Basic Process Flow Research Articles

Research on Remanufacturing Technology and its Basic Process Flow

Research on Remanufacturing Technology and its Basic Process Flow

Review of Soft Sensors in Anaerobic Digestion Process

Anaerobic digestion is associated with various crucial variables, such as biogas yield, chemical oxygen demand, and volatile fatty acid concentration. Real-time monitoring of these variables can not only reflect the process of anaerobic digestion directly but also accelerate the efficiency of resource conversion and improve the stability of the reaction process. However, the current real-time monitoring equipment on the market cannot be widely used in the industrial production process due to its defects such as expensive equipment, low accuracy, and lagging analysis. Therefore, it is essential to conduct soft sensor modeling for unmeasurable variables and use auxiliary variables to realize real-time monitoring, optimization, and control of the an-aerobic digestion process. In this paper, the basic principle and process flow of anaerobic digestion are first briefly introduced. Subsequently, the development history of the traditional soft sensor is systematically reviewed, the latest development of soft sensors was detailed, and the obstacles of the soft sensor in the industrial production process are discussed. Finally, the future development trend of deep learning in soft sensors is deeply discussed, and future research directions are provided.

Hyperthermophilic Composting Technology for Organic Solid Waste Treatment: Recent Research Advances and Trends

Organic solid waste is considered a renewable resource that can be converted by various technologies into valuable products. Conventional thermophilic composting (TC), a well-studied and mature technology, can be applied to organic solid waste treatment to achieve waste reduction, mineralization, and humification simultaneously. However, poor efficiency, a long processing period, as well as low compost quality have always limited its wide application. In order to overcome these shortages, hyperthermophilic composting (HTC) has been recently put forward. This paper reviews the basic principle, process flow, operation parameters, research advances, and application status of HTC. Compared with the TC process, the shorter composting period and higher temperature and treatment efficiency, as well as more desirable compost quality, can be achieved during HTC by inoculating the waste with hyperthermophilic microbes. Additionally, HTC can reduce greenhouse gas emission, increase the removal rate of microplastics and antibiotic residues, and achieve in-situ remediation of heavy metal-polluted soils, which greatly improve its application potential for organic solid waste treatment. This paper also proposes the limitations and future prospects of HTC technology for a wider application. As a result, this review advances our understanding of the HTC process, which promotes its further investigation and application.

Electrically Controlled Liquid Crystal Microlens Array Based on Single-Crystal Graphene Coupling Alignment for Plenoptic Imaging.

As a unique electric-optics material, liquid crystals (LCs) have been used in various light-control applications. In LC-based light-control devices, the structural alignment of LC molecules is of great significance. Generally, additional alignment layers are required for LC lens and microlens, such as rubbed polyimide (PI) layers or photoalignment layers. In this paper, an electrically controlled liquid crystal microlens array (EC-LCMLA) based on single-crystal graphene (SCG) coupling alignment is proposed. A monolayer SCG with high conductivity and initial anchoring of LC molecules was used as a functional electrode, thus no additional alignment layer is needed, which effectively simplifies the basic structure and process flow of conventional LCMLA. Experiments indicated that a uniform LC alignment can be acquired in the EC-LCMLA cell by the SCG coupling alignment effect. The common optical properties including focal lengths and point spread function (PSF) were measured experimentally. Experiments demonstrated that the proposed EC-LCMLA has good focusing performance in the visible to near-infrared range. Moreover, the plenoptic imaging in Galilean mode was achieved by integrating the proposed EC-LCMLA with photodetectors. Digital refocusing was performed to obtain a rendering image of the target.

