwound in the body; and a length control unit configured to implement winding or unwinding of the band unit such that a length of the band unit is controllable in accordance with a user's wrist size.
US09639054B2
An image forming device includes a main casing, a process cartridge, a sheet passage, and a first guide. The process cartridge includes a photosensitive body, and a transfer member, and is configured to be attachable to and detachable from the main casing. The sheet passage extends in a first direction and is configured to allow a sheet to pass between the photosensitive body and the transfer member. The first guide is configured to guide the process cartridge such that the process cartridge is attachable to and detachable from the main casing. The first guide has a support portion extending in a second direction substantially perpendicular to the first direction and configured to support the process cartridge in a state where the process cartridge is attached to the main casing.
US09639052B2
An image forming apparatus, including an image forming unit configured to form an image on a sheet in an electro-photographic method and detachably attached to a body of the image forming apparatus; a chassis configured to accommodate the image forming unit and including an opening portion, through which the image forming unit is detachably attached to the body; a handle arranged in the image forming unit to protrude at least partly through the opening portion when the image forming unit is attached to the body; and a cover movable between a closed position, in which the opening portion is closed, and an open position, in which the opening portion is exposed, the cover including a protrusion cover configured to cover a protrusive part of the handle protruded through the opening portion when the cover is in the closed position, is provided.
US09639048B1
A media accumulator-ejector for use with an imaging apparatus. Rotatable upper and lower roll assemblies are located above and below a media accumulation zone comprised of an accumulation plate and positioned to receive media exiting an imaging device. The roll assemblies are moveable like jaws between an open position where media can accumulate on the accumulation plate without interference with the roll assemblies and a clamping position where the accumulated media is grasped by the upper and lower roll assemblies. The upper and lower roll assemblies are then rotated to eject the accumulated media from the accumulation plate. The upper and lower roll assemblies can also grasp and continuously eject individual sheets of media at a predetermined process speed.
US09639047B2
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming device for forming a pattern image having unit images on a photosensitive member, a sensor for irradiating the pattern image with light and detecting reflected light, and a controller for controlling the image forming device to form a pattern image for printing used when printing and a pattern image for detection to be detected by the sensor on the photosensitive member. A first pattern image for printing includes a predetermined number of first unit images arranged to be spaced from each other, each of the first unit images being smaller than a predetermined size. A first pattern image for detection corresponding to the first pattern image for printing includes more than the predetermined number of the first unit images arranged to be spaced from each other.
US09639042B2
A fixing device includes a nip formation pad to press against a fixing rotator. A primary heater is disposed opposite the fixing rotator in a primary heating span spanning in an axial direction of the fixing rotator to heat the primary heating span of the fixing rotator from which heat is conducted to the nip formation pad with a primary conduction. A secondary heater is disposed opposite the fixing rotator in a secondary heating span that is outboard from the primary heating span in the axial direction of the fixing rotator. The secondary heater is interposed between a first nip formation portion and a second nip formation portion of the nip formation pad to heat the secondary heating span of the fixing rotator through the nip formation pad from which heat is conducted to the fixing rotator with a secondary conduction greater than the primary conduction.
US09639041B2
A fixing device includes a belt member that rotates to fix a toner image to a recording material; a pressing unit that, along with the belt member, presses the recording material while the pressing unit rotates; a heating section that contacts an inner side of the belt member and heats the belt member; and a nip forming portion that is provided at the inner side of the belt member, and that forms a nip where the recording material is nipped between the belt member and the pressing unit. In the fixing device, the heating section is disposed at an outer side of a locus of the belt member where the heating section is not provided and that is nipped by the nip forming portion and the pressing unit.
US09639039B2
An image forming apparatus detects that the temperature of a fixing member reaches a lower limit value at which the temperature once reduced by the start of a heating and fixing process to a paper turns to rise, after an image forming operation starts, and determines the type of the paper based on at least one of an elapsed time from a predetermined reference time point after the image forming operation starts to a time point at which it is detected that the temperature reaches the lower limit value, and a temperature difference between the temperature of the fixing member at the reference time point and the lower limit value.