Flotation extraction of elemental sulfur from gold-bearing cakes

Currently, in the development of the raw materials base of the gold mining industry, there is a tendency to reduce the quality of the initial mineral raw materials due to the depletion of reserves of rich gold-bearing ores. The article discusses the technology of extraction of refractory gold-bearing concentrates based on low-temperature leaching of pyrite concentrate. A decrease in the parameters of the autoclave oxidation of sulfide minerals, such as pyrite and arsenopyrite, leads to the incomplete extraction of gold into the solution and, consequently, its losses during subsequent cyanidation. As a possible option for a more complete extraction of gold using low-temperature oxidation technology, a method of flotation separation of elemental sulfur from leaching cakes is proposed. According to the basic process flow chart, the flotation process designed for gold extraction is carried out after autoclave oxidation, but before cyanidation. A series of experiments were carried out with varying reagent conditions and the dependence of gold losses on the extraction of elemental sulfur in the flotation tailings was established. As determining factors, pH and solid content in the initial pulp were considered. The paper justifies the separation of elemental sulfur from autoclave cake to enriched sulfur concentrate. The cake flotation modes after autoclave oxidative leaching of pyrite concentrate are investigated. The distribution of elemental sulfur and gold by flotation products makes it possible to conduct the tailings cyanidation process with acceptable indicators.

CMOS Compatible Atomic-Precision Donor Devices

Atomic precision advanced manufacturing (APAM) is a technique for placing dopant atoms with single atomic-lattice site precision on silicon surfaces. APAM devices are created by patterning the placement of dopants into a two-dimensional sheet of phosphorus atoms on the silicon surface, incorporating the dopants into the lattice, and then capping the device in silicon. The dopant atoms are incorporated into the silicon lattice through a surface-activated chemical reaction, as opposed to a thermally activated bulk process, which allows for electrically active doping above the solubility limit for phosphorus in silicon. The two-order of magnitude higher doping levels and two-dimensional nature of the dopant sheet enable new device physics and the potential for new device types with superior performance under specific tasks.Atomic precision fabrication requires atomically clean surfaces. Historically the APAM technique has required temperatures in excess of 1200 °C to prepare device surfaces, which has severely limited the ability to combine APAM with other manufacturing techniques such as CMOS. Recent work by our group and others has shown that the surface preparation process can be achieved at temperatures near 800 °C, greatly improving integration possibilities with CMOS [1,2]. Once fabricated, APAM devices have low thermal budgets to minimize vertical diffusion of the phosphorus dopants out of the non-equilibrium two-dimensional sheet. Temperatures on the order of 450 °C have been shown to be permissible for long periods of time.In this talk we report on the initial development of a CMOS process flow that incorporates APAM device fabrication. Based on the thermal budget and processing constraints, our basic process flow involves building the APAM device between CMOS Front-end-of-line (FEOL) and the CMOS Back-end-of-line (BEOL) steps. This is a natural insertion point based upon both thermal budget limitations and the need to directly access the device silicon to build the APAM device. Borrowing from CMOS nomenclature, we introduce the concept of “APAM select” and “APAM active” to indicate where the window for APAM device patterning will be opened and the actual APAM device area, respectively. These are the only additional mask layers needed to introduce APAM into a CMOS layout cell. An APAM cell was created that has the appropriate source/drain placement and targeting reticle in poly-Si to enable alignment of the APAM lithography tool to the wafer.Two classes of challenges exist in developing a CMOS-APAM process flow. The first is related to the APAM process itself and limitations of current fabrication tools. The APAM surface preparation, patterning, dopant incorporation, and silicon capping all occur in a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Devices must be processed at the die level to fit into the STM sample holders. Die level processing puts restrictions on the BEOL processing including minimum feature size and available processes, such as a lack of chemical-mechanical polish (CMP) to planarize metal layers. The second class of challenges is related to the impacts of the APAM process, such as surface preparation, on CMOS devices, which has not been previously explored. We discuss our strategy for integration with CMOS, by including test structures to mimic the APAM device, and sequential implementation and testing of the APAM fabrication steps with CMOS chips.We conclude with a discussion of future integration challenges such as wafer level processing of APAM devices in a CMOS foundry flow. Direct integration of APAM components into CMOS circuits opens the door for devices with enhanced functionality.ACKNOWLEDGMENTThis work is supported by Sandia’s Lab Directed Research and Development Program, and was performed in part at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a U.S. DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences user facility. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Fabrication of embedded metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film via electric-field-driven jet microscale 3D printing and roller-assisted thermal imprinting

Transparent conductive films play a pivotal role in advanced optoelectronic devices, especially the flexible optoelectronic devices. The next-generation transparent conductive films require not only an optimal trade-off between the sheet resistance and optical transparency, but also an excellent flexibility. Although indium tin oxide (ITO) has been widely used in conventional transparent conductive films, the scarcity of indium, the brittleness and high sheet resistance of ITO hinder the further application in the emerging flexible optoelectronic devices. Among all the ITO substitutes, metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film could be an ideal candidate due to its good flexibility and excellent photoelectric properties. However, the metal-mesh usually forms on the surface of the film, leading to high surface roughness, poor adhesion of the metal-mesh to the flexible substrate, and potential electrical short-circuits between the metal-mesh and a top electrode, which limits its applications for highly flexible electronic devices and optoelectronic devices. All these defects can be mitigated or optimized with embedded metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive films to achieve higher performance. Additionally, the embedded nature of the metal-mesh can make it have favorable resistance against moisture, oxygen, and chemicals. But the fabrication of embedded metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film is more challenging. Despite some recent efforts to address these challenges, existing fabrication methods are still complex, with long cycles, high production costs and waste generation, especially they are difficult to realize the fabrication of large-area transparent conductive film. Therefore, new technologies to achieve high-efficiency, low-cost fabrication of large-area, high-performance embedded metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film are needed. This paper proposes a new method for fabricating embedded metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film based on electric-field-driven jet microscale 3D printing and roller-assisted thermal imprinting technology. First, the basic principle and process flow of the fabrication process are explained. Then, the effects and rules of the main process parameters (printing voltage, printing speed, printing pressure, imprinting temperature and imprinting force) on the precision and quality of the embedded metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film are revealed via experiments for optimization of the process window. Finally, by using the optimized parameters on the electric-field-driven jet deposition micro-nano 3D printer and composite nanoimprint lithography machine independently developed by the research group, an embedded square metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film with a pattern area of 70 mm ×70 mm, a line width of 20 μm and a pitch of 1000 μm is fabricated. It has a sheet resistance of 3.62 Ω/sq and a transmittance of 92.3% at a wavelength of 550 nm. In addition, the contact level of the metal-mesh to the substrate is up to 5B, the surface roughness value is 18.81 nm, and the change rate of the sheet resistance of the fabricated embedded metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film after 1000 bending tests is less than 8%. The research shows that the proposed new method for fabricating embedded metal-mesh flexible transparent conductive film requires simple process steps and low production cost. The transparent conductive film produced has excellent photoelectric performance, low surface roughness and good mechanical flexibility. It provides a promising solution for high-efficiency mass production of high-performance transparent conductive films.

The “Static” and “Dynamic” Design Verification Stages of the Lean Development Process: Automotive Industry