US09639038B1
A system and method for controlling the fuser assembly of an electrophotographic imaging device, including initiating reading line current and line voltage for a plurality of consecutive AC cycles; from the AC cycle readings, identifying heater on cycles in which power is applied to the fuser heater and heater off cycles in which power is not applied to the fuser heater; calculating heater power from the identified heater on cycles and the heater off cycles, the heater power being the power of the fuser heater during a predetermined heater on cycle of the consecutive AC cycles; calculating a fuser heater voltage of the fuser heater during the predetermined heater on cycle based on the voltage readings; calculating a resistance of the fuser heater based on the calculated heater power and the calculated fuser heater voltage; and controlling the fuser assembly based upon the calculated resistance of the fuser heater.
US09639023B2
A sliding member has a free end that extends toward the downstream side of the direction of rotation of a developer bearing member, and a tip portion on the free end side of the sliding member slides against the developer bearing member. The developer bearing member has a region where, when a developer is placed on a vertical direction upper side of the developer bearing member which is in a stationary state, the developer can remain without dropping. A position against which the tip portion of the sliding member slides, the region, and a position against which a regulating member slides are located on the developer bearing member in this order toward the downstream side of the direction of rotation of the developer bearing member.
US09639018B2
An electrostatic latent image developing toner includes a plurality of toner particles each including a toner core and a shell layer. The shell layer includes a plurality of first shell particles and a plurality of second shell particles. The first shell particles cover the toner core at a coverage of at least 25% and no greater than 50%. The second shell particles additionally cover the toner cores at a coverage of at least 5% and no greater than 30%. An SP value of the toner core is greater than an SP value of the first shell particles. The SP value of the first shell particles is greater than an SP value of the second shell particles.
US09639015B2
Disclosed is toner particles having controlled and tailorable fusing characteristics. In particular, there is provided toner particles comprising styrene acrylate which have specific shape characteristics that allow for tailorable fusing characteristics without generating a detrimental effect on the blocking characteristics of such toners.
US09639009B2
The present invention provides a highly electro-conductive electrophotographic member which contributes to formation of high-quality electrophotographic images while bleeding out of an ion conducting agent is reduced, a process cartridge, and an electrophotographic apparatus. Accordingly, the electrophotographic member according to the present invention includes an electro-conductive mandrel and an electro-conductive layer, wherein the electro-conductive layer contains a resin synthesized from a nitrogen-containing aromatic heterocyclic cation and a compound being able to react with the nitrogen-containing aromatic heterocyclic cation, and an anion; the nitrogen-containing aromatic heterocyclic cation has two substituents bonded to hydroxyl groups; and the substituent bonded to the hydroxyl group is bonded to a nitrogen atom of a nitrogen-containing aromatic heterocycle of the nitrogen-containing aromatic heterocyclic cation.
US09639006B2
A lithographic projection apparatus is disclosed where at least part of a space between a projection system of the apparatus and a substrate is filled with a liquid by a liquid supply system. The projection system is separated into two separate physical parts. With substantially no direct connection between the two parts of the projection system, vibrations induced in a first of the two parts by coupling of forces through the liquid filling the space when the substrate moves relative to the liquid supply system affects substantially only the first part of the projection system and not the other second part.
US09639003B2
An imaging assembly for directing a pattern of energy at a workpiece includes (i) a reticle that defines a reticle array that includes a plurality of spaced apart, transmitting regions; (ii) an illumination source that generates an illumination beam; and (iii) a director assembly that selectively directs the illumination beam at the reticle array, the director assembly includes a plurality of director elements that are individually controlled to selectively control the beam pattern that is directed at the reticle array.
US09638990B2
A projector device of the present disclosure includes a luminous tube made of quartz glass, a concave reflecting mirror in which the luminous tube is disposed, and an optical unit for projecting an image by utilizing light emitted from the concave reflecting mirror. The luminous tube has a luminous part, in which at least mercury is enclosed inside and a pair of electrodes is disposed so as to face each other, and a pair of sealing parts extending from the luminous part in opposite directions to each other. The luminous tube is disposed so as to direct the pair of electrodes in a vertical direction. A region of the image projected from the optical unit is a horizontally long rectangle.