he design verification steps that take place in today’s automotive industry, which constitute the values of each successive or simultaneous phase in the new product development process, create a complex structure with the inclusion of each new technology and discipline. Therefore, step by step, each design verification phase definition in the flow contains important phase transition measurements or approval tolerances that ensure the simplicity and continuity of vehicle development processes. In addition, classification of design verification stages within the framework of this study or evaluation in two classes (static and dynamic) is a new approach, but it is a synthesis with the analysis of the new product development process. The vehicle’s basic structure, which constitutes the ergonomic and functional requirements of the vehicle in a static environment, takes into account the dynamic environment variables with crash or accident tests. Increasing new technology adaptations in the automotive industry have changed the new product development process that performs this function structurally and created the concept of design verification under consecutive or simultaneous process simplicity. From the autonomous driving to the use of alternative energy, possible accident scenarios and design verification phase transitions in the integration of parts and systems of the newly developed vehicle create a new structure that models and directs the lean product development process especially in the automotive industry in the coming days. In the lean product development process that takes place in the automotive industry, the design verification transition steps or the approval-control analysis of the development stages, which form a new and effective approach, are re-modeling the entire flow. Therefore, successful execution of design verification steps used in the control of new interdisciplinary product development phase transitions provides value creation. Within the scope of this study, the effectiveness of the static and dynamic design verification steps, which are carried out in 5 global automotive companies included in the research, which constitute the stage transitions of the new product development process, has been measured. Apart from the design verification transition stages, the process variables that differ among the automotive companies involved in the research are excluded from the scope of this study. In other words, in field researches in the automotive industry, new vehicle design steps or basic engineering steps in the new product development process steps, while creating independent fixed variables, interdisciplinary collaborations, static and dynamic design verification transition stages they perform, or their sequence in the basic flow, is accepted as a dependent variable. Therefore, in the study, the positive effect of the automotive companies that included the static and dynamic design verification phase transition approvals in the lean product development process was investigated. Under the comparative analysis structure of the research, the effect of automotive companies, which accept international vehicle specifications as static design verification input, on market performance has been examined in depth. The detailed depth in the comparison analysis conducted under the second field studies of the study is due to the prediction of dynamic design verification stages to provide a high impact on the market performance, according to the static verification analysis. The new product development stages of the dependent variables were fixed and the flow-oriented “effect” of the independent variables in the basic process influenced by the design verification activities was analyzed under the new automotive industry company comparisons. In addition, the impact of the automotive design activities that make up the comparison analysis of the research on the scope of the lean product development stage and its effect on the basic process flow has been demonstrated competition-oriented. Therefore, sub-variables, options, criteria, results, which form a defined comparison problem, create basic test values that affect the problem.

Advances in human action recognition: an updated survey

Research in human activity recognition (HAR) has seen tremendous growth and continuously receiving attention from both the Computer Vision and the Image Processing communities. Due to the existence of numerous publications in this field, undoubtedly, there have been a number of review papers on this subject that categorise these techniques. Many of the recent works have started to tackle more challenging problems and these proposed techniques are addressing more realistic real-world scenarios. Conspicuously, an updated survey that covers these methods is timely due. To simplify the categorisation, this study takes a two-layer hierarchical approach. At the top level, the categorisation is based on the basic process flow of HAR, i.e. input data-type, features-type, descriptor-type, and classifier-type. At the second layer, each of these components is further subcategorised based on the diversity of the proposed methods. Finally, a remark on the coming popularity of deep learning approach in this field is also given.

Process and development of ozone-biological activated carbon treatment for micro-polluted raw water

The basic principle and process flow of ozone-biological activated carbon treatment of micro-polluted source water were analyzed, and the application of the method at home and abroad was introduced. Some problems that need to be paid attention to when applying the method were put forward. The results show that ozone-activated carbon water purification technology can effectively remove organic matter and ammonia nitrogen in water. It also has good removal effect on inorganic reducing substances, chroma and turbidity in water. Moreover, the mutagenic activity of effluent can be effectively reduced to ensure the safety of drinking water. Some problems which should be attended are prompted when this technique is in application in the paper. It is a water purification technology worth promoting.

Утилизация конвертерных газов с целью получения водорода

Ways of reducing the consumption of natural gas for the existing methods of producing hydrogen by subjecting natural gas to steam-water conversion are analyzed. The basic process flow scheme for producing hydrogen according to the above-mentioned method is developed and analyzed under the conditions of an ideal thermodynamic model adopted proceeding from the intensive energy conservation theory. It is shown that the specific consumption of natural gas for producing hydrogen under the conditions of a thermodynamically ideal model is 0.327 m3/m3 H2 that is 29 % lower than that achieved in the best methods for producing hydrogen from natural gas. A way to reduce the consumption of natural gas is proposed which involves the use of high-temperature secondary resources, specifically, converter gases of steelmaking production. Good prospects expected from using converter gases for these purposes are stemming from the fact that these gases are reclaimed to a poor degree, and that there is a need to increase hydrogen production at metallurgical plants. A hydrogen production method involving utilization of the thermal and chemical potential of converter gases is proposed. According to the proposed method converter gases are subjected to energy-chemical accumulation by natural gas which gives rise to a larger amount of carbon monoxide along with generation of hydrogen. After finishing the energy-chemical accumulation stage the obtained gas is mixed with steam and forwarded to the reactor in which carbon monoxide is subjected to steam-water conversion, which contributes to increasing the content of hydrogen in the gas mixture. After that the gas mixture is cooled again, the process condensate is separated and hydrogen is extracted by using the short-cycle adsorption method. The proposed technology allows a continuous hydrogen production process to be organized. When there is no yield of converter gases, hydrogen-containing gas produced by steam-water conversion of natural gas is used. An analysis of the proposed hydrogen production method shows that the consumption of natural gas can be reduced down to 0.148 m3/m3 H2 that is 68 % lower than in the best methods for producing hydrogen from natural gas.

MOLYBDENITE CONCENTRATE PROCESSING WITH USING LOW-TEMPERATURE OXIDATION-CHLORIDIZING ROASTING

Caused by roasting temperature decrease down to 450 °С and formation of water-soluble molybdenum compounds during roasting, the perspectiveness of application of oxidation-chloridizing roasting with alkali metal chlorides for molybdenite concentrate processing is shown. It is established that ~60÷75 % molybdenum remains in the roasted product and another amount is chlorinated and sublimated as a part of chlorides and oxychlorides and entrapped practically in full in the settling chamber and absorbers. The chemistry of the processes proceeding during oxidation-chloridizing roasting is described; it allows us to explain the molybdenite oxidation temperature decrease from 550-600 °С to 450 °С. Optimum process conditions of roasted products by water and alkali solutions have been determined, on the basis of what a basic process flow diagram including oxidation-chloridizing roasting with sodium chloride, two-stage (water and alkaline) leaching as well as dissolution of condensed molybdenum oxides and oxychlorides concentrates is proposed for molybdenite concentrate processing. The given flow sheet allows processing conditioned molybdenite concentrates with molybdenum recovery into solutions no less than 98 %.

Phosphorus emitter engineering by plasma-immersion ion implantation for c-Si solar cells

Ion Beam Services (IBS) has developed processes dedicated to silicon-based solar cell manufacturing using a plasma-immersion ion implantation equipment. It enables the realization of various doping profiles for phosphorus-doped emitters which fit the requirements of high-efficiency solar cells. PH3 plasma-implanted emitters are chemically, physically and electrically characterized to demonstrate their excellent quality. Those emitters are then integrated into a low cost p-type monocrystalline silicon solar cell manufacturing line from the National Solar Energy Institute (INES) in order to be compared with usual POCl3 diffusion. Starting from a basic process flow with blanket emitter and conventional full-area aluminum back-surface field, plasma-immersion implanted emitters enable to raise conversion efficiencies above 19.1%. Thanks to an optimized double layer anti-reflective coating, a 19.4% champion cell has been achieved. Depending on different plasma process parameters, lightly doped emitters are then engineered aiming to study doping modulation using a dedicated laser.