US09638987B2
The camera side mount is brought, by relative rotation with the accessory side mount, from a first state where each accessory side bayonet claw is inserted between the camera side bayonet claws into a second state where the camera side and accessory side bayonet claws engage with each other. The leaf spring biasing the camera side contact pins in the protruding direction is disposed between the camera side mount and the camera body. When the camera being in the normal position is viewed from the direction facing the camera side mount, the leaf spring extends from both sides of the mount center line, which extends from the center of the camera side mount in the direction of gravity, toward the camera side contact pins. The camera side contact pins are arranged at positions other than a position on the mount center line.
US09638977B2
Methods, apparatus, and systems for mitigating defects in optical devices such as electrochromic devices. One method mitigates a pinhole defect in an electrochromic device by identifying the site of the pinhole defect and obscuring the pinhole to make it less visually discernible. In some cases, the pinhole defect may be the result of mitigating a short-related defect.
US09638971B2
To provide a liquid crystal display device capable of controlling deterioration of contrast even in the case where an opening is formed in an organic flattened film and the film has unevenness. In the liquid crystal display device that includes a TFT substrate, a CF substrate, and liquid crystal sandwiched between the TFT substrate and the CF substrate and that drives the liquid crystal with a lateral electric field, the TFT substrate has the organic flattened film in which a through hole for contacting a source electrode of the TFT and a pixel electrode and a sectional shape of the through hole is asymmetrical between a side on which the pixel electrode extends and the other side.
US09638965B2
A display panel and a thin film transistor (TFT) array substrate are disclosed. A peripheral electrode, a first bar-shaped electrode array, a second bar-shaped electrode array, a third bar-shaped electrode array, and a fourth bar-shaped electrode array are included in a pixel electrode in the display panel. The first bar-shaped electrode array, the second bar-shaped electrode array, the third bar-shaped electrode array, and the fourth bar-shaped electrode array respectively are disposed on a first area, a second area, a third area, and a fourth area which are surrounded by the peripheral electrode. The peripheral electrode connects with the first bar-shaped electrode array, the second bar-shaped electrode array, the third bar-shaped electrode array, and the fourth bar-shaped electrode array. The penetration rate of a pixel unit can be improved by the present invention.
US09638962B2
The present invention provides a liquid crystal panel and a manufacture method thereof. The liquid crystal panel comprises: a first substrate (1), a TFT layer (2) located on the first substrate (1), a color resist layer (3) located on the TFT layer (2), a photospacer layer (4) located on the color resist layer (3), a protective layer (5) located on the color resist layer (3) and the photospacer layer (4), a via hole (6) penetrating the color resist layer (3) and the protective layer (5), a pixel electrode layer (7) formed on the protective layer (5) and electrically connected to the TFT layer (2) with the via hole (6) and a second substrate (8) oppositely located to the first substrate (1), and one or more color resist material in the photospacer layer (4) and the color resist layer (3) are the same, and the photospacer layer (4) and the color resist layer (3) are formed at the same time during a manufacture process.
US09638955B2
A liquid crystal display device according to the present invention includes a rear light source device, a rear polarizing plate, a liquid crystal cell including liquid crystal molecules that are substantially perpendicularly aligned during black display, and a front polarizing plate, which are provided in the stated order, wherein: an absorption axis of a polarizer of the rear polarizing plate is perpendicular to an absorption axis of a polarizer of the front polarizing plate; and condensed light in which a half-value angle in a direction perpendicular to the absorption axis of the polarizer of the rear polarizing plate is smaller than a half-value angle in a direction parallel to the absorption axis of the polarizer of the rear polarizing plate enters the rear polarizing plate. According to the present invention, a liquid crystal display device having an excellent front contrast ratio, and a polarizing plate with a condensing element for realizing the liquid crystal display device having the excellent front contrast ratio may be provided.
US09638954B2
A first LED substrate and a second LED substrate are included each of which includes: on a main surface thereof, a plurality of LEDs connected in series in a longitudinal direction; a first connector including (i) a first terminal disposed on one of short sides of the LED substrate and connected to an anode of an LED positioned first among the LEDs connected in series, and (ii) a second terminal connected to a cathode of another LED positioned last among the LEDs connected in series. The second terminal of the first LED substrate and the first terminal of the second LED substrate are interconnected. The first terminal of the first LED substrate is connected to a positive terminal of a power circuit and the second terminal of the second LED substrate is connected to a negative terminal of the power circuit.