(Invited) Fabrication of Pure-GaB Ge-on-Si Photodiodes for Well-Controlled 100-pA-Level Dark Currents

In this paper the influence of PureGaB Ge-on-Si photodiode (PD) design strategies that aim to reduce local loading effects during Ge deposition are presented. As compared to our earlier devices, the elimination of parasitic Ge and concomitant As-doping deposition from oxide regions surrounding the deposition windows also leads to an improved diode ideality. For micrometer-sized diodes, ideality factors of less than 1.1 and dark currents in the range of 100 pA are now achieved, which to our knowledge are by far the lowest values reported in the literature. Moreover, improvements in the flatness of the Ge-island surface facilitated a process flow for contacting the diode perimeter while leaving a large oxide-covered PureGaB-only light entrance window on the central photosensitive region.In Fig.1 the basic process flow is illustrated for fabricating the improved PureGaB Ge PDs. First a 1-µm-thick SiO2 layer is deposited and patterned on the Si surface. In contrast to earlier flows, the windows destined to be filled with Ge for PD realization are surrounded by another ring-shaped window where Ge also is deposited. After this patterning, the wafers are loaded into a CVD reactor and in one deposition cycle the n-type Ge and nm-thin Ga/B layer-stack (PureGaB) is grown. It was found that a 5-µm-thick ring was sufficient to absorb most of the Ge and As atoms that otherwise would reach the main PD window by lateral diffusion across the SiO2 as a local loading effect. After Ge deposition, the wafers are transferred to a PECVD reactor for deposition of a second SiO2layer which is subsequently patterned and etched with a soft-landing to give access to the perimeter regions of the Ge-PDs. Then the metallization is sputtered on both sides of the wafer to give access to the anode and cathode of the Ge-PDs. Finally the front-side metal is patterned and removed from the center of the Ge-PDs.Top-view SEM images of the fabricated PureGaB Ge PD before and after the metal removal, are shown in Fig.2.a and Fig.2.b, respectively. It is shown that this extra metal removal step on the surface of the Ge-PD, creates a clean oxide-covered PureGaB-only front-entrance window with no indication of damage to PureGaB surface.The diode quality was checked by I-V measurements of PureGaB Ge-PDs with various sizes. In Fig.3 the I-V curves are shown for 3 different sizes. An area/perimeter analysis reveals that the current is area-dependent which means that the perimeter leakage that usually is present in Ge diodes is eliminated in the PureGaB PD’s. The exact reason for this behavior is yet unknown since several factors are counteracting each other. Effects that may play a role are: the Ge does not attach to the sidewalls of the SiO2window; the PureGaB deposition is conformal over the Ge surface; the depletion and associated electric field at the perimeter are modified by the presence of the oxide and any increase of the As-doping at the perimeter due to the local loading effect. The n-doping of the Ge-islands is determined by Capacitance-Voltage (C-V) profiling, some results of which are shown in Fig.4. From the almost perfect area-dependent behavior of the I-V characteristics it is expected that the n-doping is similar in all cases. In fact the doping goes from about 3×1015 cm-3 to 1016 cm-3 when going from a PD area of 26×26 µm2 to 11×11 µm2. This increase in doping with PD area can possibly be accorded to an increasing, but small, local loading effect due to an increase in oxide area around the smaller devices. This is layout dependent and can be corrected for future designs.All in all, the suppression of local loading effects significantly improves the electrical diode characteristics and also the yield: an almost 100% yield has been achieved for arrays of 300×1 PDs of varying sizes.

Embedded Die Substrates for Power Applications

Historically, power die like MOSFETs have been packaged on lead frames using wire bonds as interconnects. To facilitate current carrying requirements, thick wires and sometimes also clips were used, to handle the total electrical and thermal conductivity requirements. As die are being thinned, it has become possible to take advantage of new electrical designs and locate source and drain on opposite sides of the die. Such die can now be easily packaged by embedding the power die in organic substrates. The die is bonded on a Cu pad and covered by prepreg and copper foil during lamination. Source, drain and gate pads are accessed from the top side with laser vias and filled with plated copper. Finally, the top side is patterned and protected with solder mask. Electrical and thermal modeling data can demonstrate the performance efficiency while reducing the form factor in accordance with the miniaturization requirements of mobile applications. Aside from single die packages, more advanced packages can be built containing multiple power die and controller die. The basic process flow remains the same but does require some adaptation. If so desired, additional components may be assembled on top of the embedded die package leading to further integration and miniaturization.

The Research on Process Technology of SiGe/Si HBT

SiGe/Si HBT is a novel Si based device, compared with traditional BJT, SiGe/Si HBT has some advantages including high current gain, excellent frequency property and lower noise, energy band engineering and doping engineering introduced bring design freedoms. The fabricating basic process flow of SiGe/Si HBT is described, SiGe material epitaxial process, emitter mesa etching process, N type doping poly silicon and metal silicide fabricating process are studied, and the critical process control method are explored in the paper. The SiGe/Si NPN HBT of maximum current gain β=80 is fabricated by this process flow.

Extension and Prerequisite: An Algorithm to Enable Relations Between Responses in Chatbot Technology

Problem statement: Artificial intelligence chatbot is a technology that makes interactions between man and machines using natural language possible. From literature, we found out that in general, chatbot are functions like a typical search engine. Although chatbot just produced only one output instead of multiple outputs/results, the basic process flow is the same where each time an input is entered, the new search will be done. Nothing related to previous output. This research is focused on enabling chatbot to become a search engine that can process the next search with the relation to the previous search output. In chatbot context, this functionality will enhance the capability of chatbot’s input processing. Approach: In attempt to augment the traditional mechanism of chatbot processes, we used the relational database model approach to redesign the architecture of chatbot in a whole as well as incorporated the algorithm of Extension and Prerequisite (our proposed algorithm). By using this design, we had developed and tested Virtual Diabetes physician (ViDi), a web-based chatbot that function in specific domain of Diabetes education. Results: Extension and prerequisite enabled relations between responses that significantly make it easier for user to chat with chatbot using the same approach as chatting with an actual human. Chatbot can give different responses from the same input given by user according to current conversation issue. Conclusion: Extension and prerequisite makes chatting with chatbot becomes more likely as chatting with an actual human prior to the relations between responses that produce a response related to the current conversation issue.

Experiences with Layout-Aware Diagnosis—A Case Study

Abstract This case study compares the FA success rate and turn-around time of traditional logic-only and true layout-aware scan diagnosis. It discusses the basic process flow, identifies key success factors, and evaluates physical FA and diagnostic test results obtained from six dies randomly selected from a 9.8 M-gate, seven-metal-layer ASIC manufactured in 90 nm technology. As shown, layout-aware diagnosis reduces the defect search area on the die, in some cases, by an order of magnitude, providing the means to diagnosis-driven yield improvements.

Reduction of surface roughness of a silicon chip for advanced nanocalorimetry

A silicon chip designed to combine nanocalorimetry with scanning probe microscopy (SPM) has been realized. For the SPM application, as an additional requirement, a very low surface roughness of the scanned area becomes imperative. Several steps in the basic process flow are examined by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and modified in order to meet the surface roughness demands of a root mean square (rms) roughness below 1 nm as well as a negligible nanoparticle count. In particular, spin-on benzocyclobutene (BCB) layers are demonstrated to give a versatile means of achieving a surface that is smooth enough for calorimetry of nanometer-thin films while simultaneously allowing the investigation of nanometer scale morphological features by means of SPM.

High‐aspect‐ratio silicon dioxide pillars

AbstractThis paper presents a technique for fabricating high‐aspect‐ratio silicon dioxide pillars by electrochemical etching of n‐type silicon in hydrofluoric acid (HF) solutions. Basic process flow and etching conditions are described, which make it possible to obtain high‐aspect‐ratio pillar arrays with good uniformity. Pillar arrays of different dimensions (i.e. diameter and separation) and of different arrangements can be produced in a single etch step on the same wafer. The large surface area makes these pillar arrays possible candidates for applications in biological sensing. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)